Page 3131 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 20 September 1994
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PUBLICATIONS CONTROL (AMENDMENT) BILL 1994
Debate resumed from 25 August 1994, on motion by Mr Connolly:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR HUMPHRIES (3.59): Madam Speaker, it will not take long to deal with this Bill. It is a piece of legislation which I think we can all agree is increasingly necessary to deal with problems of computer obscenity, if you like - of censorable material appearing on computer screens. Those who have some familiarity with computers, of which I am not one, will be aware that it is possible these days to get very high-quality images on computers and for them to be increasingly accessible to everybody in our community, including very young people. It follows that some of the developments with respect to material available on computers, which depicts graphically images which in a video form or a printed form would be considered unacceptable, become an issue here as well. It is important for us to begin to deal with the problem of how we prevent those sorts of unacceptable images becoming freely available on computer screens when we have taken some steps to restrict their availability on television screens and on the screens of cinemas.
Madam Speaker, this legislation does not actually introduce but certainly underpins an arrangement whereby there is a classification scheme for computer games. There are some exclusions. It does not include educational or business or accounting packages; it does not include bulletin board kinds of material or transactions, if you like, between computer screens. The Minister makes reference to the problems that that kind of communication gives rise to: For example, are you publishing or are you communicating when you transmit a message like that? It obviously is an area of difficulty, and I note that there is a Commonwealth task force set up to look at the problem particularly of bulletin boards. I look forward to seeing what solution comes out of that process.
Madam Speaker, it is important for us to move to impose some kinds of restrictions to reflect the decisions already made, by other jurisdictions at least, on the question of video material and censorship in movie houses. However, Madam Speaker, I find very little consistency in the Government's approach. The Government has consistently made clear in this place that it does not believe that there is any value in banning X-rated video material. This has been the decision made by other jurisdictions in this country. Mr Connolly has argued that the ban is ineffective and, therefore, there is no reason to proceed to enact it in the ACT either.
He now, however, proceeds to, in effect, impose a restriction of a very similar nature on computer material. Indeed, Madam Speaker, the provisions here go further than that. Material which is X-rated only - and I am not entirely sure how the two classification systems will stack up side by side - is available in the ACT and is not available, at least in theory, in the States; but R-rated material is available across the country. The proposal here, as I understand it, is in fact that, where material which is R-rated - or, to use the jargon here, R(18+) - is classified in this case, then that material is banned altogether.
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