Page 5889 - Week 18 - Wednesday, 11 December 1991
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Mr Collaery, last time this was debated, gave us a tirade on the moves towards uniformity in national laws and moves towards uniformity in criminal law, and that is something that I very strongly support. Indeed, sometimes the former opposition was crossing swords with Mr Collaery on that issue because we were urging the course of uniformity as opposed to some of his more interesting innovations. But that is a different issue.
It is fine to say that the law should be uniform; it is fine to say that we should be moving towards a single set of national laws. It is an entirely different thing to come up with this unique proposal to say that whether you are guilty or not guilty of an offence in the Territory depends not on the state of the law here but on the state of the law elsewhere. I hasten to add that that offence carries imprisonment for two years. This is not a monetary penalty provision. There is no fine here. This is a maximum two-year gaoling provision rather than a matter carrying a pecuniary penalty.
Is the purpose of this to do a put-up or shut-up on the other States? I gather from Mr Collaery's views that it is. He is saying that, if the other States do not like the X-rated video industry here, this gives them the opportunity to put up or shut up. If that is the purpose, I point out that you do not make changes to the criminal law to make those sorts of political points. You do not create a two-year imprisonment offence to make a political point against other States.
If you want to ban the X-rated video industry in the ACT - again I acknowledge that that is the expressed and espoused view of the Liberal Party, and I acknowledge that the Liberal Party will, whenever they get the opportunity, vote to implement their party policy - that is good and proper. But I would say to the Liberal Party: Do not be a party to this strange provision of the criminal law, which is designed, as we have heard from its author, to make a mere political point but which creates a fundamental problem in principle by creating a new form of criminal offence where what makes you a criminal or an innocent person is not the law as debated and laid down in the statutes of this Assembly but whatever happens to be the state of the law in another part of this country.
The criminal law of this Territory should be as laid down in the statutes of this Territory and should not be conditional upon or contingent upon the criminal law in any other State. We take the view that this is bad law, and I ask members of the Assembly to vote on this on the principle of the way the criminal law is constructed rather than on whether this may or may not aid or cause hindrance to the X-rated video industry. If you want to express your party policy against the X-rated video industry, we can do it openly and debate Bills as we have done previously in this place, and the Assembly's view is well known.
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