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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 5 (Hansard) 16 May) . . Page.. 1340 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

I include in those activities, as I said, violent videos, violent computer games, and violent arcade games. I wish to see the violence in all of those games reduced - not because they actually injure people, not because there is proof that people go out and hurt each other after playing them; but simply because I wish to live, and I know that many other people do as well, in a society which does not regard those forms of violence as in any way amusing or entertaining or worth while.

Mr Speaker, Mr Humphries made, I think, quite an error in his remarks when, in referring to the existence of violent videos and violent computer games, he said, "We do not ban them". Of course, they are banned. Many of them are banned. He has completely ignored the refused classification publications which form a very large part of the material which is looked at by the censor every year, every month, every week. A huge body of publications are banned because they are too violent. They are refused classification. They are illegal. I would have thought that Mr Humphries, as Attorney-General, would have been aware of that.

Mr Humphries also spoke about reducing access to this material, these entertainments, or reducing the violence in them. That may very well work in some cases, as in, say, video games and computer games, but it will not work for paintball. How are you going to reduce the violence in paintball? If you were to attempt to make it a completely non-violent sport, a sport where people do not say, "Bang, bang; you're dead", and really mean it, then you would have target shooting, clay pigeon shooting, or some other game. The sport is inherently violent in its nature. It is militaristic. As I said at the start, it is a simulation of war, it is a simulation of killing. I think it is incumbent on Mr Humphries, as the Attorney-General in a progressive Territory, to do a little bit more than look at it again, as he promised to do, presumably after there has been some disaster or some link between this game and actual killing. I think we need to do more than look at it again. As I said, I think we need to act whenever and wherever we can.

Mr Moore, the self-styled conscience of the Assembly, made comments that were 99.9 per cent totally irrelevant when he addressed this issue. One thing that he did say that I thought was worth while was when he quoted from the report on violence that there is no single policy or program that contributes to reducing the incidence of violence in our community. I agree with that statement. For that reason, as I have said before, I will address the issue whenever and wherever I can, on every occasion and on this occasion.

Mr Speaker, I think that the comments that Mr Moore made were designed to appeal, of course, to Mr Osborne's vote alone; nevertheless, I think there was something that is worth answering in the report that Mr Moore quoted from when he said that the major influence on the development of people in relation to violence is the family. I agree with that. I think it is self-evident that all children get their nurture, their socialisation, their cultural development, in the bosom of their family. Some families are terrible.

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