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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 10 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3308 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

Will you just take this nightclub's word that this will not happen again, or are you prepared to lobby your Federal counterpart, Mr Williams, to tighten the law in this regard?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I thank Mr Osborne for that question. I have not seen the material which he refers to, although I have heard it described by somebody else. It sounds like material that I would not want my three-year-old son to see either. Mr Osborne, in his question, indicates his awareness that the Commonwealth is responsible for matters relating to the classification of material for the purposes of censorship in the ACT. It decides what falls within which categories and what does not. If material is printed which in a magazine form would be a restricted publication, then the legislation in force in the ACT requires that that be displayed and sold only in certain ways, including behind covers that prevent it from being perused by young people and so on in certain stores. If this material has been extracted from that, then there could, to my knowledge of these circumstances, possibly be an offence committed. If it has been extracted from a publication which is not restricted in that way, one that is restricted to sale to people over the age of 18, such as Penthouse or publications like that, then it may or may not constitute an offence. I need to take some advice on that subject.

I do not believe there is any capacity for the ACT to prevent distribution of that material. As far as I am aware, there are no obscenity laws in effect in the ACT, so the capacity to prevent material which members of the community find offensive from being distributed in that way is restricted or limited. I did examine some time ago the question about material of that kind which I considered offensive and which was being displayed outside newsagents and service stations. They were displaying posters of some of those publications with what could be viewed by some as offensive material on them. The difficulty in the ACT of being able to deal with that material at the ACT level was extraordinarily great. In the end I abandoned any attempt to legislate in that area. I think Mr Osborne would agree, if he looks at the materials, that it is very difficult to effect a ban in the ACT, given the limitation on our powers. However, I am willing to raise this matter with the Federal Government. If Mr Osborne could furnish me with the material, I will have a look at it and, if appropriate, take it up with the Federal Government.

MR OSBORNE: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. On the issue of distribution of advertising material, Minister, do you believe that people who place such fliers, et cetera, under car windscreen wipers should be made to contribute towards cleaning up the mess left behind?

MR HUMPHRIES: Quite a few times I have seen material distributed under windshield wipers, which I think is not necessarily offensive but certainly extremely irritating. At various stages I have discussed informally with my colleagues, not necessarily in the life of this Government but at various stages, whether we should seek to outlaw the placing of material under windscreen wipers like that. I am not sure whether it is a good thing or a bad thing, but certainly it causes a mess. Car parks are littered with this sort of material. It can be quite irritating, and quite costly to the community to clean it up.

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