Page 5057 - Week 16 - Wednesday, 27 November 1991
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The banning of transmission of X-rated videos is a matter that the Liberal Party has long supported and has argued for every time this issue has been raised in the Assembly. We will not resile from it now. We will support the amendments because we believe that they achieve that objective and are in accordance with the wishes of the majority of members of this community.
However, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I indicate that in future we would wish to have a little more time to consider these matters properly. We will certainly not accept on a long-term basis, either from the Government or from members of other parties in the Assembly from time to time, a procedure whereby matters are put before us at very short notice and we are expected to consider things with possible long-term deleterious complications to the rights and position of citizens of this Territory.
MR MOORE (12.14): Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I have been sitting here wrestling with the newly circulated amendments and the other proposed amendments and changes to the Bill that Mr Collaery has put forward. I think this is what I would call an "each way bet" Bill. Perhaps I should clarify that first. There are some very important things about possession of child pornography which I accept. I think that is a quite sensible amendment to the Crimes Act. I support that wholeheartedly and I congratulate Mr Collaery for bringing that forward. I have no difficulty with that. I understand that all members here concur with that and are happy to congratulate Mr Collaery on bringing that forward.
The part that concerns me is the amendment whereby it will suddenly become an offence to send an X-rated movie interstate. At this stage I must say that it is difficult to tell just where that offence would occur as far as members are concerned, and I am not privy to that information. It seems to me, with the plethora of amendments and amendments to the amendments that we have had today, that it would be appropriate for us to agree in principle with what Mr Collaery is trying to do as far as the possession of child pornography is concerned. I am quite content in doing that. But I still have problems with what he is trying to do in terms of aiding and abetting interstate offences.
I think Mr Collaery is trying to get his each way bet this way. He can say to people, "Look, I am a great civil libertarian because I have ensured that people can read or see what they want to". However, he can then move to a different position. He can go to the people who are opposed to X-rated videos, who write to us constantly from Chinchilla and other places in Queensland, and say, "Look, it is a terrible thing that you are allowing people to see the sort of things they want to see in the privacy of their own bedroom". He can put several other arguments about the morality of the national capital and the fact that we are
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