Page 1411 - Week 05 - Thursday, 13 May 1993
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to be a cinema operator in the present environment. So, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, those are the concerns. They are replicated to some extent with the Publications Control (Amendment) Bill, although there is an absolute bar there on a person under the age of 18 obtaining these sorts of films, and I think that we do need to assess how they will impact.
The position of the Liberal Party on these Bills is that we will support their passage through the Assembly today, but we give notice of the fact that we have some concern about the way they will operate in the ACT. We will be monitoring their operation. By that I mean that we will be seeing not only whether any prosecutions are launched under this Act but also what sorts of prosecutions will be launched. We will be entitled, I think, to say to ourselves that if there are no prosecutions the evidence of that is somewhat ambiguous; that either everyone is complying comfortably with the laws and knows how they work, or there are no resources being put into making sure that these laws make a difference. I do not need to advise members of the Assembly about the concern that has been expressed in recent months by the Prime Minister and others about access by young people to certain films and audio visual presentations.
The Opposition does propose to make one amendment to the Film Classification (Amendment) Bill. Proposed new subsection 9(3) refers to the defences that a person may mount when they are prosecuted for admitting a child unaccompanied or a child under-age to an MA film. It indicates that it is a defence if it is proved that:
(a) the person charged with the offence took reasonable precautions to ensure that young persons were not admitted to the exhibition unaccompanied by their parents or guardians; and
(b) the young person named in the charge appeared to be younger than 2 years of age, or 15 years of age or older, at the time the offence is alleged to have been committed.
Members may recall, but if they do not they can certainly read it, that when the Attorney presented this Bill he clearly indicated that, rather than being a cumulative defence, that is, both arms having to be proved, in fact either arm could be proved to satisfy that there was a defence. I quote from his presentation speech:
... if you look at subsection 9(3) on page 2 of the Film Classification (Amendment) Bill you will see that they -
that is, cinema owners -
can avoid prosecution by showing either that reasonable precautions were taken ... or that an under-age person appeared to be 15 years or older.
Now we have what the Attorney said when presenting the Bill and what it is that the Bill actually says. I think that the confusion should be cleared up in favour of what the Attorney said. I would be proposing to change that word "and" to "or". I think that either of those matters would constitute a suitable defence to a prosecution, particularly given the somewhat unanswered questions that I have raised and the dubious elements of the operation of this Bill which would cause anybody administering this Bill as a cinema operator some concern.
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