Page 2144 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 9 September 1992
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Imagine the impression that this must have on people who have experienced violence in their lifetime. What of refugees who have now escaped such experiences? There are many people who find these images distressing, and they deserve to have their right not to be confronted with it protected.
Again, as I have said before, I do not seek to have such material removed from its readership. However, I find no saving grace in this instance. There appear to be no guidelines such as those referred to on demeaning images of women. The closest guidelines I have discovered are the guidelines issued by the Minister responsible for censorship, which read:
Publications which contain exploitative, realistic and gratuitous descriptions of violence will warrant a restricted category 1 classification.
Members, I have formally lodged a complaint about the violent images depicted in the 4 August edition of the Bulletin with the Press Council of Australia and, as other such complaints have also been received, the Press Council has scheduled a hearing into the issue. I have also made my concerns known to the Arts, Entertainment and Media Alliance, AJA section, and Australian Consolidated Press, which publishes the Bulletin. I will conclude by further expressing my distress at the use of these images, and I hope that such imagery does not become a hallmark of what I had considered to be a reputable magazine.
Scout Visit to Russia
MR STEVENSON (4.48): Madam Speaker, during the meal break yesterday I attended a Scout function where they had a presentation on a remarkable expedition to Russia by some of the ACT Scouts. After the Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union a number of children from that area came to visit Australia. Late in 1991, the secretary-general of the Scout movement, Dr Jacques Moreillon, was in Canberra. At a meeting he challenged ACT Scouts to send a patrol to the Soviet Union, to Russia specifically, to help them rebuild the Scout movement. Scouts originally began in Russia in 1908, but shortly after 1917 they were banned.
The Scout troop did the job. They made everything go right. They got some wonderful local sponsors. About 40 Scouts took part in the expedition between mid-June and mid-July. As I recall, 11 were from the ACT - three leaders and eight children. They visited St Petersburg - that awful tag "Leningrad" has gone - and Moscow as well as Dubna. Dubna was once a closed city in the Soviet Union. You could not go there. You could not take photographs because of the atomic energy installations there. That has all changed. Now you can stand outside the building and get your picture taken. That is good. There have been some wonderful changes in the Soviet Union. It is good to hear that children from the ACT are extending the hand of friendship.
They had two major goals: First of all, to assist Russians and Russian children in rebuilding the Scout movement; secondly, to gain developmental experience as Scouts from Australia. It was the first ever international Scout camp held in Russia. I know that there were many friends made during the trip. Three of the eight people who went from the ACT are continuing to learn Russian. Before
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