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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 5 (Hansard) 16 May) . . Page.. 1335 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

this is the part I want to draw out -

no less than other anti-social thoughts, are best combated not by censorship, but by criticism, censure and stigmatisation in the marketplace of ideas.

Even those who are supporting the Government position on this issue would say that there is still the marketplace of ideas in which we need to deal with this. In the conclusion of the final part on page 241 of this report the committee argued as follows:

By contrast, to allow history to unfold without any attempt at constructive intervention suggests a grim scenario: Australian youth are still relatively free of the anger, indeed the rage, harboured by many young people in Britain today. People who live in Australia's large cities are not besieged by beggars and defended by 24-hour security guards as are their counterparts in the United States. Unlike middle class and more affluent citizens of the third world, Australians are not yet prisoners in their own homes.

Mr Speaker, I quoted from the committee report in a few of those areas to illustrate the complexity of the issue that we are dealing with and the recognition by the committee that we are also trying to understand the role of control and the role of freedom. I believe that this Assembly, probably later today, will support the Government legislation to restrict freedom in terms of ownership of certain types of weapons; but at some time, Mr Speaker, we have to draw the line as to where we are going to restrict freedom. In this case I believe that there are very complicated and sensitive issues as to where that line should be drawn. The issue of paintball falls very close for me, and I believe for others, as to exactly where that line of freedom should be drawn.

I will continue, Mr Speaker, to oppose the sort of violence that is demonstrated in such games, but at this stage I will not support the motion that Ms Follett has put up to disallow the Government's approach. It is not a simple issue, as Mr Berry suggests. It does not involve issues of hypocrisy; rather, it is a matter of where we draw the line between freedom and control and where we believe that there are direct links to violence. There is no doubt, Mr Speaker, that the cultural and social issues behind violence are an important factor. That is the issue that has been raised quite eloquently, I believe, by Ms Follett. At the same time, nobody here today has presented any evidence to suggest a specific connection between this type of game and violence, any more than to suggest the evidence for a connection between the playing of rugby, for example, and violence. They are different.

I use an example, Mr Speaker, to illustrate that no evidence has been presented. We had Ms Horodny suggest that when people have committed violent crimes violent videos have been found in their homes. That may well be the case; but that does not logically lead us to say that violent videos cause that sort of crime, any more than the same logic would say that if you found in somebody's home, or a series of people's homes,

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