Page 935 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 30 March 1993
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Some people would refer to these as non-violent erotica. I will give figures first of all for the battered women and then for the comparison group. The answers were: Several times a week - for the battered women, 11 per cent, for the comparison group, none; several times a month - for the battered women, 14 per cent, for the comparison group, 7 per cent; once a month - for the battered group, 31 per cent, for the others, 7 per cent; once or twice a year - 28 per cent each; never - for the battered group, 17 per cent, for the comparison group, 59 per cent.
The next question was relevant to what we do in Canberra. It asked:
As far as you know, how often does your partner watch sexually explicit (pornographic) movies or video tapes?
There is an almost identical comparison with the earlier figures I gave. So they established a clear link between pornography and non-sexual violence. They stated:
A total of 39 per cent of the battered women versus only 3 per cent of the women in the comparison group reported that they had been upset by their partners' asking them to imitate pornography. In addition, the battered women reported much more frequent pornography consumption by their partners than did the women in the comparison group.
Ms Ellis mentioned earlier that, when women are considered as equal, violence will decrease. I agree. She further said that some people in society believe that women are less important and that, while ever that consideration is there, violence will continue. I agree. She said that there should not be a situation where women are degraded. I agree. Yet in this town she and other members of this Assembly have an opportunity to take the most decisive action in all of Australia. What is that action? As members well know, we are the home of pornography in Australia, the porn capital of the nation. (Quorum formed)
I have raised this matter in the Assembly before, as have other people, and I will continue to do so until steps are taken to prevent the violence caused to women and children and men that is incited by pornography. A statement by Justice Kearney in May 1989 sums up the matter very well:
People who think there is no connection between pornography and the violent and bizarre crimes that come before the courts ought to do some studies.
I could read out many such statements from judges, from police, from criminologists, from social welfare workers, from lawyers, from people who have been charged with rape and their victims, but that statement sums it up well: Those people who think there is no connection should do some studies. This book, titled Pornography's Victims, lists just a few dozen of the cases that were reported to the United States Attorney-General's Commission on Pornography in 1986 - the second most recent international study of the effects of pornography. Again and again, women talked about being treated violently because their husbands or their partners were incited to violence by pornography.
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