Page 1414 - Week 05 - Thursday, 13 May 1993
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The Minister, in his introductory speech, went so far as to forecast the objections of video outlets and film theatre management to these new arrangements. The first difficulty would be, according to the Minister's forecast, that under-15-year-olds do not usually have any form of reliable identification or proof of age. The Minister also forecasts that there may be claims that it is difficult to ascertain whether adults accompanying young people are in fact their parents or guardians. As I have stated, I expect that there will be many and varied attempts to circumvent the requirements of the law by young people who see an MA rating as somehow denoting something more exciting than the G, PG or M ratings. However, I reiterate that cinema staff and video outlet staff already make similar decisions about 18-year-olds, particularly with regard to charging admission prices and admission to or hire of R-rated material. I do not see any insurmountable difficulties with enforcement, as long as sufficient effort is made to ascertain patrons' ages. After all, the Bill contains the defence that, as long as "reasonable precautions" were taken to comply with the law, a prosecution will not succeed.
I have discussed these arguments with representatives of the Attorney-General's Department and I wish to thank the Minister for making those officers available to give me a briefing on the Bills. I raised a number of additional issues with the Attorney-General's Department officers, including the issue of penalties in other jurisdictions. In the ACT the penalty for allowing an unaccompanied person under 15 to view MA-rated film or video material is $500. I am interested to know where the ACT falls with regard to penalties - whether interstate penalties are harsher, more lenient, or have alternatives to fines.
Another issue which I felt would make the legislation more user friendly would be to use consistent nomenclature. For example, the title of the new section 9 to be inserted in the Film Classification Act 1971 refers to the "Admission of persons to 'MA' films". While acknowledging that the title has no status in law, making this consistent with other sections of the principal Act by using the term "young people" would, I feel, benefit people who are not familiar with legislation and who wish to find out what the law says. While legal practitioners and those who are conversant with legislation may not see the change as significant, ordinary people in the street who need to read legislation from time to time can gain the wrong impression when inconsistencies exist. The change required is small, but I feel that it is important. With my suggested amendment, that title would read "Admission of young persons to 'MA' films". That makes the title consistent with a further provision in the Act which talks about admission of young persons to R-rated films.
The third issue which I took up with the officers of the Attorney-General's Department is the issue of retrospectivity. For example, during our discussions the films The Silence of the Lambs and Cape Fear were used as illustrations of the type of movie and video releases which would attract the MA rating. However, nationwide the new rating will apply only to new releases. This, to me, appears to be an unsatisfactory situation. Young people can get the full-length version of either of the two above-mentioned movies because they are both rated M but would have been denied access to these movies if they had been released in the past two weeks. If nothing is done to address this issue the situation will be the same in future years; that is, an old film which would not meet the M rating guidelines will be available to young people but newer releases will be restricted.
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