Page 1743 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 18 August 1992
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on the wrong side of the line. Indeed, this Assembly last year unanimously passed an amendment to the Crimes Act to make the possession of child pornography - the mere possession, rather than the trading in child pornography - an offence. We are the only jurisdiction in Australia where that is presently an offence.
It gets more difficult, however, when we get down to asking: What is a demeaning image? I think none of us would have had any difficulty with identifying a particular People cover that caused controversy back in March as being a demeaning image. That featured a young woman, unclad, on all fours and with a dog collar and a chain around her neck. In my view, that would have been a demeaning image had she been clothed. I do not think the fact that she was unclothed was what was demeaning; it was the pose and the use of the dog collar. It would have been an equally demeaning image if it had featured a male Aboriginal person with a collar. That was the demeaning aspect, not the sexual nature of it.
Since that issue of People magazine was published, there has been some change to the existing regulatory framework. I attended a meeting in Perth of Commonwealth, Territory and State censorship Ministers in late June which was held in conjunction with the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General. At that meeting a revised set of classifications of printed materials was published. At the conclusion of my remarks, I will table the current classification of printed matter guidelines, which introduced, for the first time, the concept that material which is demeaning may be restricted or refused classification. In addition to that, some arrangements have been made by the Commonwealth Censor - the Office of Film and Literature Classification - with Australian Consolidated Press, which publishes most of this material. The arrangements require the publisher to clear before publication the covers and some of the material, which is a fairly onerous requirement. I think there has been an improvement. There still will remain a view that any of this material, however, is demeaning.
Ms Szuty tabled the 5 August issue of Picture magazine. During her remarks I came over just to have a look at the cover, because it was not apparent from this distance in the chamber whether the person featured on the cover was clad or unclad. As Ms Szuty indicated, a reasonable person could quite reasonably conclude that that picture was demeaning of the young woman there pictured and that it was intended to be sexually titillating to male purchasers of the magazine. However, examination of the photograph shows that the young woman is, in fact, clad. She has on bikini pants. Indeed, a simple and clinical description of the picture is that it resembles the pictures that you would see of pantihose or other articles of apparel on display in David Jones. So we have this dilemma that it is not just physically what is pictured, but its context and the whole nature of what is suggested.
I take the view that the best way to get this material out of public circulation, reduce demand for it and reduce its presence in newsagencies is through public education and voluntary moves by newsagents. Since this controversy erupted in the ACT community, it is pleasing to note that a number of newsagents have moved to blinder racks voluntarily. I pop into service stations around Canberra from time to time - despite our fuel price control legislation, Mr Humphries, I am still a welcome guest in service stations around Canberra - and have particularly noted that this sort of magazine and some of the more clearly pornographic
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