Page 2752 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 21 November 1989
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course of that part of a long career, I have often discussed censorship ratings. Specifically, on several occasions I have reviewed X-rated videos. I recall, in particular, two programs I did as a guest of Wendy Wicks, then with 2CN. Accompanying me on one of those programs was a member of the staff of the Women's Study Unit of the ANU, Dr Jill Matthews. We watched three X-rated videos of several kinds - a great variety - in the company of a professional woman social worker whose work included case studies at a rape crisis centre and case studies of incest.
Also, at the request of the ABC, I attended the formal opening of an X-rated video facility in Fyshwick last year. I went out with an ABC crew, looked at the premises, interviewed two members of the pornography industry - one of whom is in the gallery - and reported on radio and television to the ABC. The fact that I did that has been misused by a member of the adult video industry.
My conclusions then and now are obviously that such a facility under the laws of the Commonwealth of Australia is, at the moment, legal in the ACT. There is no gainsaying that. I saw then no technical reason why, at that time, such a facility should be closed. Provided that I am not quoted out of context, I again say that such a facility has, under our present laws, a right to exist in the ACT until such time as the Commonwealth of Australia alters those laws or until this Assembly legislates on the matter in the manner of Western Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland. That Fyshwick cinema and other outlets for pornography do not function under any laws we have promulgated in this Assembly nor under any inherited laws from New South Wales.
I have also reviewed films such as Hail Mary and The Last Temptation of Christ, which are abhorred by some segments of our community but which may be said, as indeed I have said in one theological journal, St Mark's Review, to have redeeming values which should allow them to be seen anywhere in Australia under restricted ratings. They are not pornography. I am not, therefore, an advocate of the kind of censorship which would hamper contentious, even in some people's minds, supposedly blasphemous films, if the banning of those films would halt what I call legitimate expressions of opinion or if such films may be said to have artistic, aesthetic or intellectual values of worth.
I now turn, however, to consider what is being dealt with here tonight. X-rated videos of several kinds are not only shown in the ACT, not only sold and hired out in the ACT, but are provided by mail to a clientele elsewhere in Australia, including those six States already named which ban the sale, distribution and public showing of such films. That is the crucial issue for me.
The issue for me, then, is very clear and it is the reason for refusing to build that industry into our revenue collection system in the ACT and the reason why I will be
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