Page 5054 - Week 16 - Wednesday, 27 November 1991
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The Liberal Party has had for some time now a policy to ban the sale and distribution of X-rated videos in the ACT. We have attempted, when this debate has come up in the past in the Assembly, to be consistent in voting in accordance with that policy. I would think that to be consistent with that policy we would be required to vote for Mr Jensen's circulated amendment to Mr Collaery's circulated amendment to his proposed new section 151A.
I am pleased to see, in relation to that particular amendment again, that some of the points made by Mr Crispin, among others, have been taken into account; that is, a person has to knowingly be conscious of an act. It is not an absolute offence. I think that is absolutely essential when one takes into account civil liberty requirements. I think that, as a result of the amendments circulated by Mr Collaery, the major problems we had with this Bill, especially clauses 4, 5 and 6, to a large degree have been allayed.
MR JENSEN (12.03): I rise just briefly to formally move my amendment to the Bill. I will read it for the record. It proposes a new clause on page 199.
MADAM TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: We are not in the detail stage. I thought you wanted to speak on it in principle.
MR JENSEN: I apologise. While I am on my feet, let me say that in the detail stage I propose to move an amendment which has been circulated in my name. Basically, it provides for no doubt as to what we are talking about in my amendment to Mr Collaery's proposed amendment when it is moved. I will move that we omit "article or substance" and substitute "an X-film".
To make sure that there is no doubt as to what we mean by "X-film", the amendment that I will be moving in the detail stage proposes a new clause which provides a clear definition of what we mean by an "X-film". It will have the same meaning as defined in the Publications Control Act 1989. I will be doing that by amending clause 4 of the Bill.
One of the reasons why my colleague Mr Collaery has introduced this Bill is that we have often heard many bleatings by people interstate and bleatings by various politicians in other States about the ACT being the porn capital of Australia and sending this material interstate. Concerns have been expressed by a number of groups. This legislation aims to make sure that child pornography, for example, is an offence in the ACT. I do not believe that anyone in this Assembly would disagree with that. I just want to make sure that that is quite clear. The other point is that we want to ensure that anyone who aids or abets interstate offences by an act in the ACT that results in an offence being committed in another State is committing an offence, and so on.
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