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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 9 Hansard (22 August) . . Page.. 3216 ..

Question so resolved in the negative.

Ms Tucker's amendment negatived.

Mr Osborne's amendment agreed to.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Attorney-General) (6.06): Mr Speaker, I move amendment No 1 circulated in my name [see schedule 4 at page 3228].

I said at the in-principle stage that there were some problems with the bill as it originally stood being beyond the legislative power of the territory. Both this amendment and my next amendment will ensure that the bill comes within the legislative power of the territory.

Amendment No 1 provides a definition of "classified" in terms of the Commonwealth Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995. That effectively brings us within the ambit of the existing law and overcomes the problem I alluded to earlier.

MR OSBORNE (6.07): I will be supporting this amendment. As I said earlier, the advice I received was that the bill in the original form did not contravene the self-government act, but I think the compromise suggested by Mr Quinton is a reasonable one, and I am more than happy to support it.

Amendment agreed to.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Attorney-General) (6.08): I move amendment No 2 circulated in my name [see schedule 4 at page 3228].

This amendment is aimed at overcoming the Assembly's inability to make laws for the classification of materials for the purposes of censorship under section 23 (1) (g) of the self-government act. Again, we say that the bill, in its original form, may amount to such a law in its attempts to classify pornographic materials for the purpose of censoring their availability.

Pornographic material in this amendment has been redefined as material that has been, or is likely to be, classified C, X or R, which are the federal classifications under the 1995 Commonwealth act. Material towards which the bill is directed is thereby specified in terms of existing classifications set out in the Commonwealth legislation. This overcomes any potential problems.

Amendment agreed to.

MR OSBORNE (6.09): I move amendment 3 circulated in my name [see schedule 2 at page 3226].

This amendment inserts a definition of "electronic means", which members will note has been expanded slightly from the explanatory note that was removed by my amendment No 1.

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