Page 1752 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 18 August 1992
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I think, though, we also have to look at the situation of newsagents and the responsibility of newsagents versus the responsibility of publishers. I agree with Dr Goldsmith's suggestion that blinder racks be used. I understand that a number of newsagents in Canberra are already using them; I think most small business people have a real social conscience. I think it is a bit unfair, though, to suggest that small business people should bear the brunt of this whole problem. I think that it has to come back to the publishers and how the publishers present their magazines. We should be looking at whether it is possible to require the publishers to present those publications only in such a way that explicit material is not shown. Whether that means brown paper wrappers, I do not know.
Again, the issue is not censorship; it is about the unsolicited exposure of children to this sort of information. The impact is not necessarily obvious at the time. I am sure that it is really quite subliminal in its impact upon children of five, six, or even younger. We must use everything we can to protect our young, who do not have any capacity to make decisions for themselves; we have to make those decisions for them at a time when they are forming their views and should not be exposed to this sort of material. Again, I am not talking only about nude women posing like dogs; I am suggesting that all material that depicts women in a different way from that in which it would depict men is necessarily wrong and necessarily misleading.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (4.00): Madam Speaker, I think this has been a very interesting and very worthwhile debate. I am very pleased to be taking part in it, because I certainly do not condone in any way the depiction of women in ways which are degrading or demeaning. In fact, I take every opportunity that I can to make sure that such portrayal is stopped. It is simply an inappropriate way to portray women - or men or children, come to think of it - in this day and age. The fact that it happens only to women is, as Mr Moore said, just sheer sexism.
I am particularly indebted to some of the previous speakers in this debate, because they have tried to come to terms with some of the issues that are involved. I think it has been too easy up to this point for various parties or various lobby groups simply to target the whole of what they would see as pornography as a political issue and to condemn it out of hand. What we have seen in the debate today is more of an attempt to come to terms with what is degrading to women and why it is offensive. I think that is a much more useful course for us to follow.
We have, for instance, Madam Speaker, traversed the issue of trying to legislate for public taste, and that is quite simply impossible. I do not believe that that can effectively be done; certainly, this Government would never consider doing it. But we have heard today some of the issues which are degrading to women and which are regularly portrayed in the media. We have seen women portrayed as sexual objects, as I think Mr Humphries referred to, slaves or prisoners, animals, children, or commodities of some kind. In fact, there are any number of portrayals of women that make them out to be less than human beings, and that is what is degrading. As Ms Szuty and Mr Moore pointed out, it is really not a question of nudity or lack of it; it is the context of the portrayal that is all important, and that means making judgments very often.
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