Page 1329 - Week 05 - Thursday, 25 June 1992
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There is more we could recite about the meeting and about our disappointment with the way in which the meeting was conducted. However, the subject of our lobby, the issue itself, is far more important - our children and not Mr Connolly.
The right of parents to approach the members of the Legislative Assembly to voice their concerns is important, and in this respect we thank all other members whom we have approached on this subject. We believe they will feel that we had reasonable and rational discussion and debate.
Thank you.
I thank members for letting me read that matter into the Hansard record.
Pornographic Material
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (4.54): Madam Speaker, I must immediately respond. That statement which Mr Humphries has read into the record is simply untrue. I fortunately had a staff member with me throughout that meeting and could, if need be, verify it. I repeat my statement that I was shown two covers and they said, "This is the sort of thing we are talking about". I was then shown a large colour photocopy blow-up of a group of naked people engaging in sexual acts and they said, "This is the sort of thing we are talking about". I said, "No, that is a hard-core category 1 publication".
I note that in the statement that Mr Humphries read - they are not Mr Humphries's words, and I must make that clear - they now are acknowledging that that was a hard-core pornographic magazine, which is exactly the point that I made to them. I felt that I was being misled. I said to them, "Where did this material come from?". I was originally told, "From a Canberra newsagent". It later transpired that the best they could come up with was that someone had told them that it had come from a Dubbo newsagent, which is hardly pertinent.
Madam Speaker, I take a very dim view of people coming into my office and lobbying me and giving me material which is patently misleading. I do not know what they showed other people, but I believe that these people discredited their cause - lobbying me in relation to the issue of demeaning images in Pix or People - by showing hard-core category 1 pornography and pretending that it was the same thing. It was simply not the same thing. I strongly refute the version of events they have given, which would suggest that I went rummaging around in their box of tricks and extracted this particular image. This image was shown to me. I think I did at one stage pick the image up because I sort of flicked it off my table and said, "This garbage I do not want to see". Then I did indicate that it was not the material that they were talking about, and they discredited themselves in so attempting to suggest that that was the type of material under discussion.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Assembly adjourned at 4.56 pm until Tuesday, 11 August 1992, at 2.30 pm
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