Page 2785 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 21 November 1989

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MR WHALAN: I have complete confidence in you. Mr Speaker, I am going to quote from an article written by Dr Paul Wilson of the Australian Institute of Criminology. It was a paper which was presented on 19 April 1989 to the Sydney University law school seminar on sex, violence and censorship. I quote from the final paragraph of Dr Wilson's paper, and I would like to quote the words precisely:

As I pointed out in the beginning of this article Queensland politicians, police and public servants attempted to make that State morally pure in the 1960's and 1970's. Some of those who campaigned most strongly for strong censorship policies have been exposed by the Fitzgerald Inquiry as hypocrites and criminals of the most serious kind.

Censorship breeds corruption and crime.

Today's Sydney Morning Herald has an interesting article in it. It is on page 11, under the heading, "Mudslingers take their muck to town". In the opening paragraphs it refers to the fact that the president of the National Party in Queensland, Sir Robert Sparkes, has recently taken to staying in a building described as "The Bunker", which is a self-contained unit in the Queensland National Party's headquarters in the inner Brisbane suburb of Spring Hill. I will quote from just this section of the article:

As the party president, Sir Robert Sparkes, tosses and turns in his sleep over what may or may not be after December 2, hundreds of homosexuals are dancing the night away in Queensland's most popular gay bar, just 80 metres down the road.

That ... State Government is both unwilling and unable to close the bar.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Minister, I draw your attention to standing order 58.

Ms Follett: Fair go.

Mrs Grassby: They all did it.

MR WHALAN: In the article that I referred to by Dr Wilson, earlier, there is quite a serious discussion of the background of the relationship between censorship, sex and violence. It is a worthwhile article and I would recommend it to every member of the Assembly, particularly those who, hopefully, will never fall into the category of the Fitzgerald inquiry, hypocrites and criminals of the worst kind.

In this particular article, Dr Wilson acknowledges that he did spend some time in Queensland so that his views about censorship could be conditioned in some way by that particular experience and by his experience with the


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