Page 3182 - Week 15 - Thursday, 14 December 1989
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Mr Jensen: I rise on a point of order, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Berry, I asked you to withdraw that reflection on the Chair.
Mr Jensen: An unqualified withdrawal.
MR SPEAKER: I ask for an unqualified withdrawal of the reflection you made on the authority of the Chair.
MR BERRY: I have the view that your actions in this matter were not unbiased. I cannot change that view, but I am prepared to withdraw my statement.
Private Members' Rights
MR STEVENSON (1.07): Mr Speaker, I rise with the opportunity of the last five minutes of the year to speak on an important matter. I would like to mention a point to do with opposition. I do not wish to be in the opposition. I never have considered myself to have been. I am not in opposition to anything in general. I am not in favour of anything in general. I think it is important to look at individual matters.
Private members in this Assembly have three major rights. There is the right to introduce private members' business. There is the right to suspend standing orders and have matters debated. There is also the right, as the former Chief Minister mentioned, to ask Ministers questions. It is unfortunate that all these rights have recently been suspended, for there is an important issue that should have been introduced. That is the Bill to ban X-rated videos, which I gave notice of presenting.
Why was the matter important? The matter was important for two reasons. This is the last opportunity we have to table anything. The Bill could then have been debated in public over the next two months. Nothing more needed to be done. It only needed to be introduced. I was quite prepared not even to make a speech on the matter, and I mentioned that; but, instead, I was not given leave today to do that, and both the opportunities we would have had on the last two Wednesdays were taken away by using, as it is called, the numbers.
What I wanted to do was to take the opportunity to present the valid reasons why the introduction of the Bill should have been allowed, and I did not have that opportunity. There was no discussion with me during the week since our last sitting day on Thursday last week. I mentioned on the Thursday that I implored the members who now control the Assembly to allow the introduction of the Bill. It is an important matter. There is clear statistical evidence that pornography increases sexual and physical violence against women and children. It is a matter, like many others of importance, that we should attend to in this Assembly.
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