Page 3699 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 9 December 1992
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problem while the muck pours in legally from the ACT. So, far from driving it underground, we actually are protecting it in this Assembly, because police cannot use their limited manpower to handle the local illegal trade in X-rated videos coming in through the mails.
Mr Moore: What rot! They can ban possession if they want to.
MR STEVENSON: Obviously, from Mr Moore's comment, he did not understand what I said. I said that possession is banned. He said that they can ban possession. Possession of illegal X-rated videos is banned. They cannot take the action that they would like because they do not have the manpower and because the crime rate, including rape, is so high in these places while ever porn videos pour in from the ACT.
Mr Kaine mentioned the tax on X-rated videos. I said at the time that it would not raise money. It has caused the pornographers some problems. In the first full financial year it raised $375,000 only. In the last full financial year it raised $110,000. I dare say that it cost a lot more than that to collect and police. There was an interjection by Mr Moore at the time, "Is this the tax that the High Court rejected?". No, it is not; the High Court has not rejected the tax. What the High Court said in their decision was, firstly, that the people in the ACT can be held, under the Constitution of Australia, to be included where the Constitution mentions States of Australia. Secondly, the High Court decision was that States cannot levy an excise tax. They have not made a decision that the tax has been rejected. Once again, that was incorrect information. Again and again we hear people say things that simply are not correct. The major statement that they make that is not correct is that porn does not cause violence. What a nonsense!
Mr Connolly said that I said yesterday that evil things should not be driven underground. I did not use the words "evil things", and I did not use the word "underground", as I recall. I quoted Justice Felix Frankfurter of the US Supreme Court, talking about insulting or fighting words, by their very utterance, inflicting injury, and saying that fighting words, threats of violence and incitement to violence should be banned. That is what I said. Why was that misrepresented by people opposite? Why are these things misrepresented? I did not say that.
I said also that we should have freedom of speech when these things do not cause harm. That is the truth of what I said. Mr Connolly also said that you can go to other States and buy unclassified material. Indeed, but only while we keep allowing the muck from Canberra to go to other States, and prevent the police from using their manpower to charge the local, illegal X-rated video operators. There is no sense while it keeps pouring in from Canberra.
Mr Connolly talked about rigorous Commonwealth censorship. This rigorous Commonwealth censorship in this country allows women to be chained and trussed up in bondage movies. It allows them to be shown as slaves for men who would use them as sexual objects. It allows flagellation in the video Dungeon of Pain. That must, of course, be non-violent flagellation! It must be non-violent because this muck is referred to as non-violent erotica. What an absolute absurdity! I do not call it perversion simply because they have people urinating and defecating on each other. I call it pornography. Many would say that it is perversion. This is the stuff that members in the Labor Party protect by their inaction. They stand in this Assembly and say that we should protect women and children; yet by their very actions again and again allow - - -
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