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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (29 March) . . Page.. 1006 ..
MR RUGENDYKE (continuing):
Mr Speaker, it does go on. I seek leave to table this document. I think it is an important indication of the feeling of nearby businesses.
Leave granted.
MR RUGENDYKE: Mr Speaker, there are other elements that are circulating misinformation about this Bill and I am sure that members will see through this now that they have a formal copy in front of them. I stress the provisions prohibiting the sale of restricted material are aimed at premises of which a major use is the sale of restricted material. I note that, in the 1997 tabletop dancing debate, it was suggested that the laws would catch things like strip-a-grams for hens' nights. This has not occurred and it will not occur under the provisions of this Bill. The aim is to catch adult shops and explicit adult entertainment. The definitions of these are clear and should not be confused with hens' nights and other such scaremongering.
Mr Speaker, both Mr Humphries and Ms Tucker made two excellent speeches during that tabletop dancing debate in 1997. They both made two very good points, which I would like to share with members. First, Mr Humphries said:
There are issues of appropriate location and of an important priority for government as a whole to be able to raise the tone and general ambience of important parts of our city, in particular, the Civic area of Canberra.
I could not agree more wholeheartedly with this statement. Second, Ms Tucker said:
We agree with the general principle that sexually explicit entertainment particularly should be confined to the prescribed area.
I agree that we should be channelling our best endeavours to achieving this outcome. I formulated this Bill with these principles at the forefront of my mind. What I propose is consistent with what we have already put in place, and I commend the Bill to the Assembly.
Debate (on motion by Mr Moore ) adjourned.
MR HIRD (11.08): Mr Speaker, I move the motion standing in my name on the notice paper, which reads:
That this Assembly, notwithstanding that the issue of extending school zones to preschools will be considered by the Standing Committee on Planning and Urban Services, supports the introduction of a 40 kilometre per hour school zone at the Spence Preschool.
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