Page 2248 - Week 08 - Thursday, 7 June 1990
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you are approaching the existing and potential problem from quite a different direction from that of many of your sisters. As evidence given during the Senate debate of 2 March 1989 on the Regulation of Video Material Bill made clear, significant women's organisations, rather than supporting the taxing of X-rated videos, want them banned altogether. These groups include the Catholic Women's League, the Country Women's Association and the Anglican Church Mothers Union" and "the Society of Women Writers of Australia, the Australian Federation of Business and Professional Women, the National Association of Community-based Children's Services, [and] the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association.
"Such multipartisan support simply cannot be ignored. If the Government believes that such opposition is perhaps a little remote from the local Canberra scene, or a little removed from the topic itself, let me add two more proponents for the banning of X-rated videos. I refer to the National Status of Women Committee and the Women's Electoral Lobby ACT Incorporated. WEL's letter reads, in part:
"WEL is totally opposed to any portrayal of women that exploits or degrades them in any way, or any portrayal of women that reinforces the unequal power relationships that exist in society.
"WEL ACT endorses the intent of your Bill to ban X-rated videos in the ACT. We believe that it is inappropriate for the ACT to continue to distribute X-rated videos in the face of the contrary decisions of the Attorneys-General in all States.
"These two bodies, Mr Speaker - the National Status of Women Committee, set up in 1975 by a Labor government, and WEL ACT - must be particularly disillusioned at women's degradation for dollars being institutionalised by a [Liberal] Government.
"I say to the Chief Minister that [his] mishandling of, or perhaps [his] failure to handle, this Territory's economy is a matter of concern and regret, but in [his] desperate attempt to obtain additional revenue [he] has gone beyond any electoral mandate that [he] may reasonably claim to raise funds through a franchise on flesh. That [he] proposes to do so, making a mockery of [his] party's policy of social justice, is sad evidence of the lengths to which this financially strapped [Liberal] Government will go to find money and thus, [the Alliance] hopes, to stay in power.
"Mr Speaker, this community finds it totally unacceptable to legalise video pornography. I believe it finds it equally unacceptable and repugnant to legitimise it by institutionalising it as a legitimate source of tax revenues. No State has done so; we cannot either. The Liberal Party opposes the Bill and will vote accordingly".
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