Wednesday, 4 April 1984 The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Douglas McClelland) took the chair at 10 a.m., and read prayers. The Acting Clerk-Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows: Education To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled: The petition from parents representing the government schools in New South Wales respectfully showeth that: 1. They call on the Federal Government to re-affirm publicly that its primary obligation is to government schools. 2. They support the Federal Government's policy decisions which have reduced funding to wealthy private schools and which have broken the nexus between government and non-government school costs. 3. They endorse the Federal Government's opposition to the provision of a 'base grant' to all non-government schools. 4. They ask that the Federal Government create a general recurrent resource base which is adequate for government schools through the provision of increased recurrent funding. 5. They call upon the Federal Government to negotiate agreements with State/ Territory Governments which will ensure a planned program of improvements in governments schools throughout the coming decade. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Richardson (from 25 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. We the undersigned citizens of the Commonwealth do humbly pray that the Commonwealth government: 1. Uphold the principle that the seeds and cuttings of plants are a public resource and a common heritage to all and that accordingly seeds should be freely available to all, freely multipliable, able to be sold, exchanged, exported and imported by anyone who wishes. This is seen as a matter of national food security. 2. Recognise that plant breeding is a highly co-operative venture often involving private enterprise at the very last stages after basic seed collection , storage, and research has been publicly funded. 3. In view of the aforementioned paragraphs, recognise that any system giving ' property' or ownership rights over seeds to individuals, organisations or enterprises is inappropriate and unjust. 4. Recognise that legislation establishing plant patenting schemes overseas has had serious adverse effects namely: (i) a slowing-down of scientific information exchange and exchanges in basic plant breeding materials, that is, germ plasm, (ii) subordination and/or curtailment of public breeding programmes, (iii) farmer unrest at seed prices, (iv) monopoly control of seed production and sales has passed into the hands of giant petrochemical and drug corporations also marketing crop chemicals, (v) increased uniformity of crop varieties leading to a vulnerability to pest and disease attack. 5. Reject any proposal to legislate for any system such as the drafted Plant Variety Rights Act, which gives exclusive ownership rights over seeds to individuals, organisations or enterprises. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Zakharov (from 64 citizens). Petitions received. Senator REID(Australian Capital Territory) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the Senate condemns the Prime Minister for allowing the Minister for Territories and Local Government to continue to occupy a government flat at a rental of $57 per week when the need for special treatment and priority for Ministers has long since passed. Senator GRIMES(Tasmania-Minister for Social Security) —I table papers in accordance with the list circulated to honourable senators and seek leave to have the list incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The list read as follows- 1. Australian Pig Industry Research Committee-Annual Report 1982-83-Pursuant to Section 16 of the Pig Industry Research Act 1971. 2. Information Communicated to Mr Justice Cross-Reports by the Attorney-General -Pursuant to sub-section 7A (8) of the Telecommunications (Interception) Act 1979. 3. Australian Capital Territory Apprenticeship Board-Annual Report-Year ended 30 June 1983-Pursuant to Section 47 of the Australian Capital Territory Apprenticeship Ordinance and Regulations 1936. 4. Estimates of Proposed Additional Expenditure 1983-84-Explanatory notes of departments and authorities as follows: Estimates of Proposed Additional Expenditure for Year 1983-84-Explanatory notes of departments and authorities- Aboriginal Affairs Administrative Services Attorney-General's Australian Development Assistance Bureau Aviation Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization Communications Defence Defence Support Education and Youth Affairs Employment and Industrial Relations Finance Foreign Affairs Health Home Affairs and Environment Housing and Construction Immigration and Ethnic Affairs Industry and Commerce Joint House Department Parliamentary Library Parliamentary Reporting Staff Primary Industry Prime Minister and Cabinet Office of National Assessments Commonwealth Ombudsman Australian Science and Technology Council Auditor General's Office Public Service Board Resources and Energy Science and Technology Senate Social Security Special Minister of State Sport, Recreation and Tourism Territories and Local Government Trade Transport Treasury Veterans' Affairs Motion (by Senator Gareth Evans) agreed to: That leave be given to introduce a Bill for an Act to amend the Marriage Act 1961. Bill presented by Senator Gareth Evans, and read a first time. Standing Orders suspended. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Attorney-General)(10.03) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. The principal purpose of this Bill is to give legislative effect in Australia to the Convention on Celebration and Recognition of the Validity of Marriages signed by Australia in July 1980. The Bill represents a significant step for Australia in that it is the first of the Hague conventions Australia has signed and will be the first to which Australia has given effect. In addition, the Bill proposes certain other amendments to the Marriage Act 1961 with which I will deal at a later stage. I turn to the first category of amendments-those implementing the Hague Convention on Celebration and Recognition of the Validity of Marriages. The purpose of the Convention is to assist in making more uniform provision between nations in relation to the recognition of marriages celebrated abroad. The Hague Convention Problems of recognition of marriages celebrated abroad have arisen in a number of countries which insist that, when their citizens marry abroad, they do so in conformity with their own laws. The placing of limitations on the grounds on which countries may refuse recognition to marriages celebrated abroad would be of general benefit to all, and particularly to those whose personal affairs involve several countries. As Australia has a greater number of such individuals than most countries, anything that helps to reduce the incidence of 'limping marriages'-marriages which are recognised as valid in one country but not in another country-will be to the benefit of this country. It is hoped that ratification of the Convention by Australia will encourage other countries to do likewise. This will, in turn, encourage greater recognition abroad of marriages celebrated in Australia. Ratification by Australia will also be of benefit in relation to Australia's participation in the Hague Conference on Private International Law. So far, the common law members of the Hague Conference, including Australia, have not ratified many conventions and this has been the subject of criticism from the civil law countries. As section 43 of the Family Law Act 1975 states, the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society. This Convention, which deals with marriage, the legal foundation of the family, is an appropriate one with which to commence Australia's implementation of conventions arising out of the Hague Conference. Celebration of Marriages Chapter I of the Convention deals with the celebration of marriages. It is a response to the difficulties often facing persons seeking to be married in a country of which they are neither nationals nor domiciliaries. The Convention imposes an obligation on the states who are parties to it to allow the celebration of a marriage between people who meet certain requirements. A significant difficulty for Australia to date on the question of the celebration of marriage has been that marriage celebrants do not have the resources to check whether parties have capacity to marry each other under a foreign law. The Bill proposes to deal with this problem by recognising the position which, as a matter of practice, has existed in Australia for many years, namely, that marriage celebrants in Australia marry persons in Australia-whether or not they are foreigners-by reference only to Australian law. To enable Australia to comply with chapter I of the Convention, the application of Part III of the Marriage Act-dealing with void marriages-is varied by clauses 10 to 13 of the Bill so that the rules of that Part will apply to all marriages solemnised in Australia or outside Australia under Australian law. This amounts to a variation of Australia's 'choice of law rules'-that is, those rules of law which determine, where the laws of more than one country are relevant to a topic , which country's laws will be applied. However, it represents a considerable simplification of the present position and will allow Australia to accede to chapter I of the Convention, as Australian law will require each of the parties to a marriage to meet the requirements of Australian law only before they may marry under that law. To give an example of the way this will assist parties: Australian law at the moment would declare a marriage entered into in Australia between two people domiciled overseas to be invalid if those parties did not have legal capacity to marry under foreign law. Under these amendments, the marriage would be valid if the parties had capacity under Australian law. Recognition of the Validity of Marriage Chapter II of the Convention imposes upon states that are parties to the Convention an obligation to recognise marriages that are validly celebrated under the law of the state of celebration, subject to certain basic exceptions. This obligation will involve recognition being given to some marriages which would not be considered valid under the common law rules of private international law. The Bill provides, in addition, in new section 88D, that these common law rules will remain in operation to a limited extent, so that if a marriage would not be recognised as valid under the Convention it will nevertheless be recognised as valid if the common law rules so provide. Essentially, the Convention operates as a gloss upon the common law, as it will provide an additional basis upon which the recognition of validity of foreign marriages may be afforded. The Convention rules are contained in a new Part-Part VA-to be inserted in the Marriage Act. Part VA is to apply to all marriages whether solemnised before or after the Convention comes into force for Australia. The Government has taken the view that it is desirable that the Convention should have the widest possible application. This will, however, mean that some marriages will now be recognised as valid which were previously not recognised as valid in Australia. It is regarded as undesirable that a marriage entered into in good faith in the belief that it would be valid should be rendered invalid by operation of the Convention. Accordingly, there is a saving provision in sub-section 88C (7) so that a marriage regarded as void before the Convention enters into force for Australia shall continue to be regarded as void, whether or not it would be valid under the Convention rules, if a party to that void marriage has subsequently remarried. Under Part VA a marriage solemnised in a country outside Australia, other than under Part V, is to be recognised as valid throughout Australia if the marriage was, at the time it was solemnised, recognised as valid by the law of the country where it was solemnised or, alternatively, if the marriage is recognised as valid under that law at the time its validity falls to be determined- paragraphs 88B (1) (a) and 88B (2) (a). Analogous provisions will apply to marriages solemnised overseas by foreign diplomatic or consular officers. These rules of recognition will, however, be subject to a number of exceptions permitted by Article II of the Convention. A marriage solemnised in a country outside Australia will not be required to be recognised as valid under the Convention rules in a number of circumstances. First, it will not be recognised where either party was at the time of the marriage already married to some other person. Secondly, where one of the parties was at the time of the marriage domiciled in Australia it will not be recognised if either of the parties was not of marriageable age. Thirdly, where neither was domiciled in Australia at the time of the marriage, it will not be recognised while the parties are below the minimum age at which a person can with permission marry in Australia-that is , 16 years for males, and 14 years for females. Finally, the marriage will not be recognised where the parties are within the prohibited relationship or where the consent of either of the parties was not a real consent. Another provision of Part VA, section 88E, provides, in accordance with the policy expressed in Article 12 of the Convention, that the determination of the question of validity of a marriage which is incidental to the determination of another matter, such as inheritence, shall be resolved in accordance with the Convention rules. A further provision of the new Part, section 88F, provides a prima facie method of proof of a marriage alleged to have been solemnised in a foreign country. Legitimacy of children Two sets of amendments relate to Part VI of the Act, which deals with the legitimacy of certain children. The major amendment, in clause 22, inserts new sections 91A and 91B into the Act. These sections deal with the legitimacy of children born to a married couple as a result of artificial insemination by donor or in vitro fertilisation. They do not themselves make provision in relation to the parentage of these children; they merely ensure that, if State or Territory law does so provide, then the operation of the legitimation provisions of the Act will extend to those children. Various States have indicated, in the course of discussions in the Standing Committee of Attorneys- General, their intention to deem a child born in this way to be the child of the married couple, and to sever the biological link with sperm or ovum donors. Section 91A deals with three separate cases-sperm donation alone-sub-section (1 )-ovum donation alone-sub-section (2)-and donation of both sperm and ovum-sub- section (3). In respect of each of these procedures, where a law of a State or Territory requires the resulting child to be treated as a child of the man and the woman, or either of them, the child will be deemed to be legitimate. A related provision is inserted by clause 20 into section 89, to ensure that where an unmarried couple have a child by these procedures, and subsequently marry, the child will be legitimated by virtue of that subsequent marriage, if they are deemed to be the parents by State or Territory law. The other amendment to Part VI, in clause 21, involves the extension of the operation of section 90 of the Act, which deals with legitimation by virtue of a foreign marriage, to situations where the foreign country involved does not recognise the status of illegitimacy. Israel is one such country. The opportunity has also been taken to amend the application provisions of sections 89 and 90 so that they operate on the domicile of either parent, rather than simply on that of the child's father. This change is in line with the general policy of the Government to remove unwarranted distinctions based on sex. Notice of Intended Marriage Minor amendments are made to section 42 of the Act by clause 16, to improve the operation of the provisions dealing with notices of intended marriage. The most important, contained in clause 16 (a), is the extension of the maximum period prior to the date of the marriage within which the notice can be filed, from three months to six months. Extension of this time will allow celebrants and parties greater flexibility in making arrangements. The Family Law Council has considered this proposal, which has been put by civil celebrant groups, and sees no objection to it. Clause 18 is a consequential amendment to the overseas marriage provisions of the Act. Clause 16 (b) adds Australian diplomatic officials to the list of those who may witness a notice of intended marriage. This will make the necessary paperwork easier for those who have to come from outside Australia to marry in Australia. Sub-section 42 (5) of the Act allows a prescribed authority to effectivelty waive the minimum requirement of one month's notice, if he is satisfied that the circumstances of the particular case justify his so doing. Clause 16 (c) of the Bill inserts a new provision designed to prevent a party who has been refused this waiver by one authority, simply seeking permission from another authority without disclosing the previous refusal. The suggestion for this amendment arises out of representations to the Ombudsman on this matter. Fees for Civil Celebrants Clause 24 of the Bill makes it an offence for a civil marriage celebrant to charge a fee higher than that prescribed by the regulations for the solemnisation of a marriage. While the present legal position is that the prescribed fees are the legal maximum that can be charged for solemnisation, it seems desirable, in light of the particularly vulnerable position of parties about to be married, that there be a clear legislative statement to this effect, for the protection of both parties and celebrants. It is not intended by this provision to affect the ability of celebrants to charge for other matters ancillary to the actual solemnisation, such as flowers or music. I should also point out that the Government is keeping under close review the level of fees to ensure, consistently with overall economic restraint, that the fees represent an adequate remuneration for this important service. Earlier this year the fees payable were significantly increased in light of these principles. Provision of 'Marriage Education' As a continuing part of the Government's response to recommendation 61 of the Joint Select Committee on the Family Law Act, that 'education for marriage and family life be further supported', the concept of pre-marital education in Part 1A of the Act is broadened by clauses 5-9 of the Bill to that of marriage education. Organisations working in the area of pre-marital education have often indicated that one of the most useful times to engage in education for marriage is in that period shortly after the marriage has been entered into. Grants made for the purposes of marriage education will thus complement the activities of marriage counselling organizations under the recently amended definition of marriage counselling in the Family Law Act 1975. Miscellaneous amendments A number of amendments will rationalise the operation of the Act or correct minor errors. Amendments to the definition of ''Judge'' (clause 3 (a)) and to section 99 (clause 23) are in this latter class. Clause 14 removes an unnecessary provision concerning the constitution of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for certain purposes, and clause 15 brings the criterion for appointment of celebrants under section 39 into line with the policy expressed in section 33 in relation to ministers of religion of recognised denominations. Other formal amendments are made by the Schedule. Last year this Parliament enacted long-needed changes to the laws governing the termination of marriage. This Bill represents the other facet of the Government' s commitment to resolving the problems faced by ordinary men and women in Australia in that most personal areas of their lives. In extending the grounds for recognition of marriages entered into overseas, in ensuring the legitimacy of children, in broadening the scope of education for married life and easing procedural restrictions on entry into marriage, this Bill is an affirmative statement of the importance of marriage as a fundamental and enduring institution. The Bill has no financial implications. I commend the Bill to the Senate. Debate (on motion by Senator Peter Baume) adjourned. Motion (by Senator Chipp) agreed to: That leave be given to introduce a Bill for an Act to prohibit the importation of nuclear hardware, and for purposes connected therewith. Bill presented by Senator Chipp, and read a first time. Senator CHIPP(Victoria-Leader of the Australian Democrats)(10.18) —by leave-I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. The Australian Democrats want to highlight the role Australia plays in supporting the nuclear arms race, and the role Australia can and should play in bringing an end to the nuclear arms race. This Bill deals with one aspect of that overall picture. It provides for a prohibition on the importation of nuclear hardware that would be essential for the establishment of nuclear power reactors, uranium enrichment plants or nuclear waste reprocessing facilities. None of these facilities exist in Australia at present, except for research facilities run by the Australian Atomic Energy Commission. This Bill would prevent the establishment of any other elements of the nuclear fuel cycle in Australia. One exception to the absolute prohibition of imports of nuclear hardware is provided. This would operate where imports would be necessary for the Atomic Energy Commission to maintain its present capacity to produce medical and industrial isotopes. The Bill provides for substantial parliamentary scrutiny to ensure that if nuclear hardware is imported, as provided for in the exception, there can be no abuse. The Democrats believe that there are overwhelming arguments-relating to both energy policy and nuclear weapons non-proliferation policy-that show the nuclear industry is of no benefit to the well-being of humanity. The energy problem that the nuclear industry is supposed to solve is not a simple search for new sources of energy at any price. Solving the energy problem has to relate consumer demand to energy sources that are economic. There is no demand for coal, electricity or nuclear power per se. The demand that exists in the community is for light, comfort and heat, which can be provided in a number of ways. Coal, electricity or nuclear power are simply means to an end, they are some of the ways of providing light, comfort or heat. The task of energy planners is to seek the best way to provide for the real needs of consumers. The end use of energy has to be examined and the best means to provide it has to be employed. The cornerstone of the 'soft-path' energy strategy that the Democrats endorse is that given the choice people will choose the cheaper form of energy supply. This will rule out nuclear power instantly. When the costs of every aspect of establishing and running a nuclear reactor are added up, the total is more than any reasonable person could afford. In November 1983, the capital cost for a nuclear reactor to deliver a kilowatt of electricity was $9,020 per kilowatt. Let me give an example as to what that figure means. Heating a house involves about 10 kilowatts of electricity. If a consumer is using nuclear generated electricity it is costing the electricity authority over $90,000 to provide that electricity. Thus the cost of providing the electricity to heat the house will, in many cases, exceed the total cost of the house itself! Official industry projections of the cost of nuclear power are well below the figures I cite. Those with an interest in promoting nuclear power have left out the costs of waste management, decommissioning nuclear plants, the low capacity factor of reactors and the grid loss of electricity in their estimates. They have deliberately left out these factors to depress their costs, to deceive the public. The extent of the economic lunacy that is nuclear power is evident in the fact that it is collapsing despite massive government support. The United States Government has provided between $40 billion and $100 billion in subsidies to the nuclear industry over the last 40 years. Not even those enormous subsidies have been able to shield the realities of consumer choice. Why then, if the technology is as uneconomic as experience clearly shows, are we introducing legislation to prevent its establishment in Australia? Despite suffering savage attacks from market forces, the nuclear industry is being supported by some governments because of the power of vested interests and the fact that a nuclear industry is indispensable to the continued production of nuclear weapons. The continuation of the nuclear industry in the Western world provides an example of the worst kind to developing nations. Combined with the aggressive policy of the nuclear club to sell this technology at greatly reduced costs, the Western world is providing the example and the means for nuclear weapons proliferation. To alter this situation requires that the appropriate nations repudiate the nuclear option and demonstrate that energy security can be achieved more fully, at a faster rate and at less cost than through the nuclear option. That is the rationale for this legislation. Nations such as Australia need to publicly repudiate the nuclear option. Unless we do, we can expect more and more nations to develop the capability to produce nuclear bombs. Vietnam plans to proceed with nuclear power. The Philippines is ready to start up its first nuclear reactor. God help us! Indonesia has expanded its nuclear research centre and it may develop a civil nuclear power program. These nations, among others, rationalise their foray into nuclear technology by citing the promotion of nuclear technology by the industrialised nations as evidence of nuclear power's benefits. If this false illusion of benefits is not removed more countries will follow blindly a path that is expensive, grossly inefficient and the driving force behind nuclear weapons proliferation. The publication of 'The Strategic Basis of Australian Defence Policy' on 30 March 1984 by the National Times has provided stark evidence that Australia needs this legislation. While the Government denies that it has endorsed the development of nuclear weapons if our neighbours do so, it has not denied that Australia is actively monitoring nuclear weapons developments 'to ensure that the lead time for Australia could be matched to developments in other countries should the Government so decide'. The only way to ensure that Australia does not develop nuclear weapons is to ensure that there are no facilities to produce the materials needed for nuclear weapons in Australia. This legislation, which the Democrats are introducing, will provide that assurance. There are many alternatives to centralised energy sources such as nuclear power . Energy efficiency improvements such as insulation and retrofitting can save so much energy that new sources are all but unnecessary. As the next option, renewable energy sources must be pursued. Solar power, wind power and boigas fuels, amongst others, are the cheapest and most benign energy sources now available. They are not a pipedream of the future. They are the cheapest and best buys now. Private power utilities in the United States are opting for renewable energy resources now because of their economic benefits. Any continuation of the nuclear industry will absorb funds that would be more effectively and efficiently used in the technologies I have outlined. Every dollar spent on nuclear power will retard the implementation of the economic and efficient energy resources. The Labor Party in its platform has made statements, as have its Ministers, that should lead it to support this legislation. The ALP platform on nuclear power states that Labor in Government will: Prohibit the establishment in Australia of nuclear power plants and all other stages of the nuclear fuel cycle. That is crystal clear in its meaning. The then Acting Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Bowen in a letter to my colleague Senator Mason on 3 February 1984, stated: . . . the Government has withdrawn support from a private sector study of the feasibility of an enrichment industry in Australia and we consider that there is no propect of the nuclear option for power generation being utilised in Australia. The Minister for Defence (Mr Scholes) wrote to me just this week on 2 April 1984 , and stated: The Government does not have the slightest intention of interesting itself in acquiring any nuclear weapons capability. These statements are in accord with ALP policy and should ensure by logic this legislation is supported by the Labor Party and therefore passes both Houses of Parliament. I will be happy to negotiate with the Government and consider amendments so long as the essence of the legislation, opposition to all elements of the nuclear industry, is in no way weakened. The passage of this Bill would provide a clear, unequivocal and unambiguous signal to the world. It would make it clear that Australia sees no benefits accruing to anyone from nuclear power. It would substantially reinforce our international nuclear non-proliferation concerns by stating that we take those concerns so seriously we are willing to make them part of our domestic policy. With our house in order our international concerns will be received with a force and clarity that will make them difficult to ignore. Australia will then, and only then, be a working example of a non-nuclear nation that others can emulate. Australia will then be making its greatest contribution by showing the way to nuclear non-proliferation. I commend the Bill to the Senate. Debate (on motion by Senator Grimes) adjourned. The PRESIDENT —I inform the Senate that I have received a letter from the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate requesting that Senator Watson be discharged from attendance on Estimates Committee E and nominating Senator MacGibbon to be a member of that Committee. Motion (by Senator Ryan)-by leave-agreed to: (1) That Senator Watson be discharged from Estimates Committee E. (2) That Senator MacGibbon having been duly nominated in accordance with Standing Order 36 AB, be appointed a member of the Committee. [COGNATE DEBATE: CUSTOMS (CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS) REGULATIONS CLASSIFICATION OF PUBLICATIONS ORDINANCE] Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Attorney-General) —Mr President, I understand that it is the agreement of all parties involved in this matter, including Senator Harradine, that the five motions for disallowance of Senator Harradine and Senator Mason be considered as a cognate debate. I make that suggestion to the Senate. The PRESIDENT —Is it the wish of the Senate that that course be followed? There being no objection, it is so ordered. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Attorney-General) —Mr President, on a procedural matter, because this debate may proceed for some time, to ensure that it is not interrupted by the provisions of standing order 127, I move: That Standing Order 127 be suspended to enable the debate on motions listed under Business of the Senate to proceed beyond two hours after the time fixed for the meeting of the Senate. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senator MASON(New South Wales)(10.29) —I move: That the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment), as contained in Statutory Rules 1983 No. 331 and made under the Customs Act 1901, be disallowed. The Australian Democrats' object in seeking the disallowance of these two regulations and an Australian Capital Territory ordinance is to permit a re- examination of the whole issue of the widespread sale and hiring in Australia of film and videotape material of a violent, sadistic and cruel nature, often also with sexual elements, and which also is gratuitous; in other words, if there is no reason for that material to be included because of the plot or storyline of that particular videotape, but that violence, sadism or cruelty is being portrayed purely for its own sake. It is important to establish at this stage, certainly not for honourable senators, but for anybody in the public who may be listening to this, that a great deal of law is delegated. In other words, the Government is empowered by certain legislation to make other regulations and ordinances as it wishes. Those matters are not debated and voted on in this House or the other place; such regulations and ordinances are merely brought down. Either House of the Parliament subsequently can look at them and decide what it wants to do about them. In most cases, because of the volume and routine nature of this material, it passes through without being disturbed. All of those ordinances and regulations are subject to a sanction by either House of the Parliament, and very properly so since it is a major concession to the Government of the day that it can use this mechanism in the democratic process. Hence a majority vote of this House can disallow a regulation or ordinance. My object is to seek a disallowance by that means. Since I first raised this matter publicly some three weeks ago very many representations have been made to me from a large variety of people and organisations. The overall weight of such representations has been, almost without exception, to express alarm at the prospect of this kind of extreme material becoming prospectively available even if it is given an X rating. It is important to establish, and perhaps we should establish it again and again in this debate, that we are talking about video tapes that go beyond showing explicit sex to showing cruelty, violence and sadism with sexual association. Such material typically uses the humiliation, the degradation and even the torture of women as its central theme. The three motions I will be moving seek to disallow the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) as contained in Statutory Rules 1983 No. 331, the Customs (Cinematograph Films) Regulations (Amendment) as contained in Statutory Rule 1983 No. 332, and the Classification of Publications Ordinance 1983 as contained in Australian Capital Territory Ordinance No. 59 of 1983. I shall speak first to the ordinance, which the Australian Democrats regard as inadequate in two basic and important areas. The first of those areas is, I think, more important than the second. The Australian Democrats believe that the censorship of all video tapes and discs should be mandatory, not voluntary. The ordinance that deals with that matter is a very important one because it has been used as a model by all States. Therefore it is proposed that it will have application throughout the Commonwealth. I think it already has application in some States. The governments of New South Wales and Victoria already are examining the extent to which they should censor this material. I understand a meeting of State Attorneys-General and the Federal Attorney- General (Senator Gareth Evans) is to be held on Friday of this week, during which a complete review will be conducted of this whole question. The Australian Democrats support such a review. The fact that we have not deferred bringing forward the motions of which I have given notice is indicative of our desire that this debate be held to ascertain the views of the Senate before that meeting takes place on Friday. That is a very important point of principle to be established. I am well aware of the gravity of the action of the Senate in obstructing these regulations into which a great deal of work has gone. In some respects-indeed, possibly one could say in most respects-they are perfectly satisfactory and are an improvement on those already in existence. However, I believe that the Senate must look at them and, if possible, ensure that the community view on them is accommodated. The Senate should examine whether the Government might not have gone further on a point of principle, which is a very respectable course to take, than it might otherwise have done. I shall deal later with this important point of principle, namely, whether one should censor to the extent that would prevent people from having the right to see what they like in the privacy of their own homes. In substance my view is that it is perfectly acceptable that people have that right provided that the exercise of individual freedom does not impinge upon the common good. Of course, that is a fundamental and basic point of common law. It would be extremely naive of anybody to suggest that in this one area of X rated video tapes there should be unfettered and untrammelled freedom where there may be evidence that there is harm to the community. In all other areas of law-one could cite the traffic laws as a prime example; we are not allowed to go out and drive our cars at 120 kilometres an hour anywhere-we give up that freedom voluntarily because it is for the common good. That is the basic point of principle which I commend to honourable senators in trying to obtain their support for this motion. The Ordinance is inadequate in that first particular that censorship is mandatory. We think that it expresses a degree of trust in the industry and the importers of these things which is bordering dangerously on the naive. We believe that if it were known that this material were subject to mandatory censorship and classification there would be much less incentive to try to get it into the country and sell it through established video outlets. Some of this material is of appalling nature. I repeat that we are talking of very extreme violence, sadism and degradation of human beings. I do not think that anybody in the Senate would argue that there is any virtue in this material other than the basic virtue, the view that if people want to do something, if possible, they should. The Ordinance also has another inadequacy in section 25. A difference is set down between the definition of an R-rated or X-rated film and the definition of a film which must be refused classification. We think that section should be tightened up considerably. When I say film, I should say that film within these regulations does include video tapes. Again, I think they are the main point at issue. The Ordinance compels the censor to allow distribution of material under an R or X rating which, to quote the actual terms of the Ordinance, 'deals with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in a manner that is likely to cause offence to a reasonable adult person'. I stress those last words 'offence to a reasonable adult person' because the Ordinance goes on to say that the censors are authorised to refuse even X classifications to video tapes which deal-then similar words appear-with sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a manner- the words here are slightly different- that it offends against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adult persons . . . I do not believe any real difference has been given. To contrast that with what is likely to cause offence to a reasonable adult person I suggest that this presents the classifiers with an impossible task in the community interests to try to make a distinction in that kind of area. The Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) forbids entry into Australia of material which gratuitously depicts extreme violence or cruelty, especially when combined with a sexual element. The point here is: How wide do we intend to make the mesh of the net? We think that the net of the mesh is far too wide. We do not regard the regulation as a minor point. I believe it is a basic point of the most crucial importance. On this single word hinges whether or not we will allow into this country a flood of material which, in fact is gratuitous material and is, to a demonstrable extent, violent and cruel, has sexual associations but is in no way extreme. At this point I wish to examine the meaning and consequence of the word 'extreme'. Extreme is not, after all, any kind of grey area. Extreme is the worst possible thing one can get. That is what extreme means. If we look at this in its purest element it means that if one can produce a piece of videotape which is in some way worse than one wants to import, even on a minor particular- one has to produce only one and say 'That is extreme; ours is not extreme because that is further out than ours'-the censors are compelled to allow that material to come in under an X classification and on that basis it would come into the shops, be distributed and sold. This matter may well come up later for debate. I hope it does. But anybody who considered any definition of 'extreme' as different from that is deluding himself. That is what 'extreme' means. That is the word used in the regulation. We would like to see that word 'extreme' removed when these regulations are finally brought back since we can see no reason for a regulation which in effect states that it is acceptable to import and distribute into Australia material which is to demonstrable extent gratuitously violent and cruel with sexual associations. I am sure that the regulation was not intended to be that way but that is its purport. It depends a great deal on the word 'extreme'. If that is removed, the regulation becomes completely different in its purport. It becomes a very different kettle of fish altogether. On that basis, of course, it would be perfectly proper for the Attorney-General to bring back to the Senate whenever he wished the regulations with that word removed. He would then bring in something substantially different from what had been done before, even though it involved only a single word. That single word determines entirely the scope of entry into this country of the material which the regulation is intended to control. On that basis I see no reason for any kind of problem. As far as the ordinance is concerned also, to make the censorship mandatory rather than voluntary is such a substantial change that the Attorney should have no difficulty in bringing it back in, resubmitting it to the Senate and putting it through the normal processes for a new regulation or ordinance. On that basis I hope that the Attorney-General will not stand up later and say that this will ruin things because nothing can happen for six months under the terms of Standing Orders. We will not accept that. Senator Gareth Evans —Why do you not move for the deletion of that one word rather than disallowance of the whole ordinance? Senator MASON —I take the Attorney's interjection. I think I made that point plain at the beginning of what I was saying. As I understand it, this is the view on this side of the House, and the view communicated to us by so many members of the public. We believe our view ought to be communicated to the meeting which is to be held this week, to the Attorney-General and to the Government so that it can be looked at. I have made the point that there is nothing to prevent the Government bringing in another regulation. There is no reason for any delay provided those points are met. If the Government is not prepared to meet those points, the point of view being pushed from this side of the House must be maintained. I turn to the Customs (Cinematograph Films) Regulations (Amendment) which exempts from classification any videos imported into this country for private use. I must stress that the earlier one was concerned with those for hire, sale or distribution to the public generally. In this regulation there is a reliance entirely on the ordinances of individual States for the classification of private videos. As the only ordinance which exists and which covers this classification is the Australian Capital Territory ordinance, that with which we are now concerned, which we are debating and saying is not satisfactory, this exemption has obviously been made prematurely. While no mechanism exists for classifying films in an individual State or Territory, classification should be mandatory at the point of entry of the film into the country. To go from those technical points to what I might call the philosophical background to this, which I think is important, the Australian Democrats strongly support the principle of minimum censorship. I make that absolutely plain. We believe that there is no right for people to come in and change the habits of what people do in private, provided there is no harm to other people or to the community. That is the issue that is very strongly at point. Of course , I agree that it is a controversial area, defining what might or might not be good for the community. It is a grey area. I suggest to the Attorney and the Government that, because of that alone, they should regard the Senate attitude towards these two regulations and any ordinance with some consideration. This is a matter on which the consensus of this House would eventually have to be arrived at. I am not attempting to canvass or predict the vote of the Senate, but let us assume that these are disallowed today. I suggest to the Attorney and the Government that if they were brought back there would still need to be an area of discussion, perhaps of compromise, on the form that the new ones would take in order to be acceptable to the majority of the Senate. I would like to use a sort of reductio ad absurdum argument at this point-one that I hinted at earlier. It would be absurd for even the most ardent civil libertarian to suggest that we ought to be able to drive on whatever side of the road we prefer. We could not just go out and drive on the right hand side of the road if we wanted because we believed in civil liberties. It is a matter of civil liberties. We have restricted our liberties by introducing a law to drive on a certain side of the road. The argument could be put that, for many centuries, road traffic proceeded how it liked, and it was obligatory for people to get out of the road of other people. However, we all not recognise that it is a matter of habit that we do not do those things. We limit our freedoms in many respects when it is in the common good. As I said, it would be similarly naive to advocate that any and all pornographic material should be available to adults in our society and apparently exempt that area, for no reason, from the general principles of the rule of law that apply in other areas. Even the Government, of course, has not gone that far in these regulations. Sometimes one hears people who take virtually a nihilist view that there should be absolutely no restrictions on liberties whatsoever. That is absolute nonsense in any community of human beings . It is nonsense even in a family situation. It is nonsense when one human being and another are at the same place at the same time. My next task in this matter is to persuade the Senate that as these regulations and the ordinance stand at present they allow for a harmful effect. The first point to be considered is that the combined audio visual media has a very potent effect on the entire society. I think a case can be made for the fact that the effect of the audio visual media is far stronger than the effect of the print media and far more difficult to control. One of the reasons for this is that people cannot read books, certainly books of any sophistication, until they reach a reasonable age and are able to form some judgment. However, even very small children can watch television and be influenced by it. There has been considerable research into the fact that when exposed, very young children perhaps even inadvertently, to some kind of material which is deleterious to them, find the effects of this audio visual material very strong. It is also much more difficult to control. People might be looking at a video tape on their television and would not even know that a child had entered the room. There are probably people in this society, though probably not many, who have this sort of material in their homes and are indifferent about whether their children watch it. I would not negate that situation occurring either. The effects of the dangers and the enormous impact of the audio visual media must be recognised and legislated for. A principal effect of the audio visual media is that it has hardened the community to suffering. It is interesting that, in our research on this, we found that when our earliest silent movie, the Story of the Kelly Gang, was first shown in 1906 in Australia, the audience was so horrified by the scenes of violence such as shooting-it was merely a pop from a gun and somebody falling on his back-that some people in the audience fainted. I think they then had a very proper appreciation of the significance of what was happening. There was the depiction of somebody being killed. That instinct in 1906 was a very real, proper, genuine and human instinct. What has happened now? We have been hardened to the extent that every day we see things on our television screens and in films where violence, dead bodies and injuries are shown. In fact, society has become almost blase about violence. We must recognise that this is a dangerous trend. It must be recognised, whether it can be proven or not, that it has an effect on the crime rates. I can remember in my childhood-I think most honourable senators would recollect this- that a child could wander around his or her home town without much fear. That is no longer the case in our society. In fact, parents are terrified of what happens to their children and are worried about their children being away from their homes for even a few hours. School girls in Sydney were held up and dragged into a black van and raped. That is not uncommon. That situation would have been inconceivable in the past. Where did these ideas come from? I think that that is something which society has now got to ask itself. I think we in this place have to take the responsibility in that area. To a large extent we accept that we have come, as a society, to accept that level of violence. We have accepted the level of violence that occurs on our roads. Violent death which occurs on our roads has become acceptable. I have spoken to television journalists about stations showing films which depict road violence. It is terribly hard to find film that is bad enough or that shows bad enough injuries to impress people. That is a terrible indictment of any society that that has to be said. We see so much of the starving, diseased, hopeless children in Third World countries that our outrage and horror at the sight is lessened and consequently we do not feel the same urgency about alleviating their suffering. This has led to the same attitude for the people in our own communities who are suffering, such as the unemployed. This growing indifference to the afflicted and the disadvantaged is certainly not to our credit. We cannot condone the same occurring with our attitude to sexual violence or cruelty. Here, I think, we are hitting on a point which is of the utmost importance to our society. As I said, the enormous majority, 99.9 per cent, of the submissions made to me on this matter over the last three weeks have agreed with that point. Those submissions have come from people who have said to me that they do not agree with censorship and that they hate censorship. However, they have said: 'In this case, you are right'. I think that is the view of this society. This material is freely available even if it is sold in brown paper wrapping, is not advertised and is sold only to adults. Of course it is still freely available. Anybody can get it. If they wanted to show it to a child nothing could stop them. If they wanted to see it themselves nothing would stop them. The possibility exists for some sick person to act out an example of the appalling violence that he saw in the material. I am sure many honourable senators will recall an instance in the United States a few years ago when a gruesome murder bore a remarkable resemblance to the episode of Kojak which had been screened the week before. That is not unique. I agree that this effect cannot be proven; but I do think that it has to be proven. I think the mere fact that it is possible ought to be enough for society to take some heed of it and consider it. Senator Gareth Evans —Would you ban the Beatles because of the Charles Manson murders after listening to Helter Skelter? That is the logic of that kind of approach. Senator MASON —A point was made in one of the newspapers last week about Shakespeare's plays. The Attorney-General can read my reply to that article in this morning's Australian. I will not waste the time of the Senate discussing that matter any more. I think it is ridiculous and, I suggest, not worthy of the Attorney to raise that point in view of the importance of the matters that are at issue in this debate. It is obvious from the Attorney's comments that he is not aware of the degree of concern that exists in the community about this matter. I think he ought to be, since he is the Attorney-General. It is obvious that these video tapes and discs do not merely affect the adults who buy and view them. The victims of the violence inspired by sadistic and cruel pornography are almost always those who are physically weaker in the society. I suggest that the Attorney-General bears that in mind. They are usually women and children; they are the innocent victims. They have a right to be protected against even the possibility of that kind of assault. As I said before, these tapes are almost exclusively degrading and offensive to women. I have had submissions from most of the feminist movements. They are in favour of rescinding the new X rating altogether so that the R-rated movies would again be the most explicit allowed. That may surprise the Attorney, but that is a fact. Adults who buy or hire these videos are not the only ones who are exposed to them. I return to the recent British study which determined that 60 per cent of children had seen a pornographic video tape or disc. Of course, these children did not buy or hire the videos themselves. Most of them were watching tapes bought by their parents which were never intended to be seen by them. Of course, if something of this nature is forbidden to children they will always try to seek it out. That is in the nature of human beings. If they do find and view violently deviant material, what effect will this have on an immature psychological character because that is what a child is? Does anybody in the Senate agree that this is an attractive or desirable influence on the education or future of the next generation? If they disagree with that then they will support this motion. Here I am speaking to Government members as well because I think this is a matter which transcends politics. It is a matter of great community interest. I will be very distressed to see a vote take place on party lines on this matter. If a vote on party lines were taken it would have a very important and significant lesson to carry for the public about what the Government thinks about the sorts of things I have been talking about. Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) A feature article in last Friday's Melbourne Age quoted what was said by Mr Alan Tibbitts, the product manager for a series of X-rated videos. I am depending on that newspaper's account. I do not know of my own knowledge that Mr Tibbitts said these things. But he was quoted by the Age, and as far as I know he has not denied it, as saying that his organisation's first collection of X- rated videos does not include tapes dealing with sexual violence. He is reported as saying: There are cassettes we've looked at with bondage and we've looked at introducing them, but at this stage we're sticking mostly to the heterosexual accepted areas. However, this does not preclude future supplies of these videos including those with a strong element of sexual violence. When asked if in future sexual violence would be included, Mr Tibbitts's answer was quoted as: When it's really been proved to us that there's a market for it . . . as a company the answer is yes . . . We can put out a lovely 'Love Story'-type movie and it does small numbers. We put out a horror-cum-R-rated movie and the figures go through the roof; so if we don't do it somebody else certainly will. He was referring there, of course, to the X-rated material. I am sure everybody here realises that the material we are discussing is not just erotic pornography . On 29 February this year New South Wales parliamentarians were able to see film and video clips of material which was classified as R or X and some of which was refused classification. My colleague in the New South Wales Legislative Council, the Hon. Elizabeth Kirkby, wrote to me the day after this screening, expressing her absolute horror at all the material which was shown. I have raised this matter because she wrote that letter to me. In her letter she said: I cannot attempt to describe the revolting nature of the material demonstrated to us. It is vicious, sado-masochist material showing violence against both men and women . . . . such depictions of cruelty brutality and vicious assault have no merit at any level. As a civilised nation, how can we allow our citizens to be exposed to such material and still condemn the excesses of cruelty and terror in other nations? How can any such material have a place in a society that attempts to condemn and outlaw vicious and cruel behaviour? We cannot prevent such material being manufactured, but we can prevent financial profits to accrue to people who will attempt to import and disseminate such material. Anybody who knows Elizabeth Kirkby would have no hesitation in describing her as an eminently reasonable adult person. She is not easily shocked but it is quite apparent that she was not only shocked but also absolutely horrified by the material shown to the New South Wales parliamentarians. The Chief Commonwealth Film Censor, Mrs Janet Strickland, maintains that one of the scenes of 'really gross physical violence' which was shown could not possibly have been simulated. The thought of people, especially children, being exposed to graphically depicted, well simulated, gross physical violence, especially with a sexual element, is appalling enough; the thought that somebody has actually suffered from that violence is absolutely horrendous. The Attorney- General has said that he does not believe that 'snuff' movies, that is, movies where a person is actually murdered before the camera, exist. I do not think it matters whether or not they do in fact exist; the mere possibility that they may exist and that there are regulations which may encourage their depiction cannot be condoned. An article in the New York Daily News of 7 August 1983 indicates that in the United States of America at least there are those who are sick enough to be prepared to make a 'snuff' film. An article headed 'Two Girls Murdered for '' Snuff'' Film', states: Two teenage girls, who thought they were getting $500.00 to appear in a porno movie, were apparently murdered for a 'snuff'-type film. Their skeletons were found on March 3, 1983, 7 months after their disappearance. No bail-arrest warrants were issued for Fred Berre Douglas 55 and Richard Hernandez 38 both of Garden Grove, California. One of the suspects had already been sentenced for planning a torture film. Investigators seized more than 100 pictures allegedly taken by Douglas. Detective Larry Johnson said of the victims: Beth Jones 19 and Margaret Kruger 16: 'They were just two girls who didn't have jobs and needed money'. It is obvious, I am sure, that the regulations and the ordinance that we are now considering are inadequate. I hope that the Government will agree to make the changes. I hope that the Government will see some sense and reason in the fact that we have brought forward the motion. I think that subsequent speakers will do that. I commend the motion to the Senate. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Elstob) —I call the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Senator Durack —Before I commence to speak on this matter, Mr Acting Deputy President, I understood that we were having a cognate debate on five motions. At this stage only a motion in the name of Senator Mason has been moved. I think that all the motions should be moved before the cognate debate takes place. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —The debate can take place only on the first motion. At the moment it is a cognate- Senator Durack —That is exactly what I am saying. We should have all the motions before us. Senator Gareth Evans —It is competent for the Senate, by leave presumably, to have all the motions debated together. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —All the motions can be debated together but the votes will be taken separately. The motion before the Chair is that the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) be disallowed. Senator Durack —I do not mind, but if Senator Harradine wants to speak to put his motion down I think he ought to be called. Senator Gareth Evans —On the point of order, Mr Acting Deputy President, I would support Senator Durack's suggestion in this respect. I think it would be helpful to call all of us if we had the full range of issues articulated and in particular if Senator Harradine were to speak at this stage. I would hope it might be possible by leave, if it cannot be accommodated any other way, to have all the motions formally moved at this stage rather than just the first of them, even though, of course, it would be the case that any vote that might be put would be on each of them in turn rather than together. (Quorum formed) The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —I will rule on the points of order that were raised by Senator Durack and the Attorney-General. I am not prepared to have several motions before the Chair simultaneously. It is perfectly appropriate for senators in speaking on Senator Mason's motion to foreshadow subsequent motions which will be dealt with in their turn as they arise. The only matter before the Chair is the motion by Senator Mason that the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) be disallowed. I call Senator Harradine. Senator HARRADINE(Tasmania)(11.03) —This week is a very important week for the health, sanity and happiness of Australia. We have before us a motion to disallow a package which has been devised after discussions between the Federal Attorney-General (Senator Gareth Evans) and his State counterparts in response to the video problem in particular and objectionable publications in general. The community has suddenly become alarmed that the video boom is out of control. The purveyors of pornography and violence are exploiting the boom and making their millions at the expense of the community. I do not have time to give the details of these millions, but they are available. The whole issue now is fairly and squarely before the Federal Parliament. The Mahony Review of Customs Administration and Procedures in New South Wales has identified where the rot set in. I draw the attention of the Senate to pages 99 to 105 of the report of Mr Mahony in his review of Customs administration procedures in New South Wales. I seek leave to have the appropriate pages incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The pages read as follows- 5.56 The Attorney-General has administrative responsibility for this regulation which provides: ''4A. (1) This regulation applies to goods that, whether of their own nature or having regard to any literary or other work or matter that is embodied, recorded or reproduced in, or can be reproduced from, the goods- (a) are blasphemous, indecent or obscene; or (b) unduly emphasize matters of sex, horror, violence or crime, or are likely to encourage depravity, and to advertising matter related to such goods. (2) The importation of goods to which this regulation applies is prohibited unless a permission, in writing, to import the goods has, after the Attorney- General has obtained a report from the person or persons for the time being authorized by the Attorney-General to give such a report for the purposes of this regulation, been granted by the Attorney-General. (2A) The Attorney-General may, by writing under his hand, after consultation with the Ministers of State of the States with responsibility for censorship, authorize a person or persons to give reports for the purposes of this regulation. (3) A permission under this regulation shall be subject to such conditions imposing requirements or prohibitions on the person to whom the permission is granted with respect to the custody, use, reproduction, disposal or destruction of the goods, or with respect to accounting for the goods, as the Attorney- General thinks necessary to ensure that the goods are not used otherwise than for the purpose for which he grants the permission.'' 5.57 On 15 June 1973, the Department of Customs and Excise issued a memorandum which set out the policy and procedures to be followed in relation to the operation of regulation 4A. ''LITERATURE CENSORSHIP The operation of the arrangements contained in memorandum of 21/3/73 and previous memoranda have been reviewed in consultation with officers of the Attorney-General's Department. This review has been undertaken having particular regard to the practical experience gained in implementing the Government's announced policy in relation to censorship, viz; * it shall be a person's right to be free to read or view whatever he may wish, and * persons (and those in their care) be not exposed to unsolicited material offensive to them. It is visualised that the Government's policy will eventually be implemented by controls at the point of sale and display. These controls will probably be complemented by strengthened legislation in relation to matter which may be despatched through the post. In short the Customs role in censorship matters will, in the future, progressively diminish. However, until such time as the necessary legislation has been introduced which will enable the policy to be implemented along the lines mentioned above, there remains a need to retain Regulation 4A of the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations in order that the second component of the policy can be given legal effect. For the time being at least, Customs resources engaged in screening imported goods should be primarily concerned with the detection of prohibited imports other than material which offends Regulation 4A. However, Customs will continue to seize privately imported pornography: * if it comes to notice because a passenger blatantly but unsuccessfully attempts to conceal it; * if it is deliberately brought to the attention of an officer; * if it comes to notice in the course of examination for other Customs purposes; and * if imported by first class mail, the material is known before examination to be unsolicited. For the time being there are to be no prosecutions under the Customs Act for offences involving pornography. Where seizures are made the importer is to be acquainted with the provisions of Sections 205/7 of the Customs Act. Where, because of a seizure, an importer questions the implementation of the Government's censorship policy he is to be informed- * the full implementation of that policy must await changes in legislation, and * while the Regulation 4A provisions exist they cannot be ignored by officers of this Department.'' 5.58 Successive responsible Ministers since 1973 have agreed that their Government's policy was that it was an individual's right to be free to read or view whatever he might wish provided that other individuals were not exposed to unsolicited material offensive to them. 5.59 As to the manner in which regulation 4A is applied at present, the Collector said: ''The general approach that Customs officers have worked on is based on instructions we have received that it is the Government's intention that people should be able to read, see and hear as they wish and if an individual coming through the airport had in his possession a small quantity of goods that may be subject to the provisions of that regulation the likelihood would be that those goods would not be detained from that person. If, on the other hand, a person came in with substantial quantities of goods that we believed may be subject to the provisions of regulation 4A the practice should be that those goods would be referred to the censorship office for determination as to their classification under regulation 4A provisions.'' 5.60 Submissions were received from the Chief Censor, Film Censorship Board and from the Australian Festival of Light and Community Standards Organisation ( Queensland). The ACOA and the COA commented on the operation of this regulation. Mr A. Watson, Honorary Secretary of the Council for Civil Liberties in NSW made an oral submission. 5.61 The Chief Censor was critical of standards of Customs control procedures relating to importations of films and videotapes and their movement and storage prior to either registration or rejection by the Board established under the Customs (Cinematograph Films) Regulations. 5.62 Regulations 11 and 12 of those regulations prohibit the delivery of films from Customs control until registered or, in the case of related advertising matter, passed by the Board. Regulation 13 provides that films shall not be registered if they are: (a) blasphemous, indecent or obscene; (b) likely to be injurious to morality or to encourage or incite to crime; (c) likely to be offensive to the people of a friendly nation or to the people of a part of the Queen's dominions; or (d) depict any matter, the exhibition of which is undesirable in the public interest. 5.63 The Chief Censor stressed the need for all films and videotapes, regardless of quantity to remain under Customs control until censorship formalities have been completed. It was stated that movement of these goods on continuing permission under section 40AA inhibited desirable levels of Customs checks and eroded controls generally. There was a perceived need to improve Customs supervision of these transactions to ensure that goods are not released by Customs prior to registration by the Film Censorship Board. 5.64 In his response, the Collector stated: (a) current section 40AA arrangements for delivery of films and videotapes for commercial purposes were introduced in 1975 following a practice which relies on obligations placed on an importer who avails himself of concessions granted under the provisions of the Act in relation to storage and control of goods; (b) there were only two incidents in recent years referred to Customs by the Film Censor's Office which suggested breaches of screening; (c) for this reason and because the goods were generally free of duty, follow- up of these controls attracted a low Customs priority; (d) the control procedures were introduced in 1975 in consultation with the Chief Censor's Office; and (e) general censorship policy and controls are presently under review by Customs Central Office and the Attorney-General's Department. 5.65 Submissions from the Australian Festival of Light and Community Standards Organisation (Queensland) drew comparison between regulation 4A which the organisation described as 'clear and precise' and the current policies of non- enforcement of these provisions by Customs. The submissions sought from this Review a recommendation that regulation 4A as it applies to prohibition of importation of indecent or obscene goods be again enforced using the definitions of 'indecent' and 'obscene' in the decision of the High court in Crowe v. Graham and Others (41 A.L.J.R. 408). 5.66 In response, the Collector stated that: (a) Customs application of regulation 4A is in accordance with instructions issued nationally following a Ministerial direction in 1973 that resources engaged in screening imported goods should be primarily concerned with the detention of prohibited goods other than material subject to regulation 4A; (b) conflict between legislation and departmental instructions was highlighted in a report by a Task Force enquiry into allegations about the Customs Service in New South Wales in March 1981; and (c) discussions between the Attorney-General's Department and Customs Central Office are in progress with a view to putting to Government, options for legislative and/or procedural amendments in relation to regulation 4A. 5.67 I have concluded that I should not make the recommendation sought by this organisation on the grounds that the regulation applies nationally whereas the Review is concerned primarily with Customs administration and procedures in N.S. W., and that the subject matter of the regulation is for Government to determine . 5.68 The ACOA submitted: (a) if the application of regulation 4A is to be changed, the legislation should be amended to give effect to that change; (b) if there is to be a direction about how a law is to be applied, the direction should be a matter of public record so that the public understands that there has been a direction. 5.69 The COA which was critical of the administration of regulation 4A, made a number of submissions including: (a) '. . . the law of the land, as enacted by Parliament, is ignored by bureaucrats on the grounds that pornography is too hot for governments to handle . Customs officers are forced to contend with this spurious situation, despite the findings of the Task Force and undertakings that the conflict between the law and government policy would be resolved. Huge profits made by persons trading in pornography are used to finance smuggling of drugs.' (b) '. . . there are issues for instance on the regulation 4A material which are not clear and, if we are going to vigorously pursue Customs regulations, breaches of them, I think the exceptions need to be identified.' (c) '. . . nor does there seem to be anything done about people who have child pornography in their possession, if it is a small quantity. I think it is suggested . . . that we currently have a practice that we are using and quite honestly there is no practice that we really are aware of that is being used consistently.' 5.70 The COA submitted further that officers are not clearly directed that they will not be pursuing matters of pornography and that if an officer had an hour to spare a short jaunt around Sydney would disclose plenty of opportunities for him to investigate illegal importations of pornography. 5.71 The COA expressed disappointment that the Chief Film Censor did not appear at a public hearing so that the COA could raise issues. 5.72 Mr Watson of the Council for Civil Liberties submitted: (a) the Council supported the view that there should not be a conflict between regulation 4A and a direction that it should not be enforced in the case of material for personal consumption; (b) the conflict should be resolved clearly in favour of the status quo practice rather than in favour of enforcing the existing regulation; (c) if regulation 4A is to stand rather than the existing practice, the regulation is not efficient, and it cannot be impartially applied; (d) Customs officers were not appropriate for the job of making decisions whether material, which may offend against the regulation, should be seized; (e) the initial decision to seize goods under regulation 4A was highly subjective and basically partial on the part of particular Customs officers; (f) where the law falls outside the line of practice and community standards, there is potential for corruption; (g) because of difficulties arising out of differing censorship laws of the State and the Commonwealth, the Customs direction tried to make the role of the Customs officer in relation to regulation 4A feasible, practical and rational in line with community standards while refusing to change the regulation. Clearly the gap should be resolved; (h) the regulation is unenforceable as it now stands because it is so far outside community expectations and standards and the present practice is unfair to Customs officers; and (i) it is inefficient and dangerous for the notion of impartiality to allow the situation to remain in its present form but equally dangerous to revert to the situation that the film censors and others say it should be. 5.73 The Task Force dealt at some length with the problems arising out of regulation 4A and stated: 'The Task Force is of the view that the administrative difficulties caused by the inconsistent policy and treatment of pornography should be remedied by the issue of clear and precise instructions to officers. It is the Task Force's view that the only instruction that could be issued consistently with present legislation is one to the effect that officers should detain any goods coming to their notice which appear to them to fall within the terms of the regulations, for referral to Attorney-General's Department. Discussions currently are underway between senior officers of BACA and the Attorney-General's Department with a view to resolving these problems.' 5.74 The submissions and views mentioned show clearly that neither regulation 4A nor the Customs direction is being administered effectively. The direction placed Customs officers in a difficult position in requiring them to apply a regulation only in the manner provided in the direction when they are expected to deal with passengers and goods according to law. The Attorney-General's Department stated in January 1983 that regulation 4A had been the subject of discussion between officers of that Department and the Department of Industry and Commerce and that action is proceeding. 5.75 In my view it is quite improper that the responsibility place on Customs officers by the direction should continue. I recommend that the conflict between regulation 4A and the Customs direction be resolved without delay. 5.76 From the material made available to me, I doubt whether the arrangements made to move goods subject to regulation 4A under the provisions of section 40AA can be said to be operating effectively. I recommend that: (a) the requirements specified by the Collector under section 40AA (3) should be tailored specifically to cope with the special problems associated with the movement of those goods and that the Chief Film Censor should be consulted before these requirement are determined by the Collector; and (b) the Chief Film Censor should inform the Collector in writing when any breach or suspected breach of the section 40AA requirements is detected. This would ensure that the Collector would be in a position to administer effectively section 40AA in relation to goods subject to regulation 4A. Senator HARRADINE —According to that report, in 1973 the then Attorney-General and Minister for Customs and Excise, Senator Lionel Murphy, issued a ministerial direction tantamount to asking Customs officers to turn a blind eye to blatant breaches of relevant Customs regulations concerning films and prohibited imports . Following up the directive, the Department of Customs and Excise issued a letter dated 15 June 1973. The letter is detailed in the Mahony report and states inter alia: For the time being at least, Customs resources engaged in screening imported goods should be primarily concerned with the detection of prohibited imports other than material which offends Regulation 4A. Then the directive continues: For the time being there are to be no prosecutions under the Customs Act for offences involving pornography. That deliberate direction to breach the law, to turn a blind eye, was at the behest of the then Attorney-General, Senator Lionel Murphy. The result has been that a trickle of pornography, violence and obscenity has now become a flood, and has been aided by advances in technology and copying techniques. Obviously there are problems in preventing obscene and objectionable publications and films from coming into the country, but those problems were exacerbated-indeed further problems were created-by the deliberate instruction of the then Attorney -General to Customs officers to ignore the law. I ask the Senate to bear in mind what the Willett Task Force Report into Allegations about the Customs Service in New South Wales said on this matter. That report on page 23 cited a case involving a Commonwealth driver who offered a bribe to a Customs officer stationed at Sydney. The Customs officer reported the attempted bribe and, after a good deal of toing and froing, concern was expressed. The Willett report stated: Later the DCS advised that there was insufficient evidence to support a prima facie against X-- a businessman who in the first place proffered the bribe- in respect of the attempted bribery and requested that further evidence be supplied before deciding whether there was a prima facie case against X in respect of the importation. Some of that further evidence previously had been in the possession of departmental officers in respect of an unrelated matter-- and here is the point- but it had been returned to one of X's enterprises-- that is, one of the business enterprises- on the understanding that the Department did not prosecute for the importation of pornographic material. The understanding was based on a departmental instruction to that effect. The report goes on to detail problems which have emerged in respect of the direction . That is where the rot set in. Successive Federal Attorneys-General and some State Ministers responsible for controls over the exhibition of films and the advertising, display and sale of all publications and videotapes or discs are also to blame for the mess we are in. Warnings have been given by many well- informed citizens, including the Chief Censor, Mrs Janet Strickland. I refer to a letter written by Mrs Strickland to the Mahony inquiry dated 18 June, 1982. I seek leave to have that letter incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The letter read as follows- FILM CENSORSHIP BOARD ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S DEPARTMENT Telephone 267-2711 7th Floor, Piccadilly Court, 222 Pitt Street, SYDNEY, N.S.W. 2000 In reply please quote No. B80/92 The Secretary, Review of Customs Administration and Procedures, 18 June 1982. G.P.O. Box 3569, SYDNEY, N.S.W. 2000 Dear Sir, Further to my letter of 11 June 1982, I hereby offer the following general comments regarding the importation of films and videotapes with which the Film Censorship Board is vitally concerned. The Customs (Cinematograph Films) Regulations, which are made under the Customs Act, provide for the establishment of the Film Censorship Board. The Regulations provide that films and videotapes shall not be delivered from the control of the Customs until they have been registered by the Board and that they shall not be registered if, in the opinion of the Board, they are:- (a) Blasphemous, indecent or obscene. (b) Likely to be injurious to morality or to encourage or incite to crime. (c) Likely to be offensive to the people of a friendly nation or to the people of a part of the Queen's dominions, or (d) Depict any matter, the exhibition of which is undesirable in the public interest. It is essential that all films and videotapes (regardless of quantity) remain under Customs control until censorship formalities have been completed. Currently, the storage and movement of such goods is allowed under continuing permissions granted by Customs under Section 40AA of the Customs Act-after the Film Censorship Board indicates that it has no objection to such permissions being granted. When these 40AA permissions were introduced, the Bureau of Customs undertook to supervise and carry out physical spot checks to ensure that the provisions of the permissions were being observed. However, it would appear that Customs has been unable to carry out more than a very occasional check and consequently little or no control is exercised over these goods. It is suggested that the movement of films and videotapes, whilst Customs control, could be improved if (i) licensed Customs Agents were directly supervised, and (ii) if all goods delivered to the Film Censorship were sealed with a Customs seal-thereby making it apparent if goods were interfered with. Unfortunately, Customs officers often clear films and videotapes which have not been registered, irrespective of the legal requirement for registration prior to the release of the goods. Although it is realised that many films and videotapes are imported through Parcels Post or in passenger baggage (and are therefore difficult to intercept), on the rare occasions that they are intercepted, it is considered that they should be dealt with by Customs in accordance with the Regulations. I would be pleased to furnish any further information you may require. Yours faithfully, (signed) (Mrs) Janet Strickland, CHIEF CENSOR Senator HARRADINE —In the final paragraph of that letter the Chief Censor, Mrs Janet Strickland, said: Unfortunately, Customs officers often clear films and videotapes which have not been registered, irrespective of the legal requirement for registration prior to release of the goods. Although it is realised that many films and videotapes are imported through Parcels Post or in passenger baggage (and are therefore difficult to intercept), on the rare occasions that they are intercepted, it is considered that they should be dealt with by Customs in accordance with the Regulations. What we will be told by the Attorney-General (Senator Gareth Evans) is that if we disallow these regulations it will be open slather for more and more pornography. Is that not what he will tell us? Will he not tell us that if we disallow this package, it will mean open slather for more and more pornography? Senator Gareth Evans —The flood gates will well and truly open! Senator HARRADINE —That is what he will say to us. The answer is: Why does he not enforce the law as it is? If he does so, we should not be facing the present situation in the Australian Capital Territory or in respect of the importation of much of this material. We already have the Objectionable Publications Ordinance of the Australian Capital Territory. I have the document in my hand. It would enable action to be taken against those who breach the law, those purveyors of hard core pornography and violence in the Australian Capital Territory. This is the law; it is all here. Senator Gareth Evans —No point of sale; not one. Senator HARRADINE —It is all here. The only reason it is not enforced is that the Attorney-General will not approve of charges being laid under the legislation. He can say that there is no point of sale specifically in here, but that is not the essential problem. Senator Gareth Evans —It is unworkable. Senator HARRADINE —It is unworkable only because the Attorney-General does not ensure its enforcement. The Customs (Cinematograph Films) Regulation and the Customs (Prohibitive Imports) Regulations are unworkable only because the Attorney-General says they are, and because the Attorney-General of the day, namely Senator Lionel Murphy, told Customs officers to ignore the regulations. That is the only reason and it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The legislation seeks, and what we are here to discuss is to entrench the viewpoint that was used by the then Attorney-General to undermine the law. What was that viewpoint? It was expressed by the then Senator Murphy in the Senate Hansard of 8 March 1973, at page 266, as follows: . . . adults shall be entitled to read, hear and view what they wish in private or in public, and persons and those in their care shall not be exposed to unsolicited material which is offensive to them. Now the two parts of that proposition are mutually contradictory. There may have been some cause for concern at the time as to the strictness of the interpretation of the Customs regulations. It may well be-although I cannot concede that this is possible-that Senator Murphy did not foresee the explosion in the video scene. But how can anyone now say that that proposition is valid today? If one does as is proposed in the Ordinance, that is to say, institutionalise the importation, production and sale of hard core pornography, how can one say how one will control that? How is one going to honour what the latter part of that proposition says, that is to say, that persons and those in their care should not be exposed to unsolicited material which is offensive to them? Let me tell honourable senators what Mrs Janet Strickland, the Chief Censor, said to a meeting of the National Council of Women of New South Wales in Sydney in June last year. The report states: Mrs . . . Strickland, the chief censor with the Film Censorship Board, expressed concern at the accessibility to children of undesirable video tapes. Mrs Strickland said that under the present system, the Board does not classify videotapes for hire or sale. They are not required to be classified unless exhibited in public. 'Defining ''public exhibition'' is somewhat of a problem, as technological advances have raced ahead of legislative change', she said. The video tape revolution is undoubtedly an exciting technical phenomenon, and one which greatly expands the individual's range of educational and entertainment choices. 'However, like all revolutions it has potentially destructive and negative aspects which, until recently, have not been given serious consideration. 'It is anticipated that within the next couple of years, 70 per cent of Australian homes will own a videotape recorder. 'Videotapes can be bought from a variety of outlets, including newsagents, supermarkets and even delicatessens. 'Video libraries are becoming big business. 'Anybody, of any age, can buy or hire a videotape-providing they can pay'. This is something that people ought to understand: 'Unlike books, videotapes are usually viewed in a communal situation-among family and friends. 'Sections of the tape can be freeze-framed, played in slow motion or double time, and screened dozens of times. 'The playback facility on cassette recorders is simple to operate, and there can be few children over the age of 10 who are incapable of mastering it. 'Moreover, because a videotape is a physical entity, it may lie on a shelf or in a cupboard for a considerable period of time to be discovered one day by a growing child whose presence was unforeseen when the videotape was acquired. 'The legitimate tastes of adults may run to material which, on reflection, they would prefer their children not to see. 'But the problem of controlling a child's access to adult video is a continuing one. 'For that reason parents have a right to expect the clearest possible warning of material which may be damaging to children, and the education of adults in this new age of electronic information may come to seem just as important as the education of children. 'I would emphasise that our greatest concern is to protect children from possible harm, as well as to ensure that women are not portrayed as easily accessible and exciting objects of sexual violence. 'We are concerned that women and children do not become the innocent victims of the video revolution' . . . That is a statement by Mrs Janet Strickland who, by the way-the Attorney-General knows this, and so do the States Attorneys-General-is concerned that this regulation is not adequate in that it does not provide for compulsory classifications. I will come to that in a moment. So we have had the trickle of obscenity which has now become a flood, aided and abetted by the advances in technology and copying techniques. Warnings, such as Mrs Strickland's, have been issued time and time again. At last on 13 July last year the Federal and State Attorneys-General met in Brisbane and decided on a package proposal for new controls. It was not a unanimous decision. Tasmania and Queensland have in certain ways reserved their decisions. Tasmania would not agree to a situation which would not include a compulsory classification system. The proposed controls that are now before us from the Attorney-General, allegedly with the unanimous support-which is not so-of the States, reflects the naive Murphy view which was repeated by Senator Gareth Evans, who claimed that the Australian Labor Party was elected to government with a commitment to that policy. It certainly was not. Nowhere in Bob Hawke's policy speech is there any statement which says what Murphy said and what was then the view and policy of the Labor Party. It may well be that part of it is in the platform, but certainly the Government was not elected with that mandate. To provide a model for the States to follow, Senator Evans has now tabled this package, which is the Classification of Publications Ordinance for the Australian Capital Territory; amendments to the Customs regulations concerning films and prohibited imports-namely, the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) and the Customs (Cinematograph Films) Regulations ( Amendment). Let me say quite deliberately that amongst other things an analysis of this package will do these things: By introducing a new X rating the package will institutionalise the importation, production and trafficking in hard core pornography. Let us not have any doubt about that. It also makes the Attorney- General, through his appointees and through his right to approve or not of prosecutions, the arbiter of public morals in the Australian Capital Territory. It naively relies on the voluntary co-operation of merchants in the business by not insisting on compulsory classifications. It allows imported video tapes or discs for non-commercial use to be no longer subject to compulsory registration by the Film Censorship Board. Finally, it entrenches in the Classification of Publications Ordinance the very words of the Murphy view which been the cause of the problems we face today. It institutionalises the importation, production and trafficking of hard core pornography. The new X rating has been established and honourable senators will be aware of what types of material go into that new rating. Not one senator here would say that that material is not obscene-not one . Not one senator would say that the material to be classified as X rated is not degrading and dehumanising. Not one senator would say that to a certain extent it is not calculated to make out womanhood as an object and in certain cases as being in bondage to other human beings. I have the details here of the classifications made since the ordinance came in . Do not forget that it has been in since 1 February. They contain the list of films given an X rating, some of which of course include bondage. This is where I take a different tack from what Senator Mason said. The deletion of the word ' extreme' will not fix the problem at all. This document indicates that since 1 February no fewer than 171 films have been given the X rating. No film has been refused classification by the Film Censorship Board. One need only go through the reasons for the X ratings, which involve in the main matters of sex which are 'frequent, high and gratuitous'-and, as I said, in some cases involving bondage. I wonder where the Office of Youth Affairs and the Office of the Status of Women are. What are they doing about it? I am conscious of the fact that there is a real concern amongst people with whom I do not share a great many views, such as the radical feminists. I understand that they do have a concern, though from a different point of view from me. Their point of view is that all men consider that women should be their slaves in any event, and this is just a manifestation of that in society. My concern is that to a certain extent it is the manifestation of those who engage in the production, distribution and sale of this material and it ought to be wiped out. It should not exist. One of the problems is that these regulations and the ordinance do not cover the production of this material in Australia or go to that particular problem in the Australian Capital Territory. If consideration were given to creating offences for the making of this sort of film obscenity, we might go some way towards solving this matter. As my time has nearly expired, I come to another aspect of classifications. Nothing in these regulations gives the ordinary public the right to say what they think ought to go in the other classifications-for instance, what ought to go into the G or unrestricted classification, the PG, the M or the R classifications. This is a matter of concern to me because the document I have shows that a number of films classified M, as being suitable for persons over the age of 15 years, ought not to be. I, as a parent, have to ask myself whether this legislation, these regulations and the ordinance before us, would give sufficient protection to my children. They would not, and I believe that no parent would say they would. Because of technological advances, particularly videos, we have the situation where persons are invited to parties and after a couple of hours this sort of material is shown, unsolicited. Another aspect is that frequently PG video tapes are hired by parents, they sit down with their families and half way through there is a trailer for an R video. This is one of the real problems that many people complain about, and that problem can be overcome only by amendments to this legislation or by a new ordinance to cover it. I ask the Attorney-General to address his mind to that problem as well. Senator Gareth Evans —I am doing so on Friday, Senator, if you don't disallow them. Senator HARRADINE —The Attorney might end up doing so on Friday but he has not done it yet. Senator Gareth Evans —The answer is that it cannot be done; as a practical matter you have to rely on good comment. Senator HARRADINE —Of course it can be done, and I will tell the Attorney how to do it. However, I cannot do it now, in half a minute. The fact is that it is not enough. The Federal Government has a responsibility to enforce existing laws and then enact the further measures needed to protect Australians from this attack on society as a whole. Senator DURACK(Western Australia)(11.34) —The Senate is debating a motion to disallow the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) and the Customs (Cinematograph Films) Regulations (Amendment), made under the Customs Act, and also to disallow the Australian Capital Territory Classification of Publications Ordinance. The main subject of the regulations and the ordinance which we have before us is the problem presented by the great upsurge of video material, either video tapes or, in its newer form, video discs; although most people are probably more familiar with video tapes at present. This problem has loomed for some time and has been the subject of a good deal of concern and attention by members of the public as well as by governments in Australia. The State and Federal Ministers responsible for censorship have had the matter under consideration for at least a couple of years. In July last year agreements was thought to have been reached by Federal and State Ministers-- Senator Harradine —It wasn't. Senator DURACK —I said that it was thought to have been reached. This agreement by Federal and State Ministers was to have complimentary Federal and State legislation to govern this material so that throughout Australia there would be a uniform system, uniform laws, and to a large extent uniform administration of those laws. That is not to say that there are not already existing laws in relation to this matter. Under the old Customs film regulations video film was included under the definition of film and had to be registered by the Film Censorship Board before it could be legally imported. What that Board did not have the power to do was to give any classification to video films. It gives a classification to films for public viewing in cinemas. But that power was provided by State legislation. There was no similar State legislation in relation to video material. Senator Harradine —Could it refuse to register? Senator DURACK —Yes. The only power the Board had was to refuse registration. The film thereby became an illegal import. The regulation presented difficulties not so much in its content but in its administration. Senator Harradine dealt at some length with instructions that have been given to Customs officers about this sort of material and I do not propose to say anything more about that. Nevertheless, no matter how assiduous Customs officers may be or are encouraged to be in relation to this sort of material the fact is that it is very easily imported undetected. Once the disc or tape is brought in unlimited copies of it can be made. The material can also be made in Australia, in which case the Federal power relating to prohibition of imports of the material does not apply. Thus it has been felt for some time that the most satisfactory way of coping with this problem is to deal with it at the point of sale or distribution rather than at the point of importation. Senator Harradine —It could have been. They could have stopped the lot. Senator DURACK —I would like to be able to finish my argument. I did not interrupt Senator Harradine. As I was saying, the most satisfactory way is to have State laws and State administration of this matter at the point of sale or distribution. That is not to say that there should not be Federal laws in relation to the matter. There ought to be sound Federal laws prohibiting the importation of such material. The problem is to find the more effective way of administration of those laws. They are more efficiently administered at the point of sale or distribution, or even at the point of possession of such material. We have a problem in out Federal system in that responsibilities are divided between the Commonwealth and States. That is very hard for the public to understand but it is a problem that we in this Parliament have to try to understand when we pass laws in relation to these matters. As I said, in July last year the Federal and State Ministers appeared to have reached an agreement for complementary State and Federal legislation in this matter. I fully support the notion that it is desirable that we should have such complementary Federal and State legislation. In a way I suppose uniformity of legislation throughout Australia may not be so important, although I think it is desirable. In this day and age Australians do not readily accept the notion that the legislation should be different in different States. That is the basis of the classification system for films for public viewing. What is important is that there should be uniform State laws governing the sale and distribution of this material. Again, that does not mean that there are no State laws in existence. There are State laws and depending upon the policies that are pursued by the States or by the police in various States quite successful action has been taken in some States against this sort of material. There are laws in the Australian Capital Territory as well. Let us not look at this matter as though it is a choice of this legislation or nothing. It is simply that this proposed legislation is presented as part and parcel of a new scheme replacing existing laws which have been difficult to administer and about which there is some criticism as to their content. However, the new scheme to which the Attorney-General (Senator Gareth Evans) apparently has agreed has not yet been given effect by any legislature in Australia. The first step in the law-making in this area is by way of the regulations and the ordinance which is before us today. Those regulations were made by the Federal Government on 21 December and they came into effect as regulations and an ordinance on 1 February. But this is the first opportunity that the Parliament has had to express any views in relation to them. I think it is important that the Parliament has this opportunity today in relation to the motion before us to disallow these regulations. The Opposition's view is that disallowance of the regulations and the ordinance is justified. We will support the motion to achieve that purpose, not because we do not believe that there should be complementary Federal and State legislation, but because we believe that the regulations and the ordinance have been made prematurely and that they really should be part and parcel of an Australia-wide scheme. At this stage it looks as though that scheme is in very considerable doubt if not in shambles. It is true that Commonwealth and State Ministers will meet on Friday to review the matter. Perhaps they will come to a better and more effective agreement than they seem to have come to last July. The fact of the matter is that the Attorney-General and the Federal Government have rushed in and passed Federal regulations. The criticism that the Opposition has at this stage is that the Federal Government has rushed in and passed regulations at the Federal level before any complementary State legislation is in place and being effectively administered. The only complementary legislation is in the Australian Capital Territory with its Classification of Publications Ordinance. But in all the States either some interim legislation may have been passed or introduced or no changes have been made to the existing legislation. On 28 March the Attorney-General gave an answer to Senator Childs on this matter , in the course of which he said: That system is now in place in the Australian Capital Territory domestically. It is imminent in Victoria, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, and it is in place in South Australia. It is my understanding that South Australia has in place only interim legislation. In fact, the complementary legislation was rejected by the Upper House of the South Australian Parliament. Senator Gareth Evans —That is not so. Senator DURACK —I understand that to be the case. The Attorney-General went on to say: The system is under active government consideration in New South Wales and Queensland. The attitude of Tasmania is not stated. Perhaps Senator Bjelke-Petersen can tell us what Queensland intends to do in relation to this matter. It is doubtful that Queensland will pass similar legislation. New South Wales is an interesting case because in the course of the New South Wales election campaign, Premier Wran expressed considerable doubts about the way in which this matter would be dealt with. I would think that the participation of New South Wales in such a scheme would be very doubtful indeed. The Attorney-General says that South Australia has passed appropriate legislation. If that is the case, it is the only State that has complementary legislation in place. I do not know whether South Australia has in place any effective administration of that legislation. The Opposition is very concerned at what has happened. The Federal Government has made substantial changes to the laws relating to the importation of this sort of material, resulting in its flooding into the country in much greater volume apparently than has occurred in the past. No State has enacted satisfactory legislation to deal with this situation; there is no State administration to deal with it either. The States have not even agreed that the classification of video tapes will be carried out by the Film Censorship Board. Apparently there is a possibility that the States will go their own way in classifying this material. So the whole situation is a real shambles. When the State and Federal Attorneys-General meet on Friday they should sort out the mess that has arisen, on the one hand, by the excessive zeal on the part of the Federal Government in introducing premature legislation and, on the other hand, by the complete disarray, as far as I can see, caused by the inaction of most of the States in expressing their attitudes and intentions in relation to this scheme. For those reasons alone the Opposition believes that these Federal regulations are premature and should be withdrawn or disallowed. It believes that whatever scheme is finally agreed upon should be introduced at the Federal and State level at the same time. Once the laws are in place, effective administration of those laws will occur. That is not the case at present. Quite honestly, it does not look as though that position will be achieved for some time yet, if ever. I shall now deal with some other concerns that have arisen in relation to the scheme. Although the principle of having complementary State and Federal legislation is a sound one, the scheme seeks to make some major changes in the approach to censorship. One of the scheme's failings is that it does not provide for compulsory classification of this sort of material. Some material is banned completely from importation, and there- fore would not be available for sale or distribution. Material that is not banned from importation is not required to be submitted by the distributors for classification. Regardless of whether one agrees with the system of having an X certificate, material of that sort is not compulsorily classified. The Opposition's view is that that is another major weakness in the scheme and is an aspect that the Attorneys-General should reconsider when they meet on Friday. At present distributors can take their chances under the old laws of obscenity. Once a distributor gets a classification he can use that as a shield against being prosecuted under the censorship laws. If he does not seek a classification the old laws of obscenity apply, and he takes his chances under those laws. It is undesirable that that situation should persist if a new code is to be brought into being. The Attorney -General says that the reason that situation applies is that the Government has not wanted to impose unnecessary administrative requirements and costs because there is no need for films such as Donald Duck and others of that nature to be classified. Senator Gareth Evans —Reducing public expenditure; have you considered that? Senator DURACK —That is a very important aspect that I have considered, but I understand that very little extra cost would be involved. Senator Harradine —It is $145,000. Senator DURACK —Yes, it is peanuts. But the difficulty is, of course, that much of this sort of material that might carry the title 'Donald Duck' is in fact pornographic. Anyway, there is still the desirability of providing guidance to those who buy this material. I think the small public expenditure that would be involved in having compulsory classification would be well justified. No doubt the matters referred to by Senator Mason in his speech will be the subject of further debate today. He dealt with the new Customs regulations that replace those that have been in existence for many years and that provide for the material that is to be banned. Material that is prohibited by these regulations becomes an illegal import. That principle is to be carried through to State legislation so that such material will not be able to be classified and thereby become available for sale or distribution under the scheme. The new regulations change considerably the old rules that have been administered successfully for many years by the Film Censorship Board. The Board has been attuned to changes in community standards. As the High Court has said, in censorship matters, community standards can govern the meaning of words. To some people some words may seem to be old fashioned. The Attorney-General has a great desire at all times to be with it and to change legislation for the sake of change. It is my view that in this case such changes are unnecessary because the old regulations have been administered sensibly and in accordance with the powers that the High Court has said are available. The new regulations have given rise to considerable concern and doubt, and Senator Mason has drawn attention to one of the major concerns. However, other concerns have been expressed about the new regulations. I do not believe for one minute that if Senator Mason's criticism were met by an amendment that would solve the problem. Certainly the sort of amendment that could be adopted by this chamber would not solve the problem because it would simply have the effect of amending a regulation. As I understand it, that is not possible under the Acts Interpretation Act. The regulations say that certain publications are banned. Banned publications include those which, in the opinion of the Attorney-General or a person authorised by him: depict in pictorial form a child, whether engaged in sexual activity or otherwise . . . that is likely to cause offence to a reasonable adult person. Clearly, child pornography is banned. Secondly, publications include those which 'promote, incite or encourage terrorism'. Clearly, such material is banned. Thirdly, banned publications include those which: gratuitously depict in pictorial form extreme violence or cruelty, especially when combined with any sexual element, to the extent they should not be imported ; That is really a muddle, a jumble and a mish-mash if ever there were one. It is quite impossible to understand what the words 'to the extent they should not be imported' mean. It seems to mean that there has to be extreme violence before material which is of a sexually violent nature can be banned. I do not know whether that is the intention. Certainly, sexual violence itself, whether it is extreme or not, should be banned. There needs to be a redrafting of this section to make at least that point perfectly clear. I do not think that it will be perfectly clear by taking out the word 'extreme'. In fact, by taking out the word 'extreme' we will probably ban some material which is violent, but which does not involve sexual violence, is going a lot further than the censorship laws have gone in relation to violence in recent years. Whether one likes it or not, there are a number of violent scenes in films which have R or even M certificates. I do not think this problem can be overcome by taking out the word 'extreme' before 'violence'. I believe the whole section needs to be recast. The section has to emphasise clearly that material which portrays sexual violence in any form should be banned. As I have said, the Senate does not have the power to amend the regulations to do that here and now. The matter will have to be rethought and discussed by the Ministers when they meet on Friday. There are other problems with these regulations. I believe there needs to be more clearly expressed the provision relating to the banning of material which may incite people to take or misuse drugs. I do not think that subject is adequately dealt with. Senator Harradine —But it is already in the current regulations. Senator DURACK —Yes. If these regulations are dissallowed the old regulations will be revived and the Film Censorship Board will retain its powers which it has exercised in a very responsible and sensible manner for many years. The situation will improve if these regulations are disallowed because the Board will be able to make judgments, as I said, in the reasonable way it has in the past in relation to both video material and material for public viewing. There are other matters which could be the subject of discussion, in this debate, and no doubt they will be. When a country has a classification system there is always debate as to what should be given an R rating or an M rating. If a country has an X rating there is debate about what ought to be put in an X rating. The most important question of all is what material will be completely banned. It should be said, in fairness to the new scheme where an X rating is available, that it does not mean there is a completely open slather. As I said, a large amount of material will be banned completely. Much of the material about which people are concerned will never get an X rating, much less an R rating or an M rating. Senator Harradine —There has been none so far. Senator DURACK —I was interested in what the honourable senator said. I have seen material which the Film Censorship Board has said it would ban or has banned. It is clear that if it is left to the Film Censorship Board a great deal of material will be banned. I do not know what will happen in the States. A lot of the material-in fact, most of the material-about which people are worried will not be classified. When I say 'will not be classified', I indicate that if the material escapes the importation net it may still circulate because people may take a chance, under a voluntary scheme of classification, that they will not be caught or successfully prosecuted under the obscenity laws. For all those reasons the Opposition believes these regulations are premature. The regulations require further consideration and amendment. When the Ministers meet on Friday-I do not think they will solve the matter in one meeting-they should proceed to get their own act together before Federal legislation is put in place. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Attorney-General)(12.02) —I welcome the occurrence of this debate. Obviously there has been a significant and mounting degree of public interest in the whole question of censorship. Equally, there has been a lot of misapprehension and misunderstanding about what is involved in the new scheme. There has been misunderstanding about what is happening and a degree of confusion as to the appropriate principles which are being applied and which should be applied. This debate does give us an opportunity-it gives the Government an opportunity-perhaps to untangle some of those misapprehensions and misunderstandings. What I want to do is four things: First of all, to explain the nature of the problem as it was confronted by governments around the country when we sat down to thrash this out last year; secondly, to describe the solution which we agreed to in principle at the meeting of Ministers responsible for censorship last July and to describe the way in which these regulations, which are the subject of disallowance motions today, fit within that total package; thirdly, to respond to some of the particular criticisms that have been made in the course of this debate and the particular proposals for amendment in due course of the regulations in question; and, finally, to express the view that at the conclusion of the debate today we should adjourn the debate rather than put the disallowance motions to a vote so that the views expressed by the Senate today can be taken into account at the ministerial council meeting which is due to be held for the first time in nearly a year this coming Friday and so that I can bring back on behalf of the Government to the Senate, before the expiry of the present disallowance period-there are another 11 parliamentary sitting days within which these motions can be considered-a considered response to the particular criticisms and queries that have been raised here today and can do so in an environment in which we are not hamstrung by the operation, as I will explain, of the Acts Interpretation Act which does, I believe, place a very considerable constraint on getting a rational system into place. I return to the beginning: What was the nature of the problem as we experienced it and as we confronted it when the Ministers from all around the country met last year? I think that the starting point which has been, if not universally accepted certainly accepted by the Australian Labor Party, the Australian Democrats and the Liberals in their stated public policy, and from which principles I would hate to see us retreating here today, is as follows: It is generally accepted that adults should be entitled to read, hear and see what they wish and in public subject to two things: First, adequate provisions to ensure that persons will not be exposed to unsolicited material offensive to them and, second, by adequate provisions to prevent conduct which will exploit or which is detrimental to the interests of children. It is probably fair to say that in addition to those basic principles, which have been articulated by all the major parties and have been generally accepted ever since Senator Chipp made his contributions to the enlightenment of our censorship laws in the late 1960s, there are a couple of additional principles that now weigh heavily and did weigh heavily in our perception of what needed to be done when we discussed this last year. Those two principles are these: The consumer protection principle that as much guidance as possible ought to be given to consumers about what they are buying or hiring in this particular area and, secondly, but a little more difficult to articulate, there is a general view that quite apart from the situation of children there is in principle something extremely offensive, and justifying bans in particular cases, about material which is exploitative in a highly significant way or involves the brutalisation of adults, be they men or women, apart from children. There is a general feeling that there is an additional category of legitimate restraint bearing upon that area. I will come back to that. We were confronting a situation in which Australia has moved out of the Dark Ages of intolerance of the 1960s where generally through the 1970s, censorship had pretty much ceased to be an issue in this country, with a broadly uniform response by legislatures and governments around the country about the way in which the system as it had evolved was being administered. Certainly this was true and has continued to be true so far as written and pictorial material in the form of paper publications are concerned. With some exceptions, there has continued to be a pretty broad consensus about the approach to be adopted in this respect, with the task really remaining only to complete the process of the rationalisation of administration, the clarification of classification standards and, as a further problem, to bring the law and practice into line particularly so far as Customs officers and Customs practice were concerned. Without going into any more detail than that, there was not really seen to be, nor has there been from anything said in the debate so far-I have no doubt Senator Walters and others will want to canvass this area also-any significant problem now with regard to the operation of point of sale controls and classification controls for literature, printed and pictorial matter. Senator Harradine —There are a lot of problems with that. Senator GARETH EVANS —There may be some problems but we think we are close to resolving them in a satisfactory way by the 'Category 1' and 'Category 2' censorship system which I will describe in a moment as being the currently agreed solution. So far as videotapes are concerned, undoubtedly there is a problem, or there was a problem as we perceived it last year and which was acknowledged as such in public debate generally. That problem is of a different order of magnitude. It had become clear by the middle of last year that the pre- existing controls that operate in the kind of legislation which will be restored to life if this disallowance motion is passed here today, governing both the importation of this material and controlling it at point of sale or hire, were in practice not operating as controls at all. Everyone in the governmental arena was saying that it was everyone else's business. Neither the law nor the practical on-the-ground administration was responding. As a result an absolute flood of this material, of varying degrees of salaciousness, unattractiveness and unacceptability, was circulating in the country and rapidly exploding with the rapid explosion in the use of video cassettes. So far as importation was concerned there were notional controls in the pre- existing Regulation 4A of the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations but these were very obviously easy to beat. What we are talking about here is not the delivery to Australia of container loads of taped material, but tapes coming in in ones and twos, often in the luggage of individuals entering the country in the ordinary way as passengers and as a result not subject to any systematic scrutiny by Customs officers, even if they had been so minded to do so for what they would perceive to be personal material. As a result those tapes were then able to be used as master tapes to sire the multiplicity of copies which were then put into distribution networks in Australia. The barrier controls were simply not working under the pre-existing rules, nor are they ever likely to work given the nature of the technology involved in this area. Equally, so far as the compulsory registration of film material coming in was concerned, a system that was essentially designed for films for public screening was also being technically made applicable to films that were solely for home use. But the distributors of the material for home use were simply refusing to submit this kind of material for classification in the knowledge that the Film Censorship Board, armed as it was with its previous powers, without any capacity to certify an X category but simply limited to public distribution criteria, would not be able to allow the material through. Senator Harradine —That is not Janet Strickland's view. Senator GARETH EVANS —Under the existing rules there is no way in which the public exhibition criteria can accommodate X rating, let alone the more extreme categories about which we all agree. As such, if we accept, as the majority of people in this chamber seem to do, the desirability of there being for home use, for private use, for non-public screening an X rated category for the harder material but that which is not out of court completely, we have to acknowledge that the pre-existing import and registration regulations were not good enough to accommodate that practical desire. As a result, the market and the community being what it is, the law was treated, and will no doubt go on being treated if it re-establishes itself as the law, with complete irreverence. Nobody was taking any notice of it. The police forces around the country, which had the further opportunity to apply the law on the ground and using the usual obscenity provisions, were simply not prepared in any jurisdiction to take that step because they acknowledged that community standards and attitudes had changed to the point where people wanted that kind of X rated material to be available for home use. I understand that that is not a universally accepted view and that Senator Walters, Senator Harradine and others, the Festival of Light and, it also seems, the militant ends of the feminist movement, do not accept those sorts of arguments about the legitimacy of even an X-rated category. But, to the extent that most people in the community seem to have accepted that as they have with literature and other pictoral material, we had a community problem that was not being solved by the existing regulations and nor can it be. I do not understand the Australian Democrats to be dissenting from that appreciation of the situation. Equally, so far as the point of sale or hire controls under the pre-existing situation were concerned, there was nothing of the kind in existence anywhere. There was no requirement for separate areas for keeping this material, no requirement for under-the-counter sale and no effective limitations on its sale to minors. We simply had a de facto open slather system operating. It is true that there was the capacity for obscenity laws to be wheeled in and used in a particular case, but in a framework that had not been properly thought through to accommodate the kind of material that was in fact flooding the community. Without going into any more detail, we had a real problem with the necessity for some kind of sensible regulated solution which was put in place in accordance with the criteria that I have identified as being those until now have enjoyed general if not universal acceptance. What then was the solution agreed to by the censorship Ministers? I say 'agreed to' in the knowledge that we had the agreement in principle of those Ministers attending. In some instances it was made clear that this was only an agreement to take the matter back to the governments concerned and that what was said and agreed at that meeting could not be regarded as necessarily binding completely of all the governments concerned. Senator Harradine —When was that? Senator GARETH EVANS —That was the meeting in July last year, following which the scheme was announced. Some governments have continued to reserve their rights on it-Tasmania in particular, as Senator Harradine or Senator Durack said . They had reservations about the compulsory systems concerned. Queensland certainly had all sorts of reservations. But no government, either then or subsequently, has rejected outright the uniform approach that was adopted and agreed to in principle at that time. The process since then has been one of putting in place, inevitably in a gradual and piecemeal fashion, the substance of that agreement. Indeed, that process is working out very well. The meeting that is being held on Friday is to review where we are all at and to thrash out some problems which manifestly still remain. The primary rationale of the agreed solution was this: To acknowledge the difficulty, indeed impossibility, of import controls in relation to this material and to devise a system in which the real controls operated effectively at the point of sale using only the import powers to deal with or to exclude, in those circumstances where it was detected, which it is acknowledged would not be all that often, the really extreme and utterly unconscionable material. So what we had was agreement to the amendment of the two import regulations now before the Senate. The system of regulation of film material is to be confined in future to films for public screening. It has always been the case that there needs to be a compulsory classification of this material. So be it; that will continue. But everything else-video tapes and all other forms of publications- was to be treated in the same way, essentially, in principle at the Customs barrier. The material was to be allowed in on the assumption that the real controls would operate domestically and the only controls that would operate at the barrier were those three basic categories of really extreme and unconscionable material which has been referred to in debate; namely, child pornography, material which incites to terrorism or material which comes into the third category about which there is this controversy and about which I will say something more in a moment-that is, gratuitously depicting extreme violence or cruelty, particularly in circumstances involving a sexual element. In relation to the domestic package of legislation, it was agreed that there ought to be a nationally uniform classification system with the Commonwealth running that system through its departmental officers in relation to literature with some regional or State variations as has always been the case and, in relation to video material, the Film Censorship Board doing the classification according to, so far as possible, nationally agreed uniform classification standards with the further element in the package being that each State would legislate to establish appropriate point of sale controls for each category of material; namely, no controls at all for the unrestricted material, with a system of controls governing sale to minors and non-access to public display and so on, with those controls increasing as we move up through the scale with, finally, a category of refused classification altogether which would be the subject of prosecution under obscenity laws if material which was refused classification was nonetheless put on sale or hired out. So far as legislation was concerned, the categories established for literature were to be four-fold: Unrestricted, Category 1-which is Australian Playboy type of material-Category 2, which is hard core material manifestly unacceptable to many Australians and of a kind which certainly ought not to be on public display or sold to minors but which, nonetheless, ought not to be, under these principles, restricted altogether; and, finally, the category of material Refused Classification, which would essentially be back to our descriptions of child pornography, terrorism and other really extreme material of that kind, although with a rather looser catch-all definition so far as literature is concerned. Senator Mason —You can change all of that. Senator GARETH EVANS —I will use the expression 'unconscionable' rather than ' extreme' in order to convey the flavour of what I am saying. I am really indicating what the nature of the solution was and what the agreement of Ministers has been. The agreement in relation to videos was essentially to adopt legislation in each jurisdiction with the Commonwealth, through the Australian Capital Territory, leading the way in conjunction with South Australia, whose views are already well advanced in this respect, and that the system of classification for video material would go through the different categories from category G, to PG-or parental guidance-to M, to R, which roughly corresponds with the cinema classifications with which we are all familiar, with the additional categorisation of X for the harder core material which is roughly equivalent to Category 2 in relation to literature. That would apply to material that would never be certified for public screening under existing ground rules but which arguably is appropriate in the privacy of people's own homes if they wish to see it. The final category would then be the 'refused' category, which takes us back to child pornography, terrorism and other utterly unconscionable material in some residual third category, particularly that involving overt violence and brutalisation of a kind which is simply unacceptable. That is the scheme as it has been adopted. The classification were to be voluntary rather than compulsory. That has been much misunderstood around the place. I still believe that the voluntary system is a workable one on the basis, as Senator Durack, I think, described it, that if the material, be it literature or videos, is classified and it is given a classification, be it Category 2 or R or X as the case may be, then the distributor of that material is immune from prosecution under obscenity laws. Senator Chipp —For the record, do you mind defining 'voluntary'? Senator GARETH EVANS —It is voluntary in the sense that a person would not be subject to a penalty if he did not submit the material for classification and if it is found in his shop without the appropriate stamp on it. It is voluntary in the sense that there is no obligation upon that person. However, the idea as it would operate in practice is that there would be a massive incentive to classify that material which is at the hard end of the spectrum and within the potential zone of prosecution for obscenity. If it is classified and it gets an R or an X or, in the case of literature, it gets a category 2 classification, one is immune from prosecution. If it is submitted for classification and it is refused a classification because it is in that end zone of impossibly unconscionable material and one then put it on display, then one is exposed to prosecution. Senator Mason —Do you not see a massive incentive there not to submit? Senator GARETH EVANS —That has not been the experience so far. However, let met come quickly to the point: To the extent that people do not submit their material for classification and put stuff on display which perhaps would be classified as X but they have not gone through the process, they are still exposing themselves to the risk of prosecution. That was the scheme. I emphasise what it is about in order that it be understood that this is not some sort of totally light weight attempt to avoid really doing anything serious about the enforcement of this law on the ground. The intention was to have the law being enforced and operating very effectively on the ground. It was just the belief that it was not necessary for every video tape or every piece of literature to be classified, particularly the stuff at the general exhibition end of the scale , in order to impose the kind of controls which people thought, understandably, were necessary. It just was not necessary to classify everything in order to secure the result of the material not being put on display at the hard end of the scale. There has been a lot of debate in South Australia and in every other jurisdiction since that decision was made last July. Neville Wran and others have made it clear that they believe that perhaps something more rigorous than that needs to be done, not only from the point of view of satisfying a community demand for the appearance of action, rather than just the fact of action, but also with a view to giving-this is a perfectly understandable proposition-better consumer guidance to parents at the lower end of the scale as well. The argument is that consumers, parents in particular, want guidance between the G and the parental guidance, PG category, and the M category which would not be the sort of thing likely- Senator Harradine —What about the trailers? Senator GARETH EVANS —The question of trailers can be accommodated better under a compulsory system as well. I readily acknowledge that. With all those thoughts in mind-the desire for better consumer guidance, and the desire to be seen to be operating effectively against the harder core end of the spectrum even if in practice it would not make much difference-I think there has been a move since last July towards the compulsory system. I undertake to take to the ministerial council meeting on Friday what I perceive to be the clear majority view of this Senate in favour of a compulsory classification system. I think, probably, that is now the majority view among the States. Certainly, having looked at the question myself much more carefully and thought of the ways in which the compulsory system might operate, I see a number of advantages in it which I was less persuaded about in the middle of last year. So on that basis I simply indicate that that is the way I think the debate is going, that is the way the legislation I think is likely to be amended as part of a national scheme. I am not in a position to give any firm undertaking about that now because it is something that I need to discuss and debate with my fellow Ministers on Friday. But I give that signal. Let me respond to some of the other matters that have been raised in argument and are clearly giving rise to concern. I have responded already to the compulsory versus voluntary argument and I think there is little more I can say about that. Let me, however, say something about Senator Mason's and the Australian Democrats' desire to remove the expression 'extreme' from Customs regulation 4A. I make it clear at the outset that I share, and I am sure everyone in this chamber would share, that distaste which Senator Mason has expressed towards that gratuitous peculiarly nasty mindless form of violence which has become quite endemic in the context of video tapes and clearly, in the context of video tapes, is of much greater impact than similar sorts of things being depicted in pictorial form in magazines ever was. Anyone who has seen films, as I have, at the Film Censorship Board's office like Maniac, Texas Chain Saw Massacre or some of these other bits of nastiness could find no redeeming social virtue in that material and, indeed, there are all sorts of reasons for supposing that no community could tolerate the circulation of that material in any form. So I make it clear that I am with those who acknowledge the existence of a category of material which is brutalising and without any redeeming social justification. I have no doubt that such a category-- Senator Mason —'Gratuitous' in a word. Senator GARETH EVANS —More than gratuitous because gratuitous violence can occur in a context where it is fleeting, insubstantial-- Senator Harradine —How does that fit with your view about seeing and reading what you like? Senator GARETH EVANS —If the honourable senator were listening very carefully to what I was saying instead of just drafting his next contribution to this debate he would have heard me say that seeing and reading what one likes has traditionally, in the views of the parties, been qualified by two principles-one , non-exposure involuntarily to material that one finds offensive and, secondly, a concern about exploitation of children. I said that in addition to that there were two further considerations which clearly were being, although not addressed in the parties' policies, taken into account and which I acknowledge the force of. One of those extra things was the consumer protection concept and the second one was this notion of an unconscionable category of exploitative material which is not directed against children but against adults but which is no less impossible to accept for that reason. Senator Harradine —How did the X rated fit in? Senator GARETH EVANS —I am coming to that in a moment, if the honourable senator will allow me to, because that is his argument. I am dealing at the moment with the way in which the description of material which should be refused classification should be addressed. What Senator Mason says is that the word ' extreme' should come out of the formula that appears in Customs regulation 4A so that it simply talks in terms of violence rather than extreme violence. So the regulation would be worded something like: 'Gratuitously depict in pictorial forms violence or cruelty, especially when combined with any sexual element to the extent that the material should not be imported'. I do not see any particular difficulty about accepting that. If the concept of 'extremeness' is thought to be pushing the matter too far and that there ought to be a greater room for the exercise of discretion in a particular case in this area, I acknowledge the force of that proposition. I appreciate the weight of the views that have been expressed. I have discussed this with the Customs people who have to administer this regulation. It is generally accepted that the word 'extreme' does not add anything significant to the flavour that is sought to be addressed here and may indeed take something away from it. I give a clear undertaking to the Senate that I will post haste secure an amendment of the regulation in order to accommodate that concern. Senator Chipp —Post haste? Senator GARETH EVANS —There may be other better ways of expressing it. One formula that has been suggested-- Senator Mason —Can you get that up today or tomorrow? Senator GARETH EVANS —I think that is possible. I would prefer to wait until the meeting on Friday if it is possible because there may be some better formula. I am certainly prepared to do it by tomorrow if that is the price of buying the honourable senator's lousy vote, with respect. But there is a more rational and adult way in which we can approach this. I take into account the sort of thing that was said by Senator Durack. It may be that there is a better way of expressing the whole formula rather than just removing one word to better get at what Senator Mason and I are concerned to get at. An example is the formula suggested by Janet Strickland which she puts in the following terms: Detailed and gratuitous depictions of acts of significant cruelty; explicit depictions of sexual violence against non-consenting persons. It may be that that kind of language gets at better what we are all about than the existing formula with the removal of the word 'extreme'. I would like just a little more opportunity to consider what the appropriate form of words might be. But I certainly undertake that if the existing formula were maintained we would move quickly to remove from it the word 'extreme'. In the two minutes available to me I did want to say something more-- Senator Chipp —I will move an extension for you. Senator GARETH EVANS —Well, I would appreciate that. Senator Mason —Would you clarify that point, Minister? Something could be done about it today or tomorrow perhaps. Senator GARETH EVANS —Well, I am happy to do it by tomorrow as an interim solution to the extent that it can logistically be done to get rid of the word ' extreme', but I would have thought it was in all our interests to allow the matter to be debated on Friday and have the matter before the Senate-- Senator Walters —This is really to secure a lousy vote. Senator Durack —You will do anything for the Democrats but not for us. Senator GARETH EVANS —I will come to reasons why we should not disallow these motions later on. Senator Walters —This is real sincerity! Senator GARETH EVANS —This is the legislative process at work, as sordid as Senator Walters may find it from her position on the back bench. Regrettably, that is what it is all about and that is what we ought to acknowledge. Senator Chipp —What is wrong with what he has done? He is being reasonable. Senator GARETH EVANS —I am trying to accommodate the concern which I understand because I am familiar with that category of material which I believe ought not to be acceptable in any system of classification. I am trying to get agreement about the best way of expressing that and to indicate the way in which I am prepared to move. I hope on further thought and perhaps further discussion outside this chamber we can get some understanding about that. (Extension of time granted) I thank honourable senators, and I will do my best not to go on for longer than is strictly necessary. I do not think there is any more I can usefully say about the word 'extreme' in that particular formula. What I do want to say something about, however, is the more sweeping objection that has been expressed by Senator Harradine, and no doubt will be expressed by Senator Walters and others, not just to that material which is in the refused classification category but to the whole concept of X ratings of material. As I understand it, there is a very real concern about the X ratings as such and the concept of simply what might be described as hard core pornography. Let us leave out hard core pornography plus violence or that very unconscionable form of violence that we have just been discussing and concentrate on simply hard sexual material of a kind that would not traditionally be allowed to be screened publicly in cinemas and ask ourselves what is the justification for allowing this material to be circulated for viewing by adults in the privacy of their homes and not banned outright as it traditionally has been. Senator Harradine —Objectionable material. Senator GARETH EVANS —Objectionable material which is beyond the traditional R limits so far as cinema classifications are concerned. Senator Harradine —By definition of 'objectionable publication' in your ordinance. Senator GARETH EVANS —I accept that. It is material which most people in the community may well find revolting, distasteful, vulgar or unacceptable for one reason or another but in respect of which there has been, up until now, a view, certainly so far as literature is concerned, that it ought to be allowed to be purchased and read in the privacy of the home subject to the qualifications we have been talking about. Senator Chipp —But there is no law that forces people to hire something, take it home and then get shocked out of their cotton pickn' minds, is there? Senator GARETH EVANS —There is not, indeed, and that is exactly what we are talking about-the desirability of people being able, in the privacy of their homes, to look at such material however distasteful the rest of us might find that material to be. I think it is important here to appreciate the extent to which personal taste does come into this. The best line in this respect is that quoted by Adele Horin in a splendid article in the National Times last weekend. The article quoted the American feminist writer Ellen Willis to the effect: ' What turns me on is erotic; what turns you on is pornographic'. There has been all too much of that kind of rather sanctimonious distinction being drawn in many of the public debates so far. There is an element of what can only be described as a new puritanism abroad when we have seen a rather unholy alliance of the traditional reactionary viewpoint about censorship combined with a much more recent and much more understandable phenomenon. I refer to those people who are particularly concerned with the status of women and who are particularly anxious to ensure that women are not exploited or treated as objects, to use the terminology of Senator Harradine earlier in this debate. What can be said about that? I think quite a deal. I have not time to say it now, but I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard half a dozen paragraphs from the article by Adele Horin in the National Times. Senator Harradine —I read it but cannot accept it. It was hopeless. Senator GARETH EVANS —You cannot accept incorporation of this article in Hansard ? Senator Harradine —Yes, I can; everybody will then see how ridiculous it is. Senator GARETH EVANS —Let me read a paragraph to capture the flavour of it, in order that the substance of it can be accepted, without my wasting the time of the Senate by reading the whole of it: For many feminists it has been a quick step from loathing what they see on the video to crying out for the censor. The philosophical problem with censorship is that we entrust a few adults to tell the rest of us what we can see or read. It goes on to describe the way in which censorship has traditionally been used in many respects against women in the context of information about contraception , and sexual dissidents of various kinds. It points out the philosophical contradictions-this is the traditional libertarian argument-involved in any attempt to ban material simply on the ground that you or I might find that material distasteful or offensive. I seek leave to incorporate the remainder of those few paragraphs in Hansard. Leave granted. The document read as follows- For many feminists it has been a quick step from loathing what they see on the video to crying out for the censor. The philosophical problem with censorship is that we entrust a few adults to tell the rest of us what we can see or read. In the past censorship has been used against women-information about contraception was banned; sexual dissidents-the blighted William Chidley with his mad but harmless ideas and pamphlets was hounded to his death; and free thinkers. Only two years ago our current chief censor Janet Strickland banned the brilliant Brazilian film Pixote, a ruling later overturned. (Now film festivals, attended by the well-to-do, are exempted from normal censorship procedures.) If films which women find offensive are banned, should not films which Jews or blacks find offensive, or which practising Catholics or animal lovers or pacifists find offensive, be banned also? The Human Rights Commission is already suggesting that writing or uttering a facist remark be an offence, acting on the same dangerous impulse that we punish minorities for what they say, or write, or film, when the measure of a free society is that minorities can think and say what they like. To ban anything that does not show the world as some of us would like it to be- to ban the depiction of women as ''objects and commodities'', or themes of '' sexual subordination'' for example, which figure in much feminist literature, would be to do away with half the trash on television and in the cinemas, and half the sexist newspapers and magazines. Yet no-one seriously advocates this degree of State interference. In the US, where the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees free speech , the Women Against Pornography are more cognisant of the dangers of censorship than their Australian sisters. ''We do not advocate censorship. We respect the First Amendment stricture against imposition of prior restraint on any form of speech,'' their leaflets state. Feminists here concede that banning pornography will not even begin to attack the reasons why so many men hate and oppress women. And they work on many other fronts to end sexism and violence against women. Yet they still appeal, as the puritans have always appealed, to the censor. Most pornography is sexist, yet can be a source of erotic pleasure to men and women. Not all pornography, however, is violent. Some 95 per cent of it, according to Janet Strickland, shows both parties getting sexual pleasure. It is the five per cent, where the woman is unwilling and is brutalised to boot that sickens. To protest that kind of pornography, to raise people's consciousness about sexist sex, to ensure men are punished for assaulting and raping women is one thing. But to define all pornography as the enemy and to ban what adults watch in their homes strikes me as a kneejerk reaction to the perplexing realities of pornography. Senator GARETH EVANS —The other point of view that I think neatly summarises the objections to a particular strand in this debate is that of Anne Brooksbank who, in an issue of Cinema Papers a year or so ago, said: . . . Censorship cuts both ways. If you believe that films should not be made about certain subjects, you must, therefore, believe that the people who are to see them are too stupid or deliberately blind or too ill-informed, to make up their own minds about those films. That's the basis of most male dictatorships over the centuries. I don't think the female version is any more attractive. That is a neat and succinct way of putting a viewpoint that I think sometimes gets lost in this perfectly understandable concern about the way in which pornography of the traditional hard core kind can be regarded as exploitative or degrading in its treatment of women. There are a lot of issues that need to be addressed in any serious debate about the banning outright of that kind of material. What do the feminists or those concerned with the protection of women against this sort of exploitation say about videos and other materials depicting gay sex? What do they say about hard core pornography-95 per cent of it in Janet Strickland's analysis-which demonstrates both partners having a joyous and pleasurable time as distinct from a brutalising or humiliating time so far as one of the partners is concerned? What is one to say about that? Is that material for that reason, because some of us may nonetheless find it distasteful, to be banned outright? What is to be said in response to those who would argue about the therapeutic utility of some of this material? What is to be said to those-I have had some moving correspondence on this topic in the last year or so-who are too ugly, too physically unattractive, or ill, or incapable as a result of paraplegia-inducing accidents, or something of that kind, to be able to enjoy normal sexual relations? What is to be said in response to those people who argue-I wish I could find one or two of the letters, because they are quite moving-about the very real utility to them of this kind of material in living out, perhaps in a fantasy kind of way, experiences which are perhaps available to others of us in the community? What kind of a dictatorship are we seeking to impose in relation to those people? This is, of course, what this X category is all about-material which cannot by its very nature be put on public display because people would be involuntarily exposed to it and many offended by it, material which cannot be sold to children for all sorts of obvious and familiar reasons, but material which is nonetheless of a character that it ought to be available to the community, I would argue and many others would argue, on traditional libertarian grounds and also on the other grounds I have mentioned. That is the kind of argument that needs a lot more debate than we have time for now. Let me finally say a few words as to why I would urge that this debate at the end of the day-I do not want to cut the debate short in any way-should be adjourned rather than be resolved by any number-crunching exercise in disallowance. A whole variety of attitudes, views and particular criticisms have been expressed here today which I believe not only can be taken into account by the Ministers who will be meeting on Friday but also will and should be taken into account. I have already indicated a couple of ways involving the definition of the residual category and the compulsory versus voluntary system aspects of it in which I think there will be real sensitivity to the points of view which have been expressed in this debate. All I ask is that, given that we have 11 further sitting days in which to resolve these disallowance motions before that option becomes unavailable to the Senate, the Senate should give me the opportunity to take back to the ministerial council meeting on Friday the substance of this debate so that I may obtain a reaction from that Ministerial council to the particular matters here raised with a view to my coming back to the Senate, well before the expiry of the 11 sitting days deadline, with proposals for appropriate amendment to this package of regulations. The difficulty is that if the Senate does not allow me to do that, if it insists on disallowing these regulations here today, there are very real practical difficulties about re-introducing, within a reasonable time, the existing package of legislation, even in a significantly modified form. There are two kinds of difficulties. One relates to Senate standing order 133 which prohibits a further regulation coming forward which is substantially the same as that which has been disallowed. If there is any significant modification at all of the regulations in issue here, there is unlikely to be difficulty among us in the application of that standing order. But that is not the end of the matter. There is a second barrier which is a much more formidable and much more disconcerting one, and that is the barrier posed by section 49 of the Acts Interpretation Act which says that once a regulation has been disallowed it cannot be brought back unless- Senator Chipp —Unless. Senator GARETH EVANS —Yes, unless. I quote: . . . no regulation, being the same in substance as the regulation so disallowed . . . shall be made within 6 months . . . Senator Chipp —Read the 'unless'. Senator Haines —Read the next bit. Senator GARETH EVANS —Yes, unless the Parliament chooses to rescind it, and so on. Senator Haines —Don't just wipe that off. Senator Walters —Come on. Don't try to pull the wool over our eyes. Senator GARETH EVANS —Before honourable senators go down that particular track, may I remind them of the implications of doing so. There are two sorts of problems. One relates to the Customs side and the other to the Australian Capital Territory side. So far as the Australian Capital Territory is concerned one would throw immediately into doubt the status of the 2,000-odd video tapes which have been classified under the existing system and about which there is no dispute, but as to the status of which tapes there may be very real anxiety. The difficulty as I see it is this: There is a problem about the application of section 49 which is a matter not for us to resolve but for the courts to resolve , and so there must be uncertainty. That leaves the only way of securing certainty-for the rescission motion procedure to be here applied; for the Senate , if satisfied about the amendments I am proposing, to move an appropriate rescission motion in relation to the regulations. The difficulty, in turn, about that, as I understand it-unless people have thought this through better than I have been able to do-is whether it would bounce back into life from the original date of application the particular regulations that we are dealing with here and now. What happens if we disallow these regulations today? Senator Harradine —The old ones are revived. Senator GARETH EVANS —The old ones are revived with all their difficulties, and there is no good pretending that they were not giving rise to difficulties. Senator Harradine —Yes, but you did not implement them. Senator GARETH EVANS —Nor would the Customs officers implement them, or be able to implement them, because of their extraordinary vagueness. There are many reasons why the old regulations simply were not workable. But beyond the problem about reinstating unworkable Customs regulations and Australian Capital Territory regulations which totally lack any provision for point of sale control , one also has the problem of throwing into doubt the legal status of a whole number of things which have been done during the currency of the present resolution. If our present motion carries and the regulations now before the Senate are disallowed, what will happen is that the previous law will spring back to life and presumably that which has been done under the existing regulation now before the Senate will be put into some kind of limbo zone. If in a week or two, or three or four weeks' time, the disallowance motion now passed today were in turn to be rescinded, there is a rather fascinating question as to what then happens to the regulations that have been operative since 1 February. I do not think this question has ever been addressed, and I would welcome some advice on it. Would it not honestly be fairer and cleaner all round simply to reserve all the options which are now available to honourable senators until we meet again, when the Senate resumes? Honourable senators will have lost nothing in terms of the status of the existing capacity to disallow. They will have lost nothing in that respect. Senator Mason —We are getting hungry, Gareth. Senator GARETH EVANS —Okay. I put the point as clearly as I can. I am happy to respond to any other interjections, but I just finish on this point: The Government will respond to the concerns which have been expressed. We will take them seriously. We will bring back some amendments which I believe will certainly be enough to satisfy the concerns that have been expressed by the Democrats, whether or not they are enough to satisfy the concerns of everybody else. I believe that is the way to go, to put this matter on hold until then, to leave everybody's options open. If a disallowance motion is passed today not only will all the uncertainty, about what the law is, be created for the interim period, but the uncertainty of those events which have transpired over the past few weeks, since this legislation has been in force, will be thrown into real doubt. That is simply not a rational solution. Debate interrupted. Sitting suspended from 12.47 to 2 p.m. Senator CHANEY —My question is addressed to the Leader of the Government in the Senate in his capacity as both Minister representing the Prime Minister and Minister representing the Minister for Communications. He may have to choose between the two on this occasion because they seem to be in some disagreement. Does the Minister believe that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is running a consistent line against the Hawke Government? Senator BUTTON —No. Senator JONES —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Health. I ask: Are Australian citizens posted overseas by private employers for extended periods on full pay covered by Medicare while they are overseas? If not, are they still required to pay the Medicare levy? Are Australian public servants serving in overseas posts and their families covered by Medicare and do they pay the Medicare levy? Senator GRIMES —The Minister for Health has given me the following brief on this matter. Australian citizens who are posted overseas by private employers for extended periods on full pay are covered by Medicare benefits for the duration of their posting provided that they retain their ties with Australia-for example , ownership of property, the existence of close relatives or children attending school-or that they intend to return to Australia to live at the conclusion of their posting and that they continue to pay Australian income tax on a substantial part of their total taxable income. If any of the above conditions are not met it is probable that they will be judged ineligible for Medicare benefits while overseas because they will no longer be considered to be Australian residents for Medicare purposes. As to payment of the levy, the Australian Taxation Office imposes the levy on Australian residents as defined in the Income Tax Assessment Act. However, if a person is found to be ineligible for Medicare benefits under the Department of Health guidelines, the Minister for Health is empowered to waive obligation to pay the levy in respect of that person. Australian public servants serving in overseas posts and their families normally fulfil the eligibility conditions set out in the answer to the first part of the question; therefore, they are eligible for Medicare benefits. It is understood that the Taxation Office normally regards such people to be Australian residents and therefore liable to pay the levy. It should be noted that Medicare benefits payable overseas to Australian residents cover medical benefits only, according to the New South Wales schedule of benefits. There is no provision for the payment of hospital benefits overseas under the Medicare arrangements. Senator MESSNER —My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Minister for Defence. How widely distributed was the document entitled 'The Strategic Basis of Australia's Defence Policy'? Who authorised its distribution, and have investigations by the Australian Federal Police, the Cabinet Office, or the Department of Defence yet identified any likely source of the leak to the National Times? Senator GARETH EVANS —There was a document of that title-to acknowledge as much of course is not to acknowledge the accuracy of any purported extracts from that document, whether published in the National Times or anywhere else-circulated last year to Cabinet Ministers in the ordinary way, by ordinary safe hand procedures and with no wider distribution than is normal for a document of this kind. I am not able to give the honourable senator any further information as to its distribution but it was confined to the normal distribution list for a defence document that was to be dealt with by the Cabinet foreign affairs and defence committee and by the Cabinet itself. As to the investigations that have taken place about the source of any possible leak of that document, I am able to say that the Prime Minister has authorised a joint investigation by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Federal Police. I do not have to hand any preliminary results as to the efficacy of that inquiry at this stage. Senator MESSNER —I ask a supplementary question, Mr President. I wonder whether the Attorney could help us, then, with the source of the authority for the distribution of the paper to which he referred. Senator GARETH EVANS —I guess the source of authority is the Minister for Defence, but his action would have been in accordance with ordinary Cabinet procedures, in accordance with the Cabinet handbook-a familiar instrument to all recent governments-which governs the distribution of documents of particular classes. Senator Messner —There was no special authority? Senator GARETH EVANS —I have no knowledge of any special authority. In case there is some particular magic associated with the honourable senator's question which I have not fully appreciated, I will ask the Defence Minister whether he has any further comment to make on that particular aspect of the question. Senator ELSTOB —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Health. Is he aware of the recent statement by the Australian Pharmaceutical Society urging the licensing of health food product manufacturers ? What is the Government's response to this proposal and is the Government planning to take any action to regulate the quality and safety control testing of health and herbal supplements and medicines? Senator GRIMES —No, I am afraid I am not aware of the statement by the Australian Pharmaceutical Society urging such controls. I know that in the past the Government has been urged to introduce controls in this area but to my knowledge no action is being taken at the moment. I will refer the matter to the Minister for Health for a proper and detailed answer to Senator Elstob's question. Senator JACK EVANS —My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Minister for Housing. Is he aware of the announcement by the Commonwealth Trading Bank and the Westpac Banking Corporation that they will increase their prime interest rates by a half of one per cent and one per cent respectively from next weekend? Is this an indication that deregulation will lead to a resurgence of higher interest rates later this year? What steps will the Government take to keep home loan interest rates from climbing to even more unacceptable levels than we have at present? Senator Grimes —I think it would be more appropriate if my colleague Senator Walsh, who represents the Treasurer, would answer the question. Senator WALSH —The first part of the question asks whether the Government is aware of the Commonwealth Trading Bank and Westpac announcement. The answer is yes. In fact, I saw it in the Press. I am not sure that it is an indication that deregulation will lead to a resurgence of higher interest rates later in the year. That is very much a matter for judgment. It is not unusual at this time of the year for there to be some upward pressure on interest rates as taxation payments become due. Almost certainly a seasonal factor is involved. It is possible that other factors, relating to the very much higher growth rate which now seems likely to be achieved in the financial year ending June than had earlier been expected, could have an effect. For example, if the most recent expectation of a 10 per cent June 1984 on June 1983 increase in real gross domestic product is achieved, the increase in nominal GDP, given an implicit price deflator of 7 or 8 per cent, would be something between 17 and 18 per cent . The previously planned monetary growth target, again for June 1984 on June 1983, was 12 per cent. If all those figures should actually be realised, clearly there will have to be an increase in velocity of something between five and six per cent. That would be an extraordinarily high increase in velocity and indeed one which some people might argue was a symptom of the credit squeeze. It has always been stated by the Treasurer that the Government's monetary target as stated in the last Budget would be reviewed in light of the economic growth rate and other economic indicators. The economic growth rate is certainly higher than had been anticipated at Budget time. Indeed, there has already been a review of the Government's M3 growth rate target. At the earliest opportunity I will ask the Treasurer whether there are any plans to conduct a further review in view of the now anticipated June-on-June real GDP growth rate being very much higher than had been anticipated in the Budget. Indeed, as far as I am aware it is an all-time record for any 12 months period either as non-farm GDP or as total GDP. Those record growth rates are around 8 per cent and 10 per cent respectively. Senator JACK EVANS —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Will the Minister address the part of the question referring to some protective measures that can be guaranteed to home buyers who are currently moving into an exploding home building market, that within the next six or 12 months there will not be this increase in interest rates which will leave them in a very difficult position? Senator WALSH —I personally do not expect that will happen, but I will pass that request on to the Treasurer for comment and consideration. Senator GILES —My question is addressed to the Minister for Social Security. In view of the allegation by dissident doctors that they object to a requirement to sign an open-ended agreement with the Minister for Health, can the Minister comment on the further allegation contained in a letter to the editor of the West Australian on Tuesday, 3 April that committees of management of hostels for the aged must sign agreements with the Director-General of Social Security, which agreements are also liable to alteration at any time? Senator GRIMES —I have not seen the letter referred to by Senator Giles. I assume the writer refers to agreements which are signed by the operators of aged people 's hostels to enable them to get the new hostel subsidy and the personal care subsidy. Many alterations to those contracts would in fact not be made without consultation with the relevant organisations concerned and with the umbrella body to which most of them belong. Indeed, for the first couple of years of the operation of the new subsidies the Department is waiving and will continue to waive some of the conditions which apply to ensure that in the transitional period when the hostels are changing from the old system of subsidy to the new we do not have hostels having to bear an unnecessary burden. The latest figures I have seen have shown that under the new system the majority of hostels are better off than they were under the old system. We certainly would not, any more than would the Minister for Health, make drastic changes to contracts without consultation with the people concerned. Senator DURACK —My question is directed to the Leader of the Government in the Senate. Does the Government intend to comply with the resolution in the Senate on Friday last calling for a full statement as a matter of urgency on the content of decisions taken concerning the document known as the 'Strategic Basis of Australia's Defence Policy' and the steps taken by the Government to keep the document secure? If so, when will the Government make the statement? If not, why not? Senator BUTTON —I thought that the Senate had already been informed of the action taken in relation to seeing that the document was kept secure and why the appropriate steps were not taken to keep it secure. I thought that information had already been given to the Senate. I will give Senator Durack an answer to the remainder of his question as soon as possible. Senator FOREMAN —I refer the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations to the decision today by the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to grant Australian workers a 4.1 per cent wage rise in line with the consumer price index increase. Will the decision handed down by the Commission lead to a continuation of the low level of industrial disputation in Australia? Will it assist the continuing economic recovery in Australia? Senator BUTTON —The answer to this question has been bandied about in the Senate over a long period; it ultimately devolves to being a question of impression and judgment by the Government and by the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. The Government's view has been stated on numerous occasions in this place. Its support for a centralised wage fixation system based on half-yearly indexation has been gone over again and again. The Government's view is that one of the most important elements in economic recovery is ensuring industrial stability in this country. There have been many complaints about that over the years and they have been very valid in terms of the performance of Australian industry. Thus in answer to the first part of the honourable senator's question, we believe that the decision will lead to a continuation of the low level of industrial disputation in Australia. Industrial disputes in this country were last year at their lowest level for 15 years and the decision handed down by the Commission will lead to a continuation of that situation. It will assist the maintenance of the prices and incomes policy. In relation to the question of whether the decision will help economic recovery , there are different views. I have partly answered it from the Government's view. Of course, there will be complaints about wage increases from particular employers who find the increase difficult to bear, but it is infinitely preferable to the sorts of wage increases that came about in this country in 1981 and 1982 and led to enormous disruption in particular industries and enormous unemployment increases. The Government view is that it will assist in terms of the recovery referred to by the honourable senator. It is very important that the policies of the Government in relation to these matters and indeed the views of the Arbitration Commission should reflect contemporary realities. After all, the half-yearly indexation is a matter for decision by the Arbitration Commission on the basis of arguments put to it. In emphasising the importance of contemporary policies I refer to a view which was put in the Sydney Morning Herald editorial this morning about the Opposition's wages policy . The Sydney Morning Herald makes this point: However, those proposals of which the Opposition seems most proud-the 'radical' provision for individual firms to opt out of the arbitration system, the rejection of 'automatic' full indexation, the legislation to make the Arbitration Commission have greater regard to economic circumstances and so on- are an attempt to deal with the problems of recession. The major problems facing wages policy now are those associated with economic recovery. Judging by its record, economic recovery is not something the Opposition is good at. As the Sydney Morning Herald article points out by implication, the Opposition was expert in the policies of creating recession. In 1984 this country has to be concerned with the policies of economic recovery both in wages and elsewhere. That is what this Government is concerned about. Senator MacGIBBON —My question is to the Attorney-General, representing the Minister for Defence and the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Is the Attorney aware of the statement made by the retiring Chief of Defence Force Staff, Sir Neville McNamara, that he accepts the expert advice given to the Government that the Soviet Union has a margin of superiority in nuclear weapons over the United States of America? Is he aware that two days ago in the House of Representatives Mr Hayden gave a contrary view? Does he agree with Air-Chief Marshal McNamara that Mr Hayden must have been getting advice different from that tendered to the Government to enable him to come to that conclusion? What were Mr Hayden's sources of information? How are they qualitatively better than those available to Australian military and intelligence authorities and, therefore, to the Australian Government? Finally, on whose judgment should the Australian people reply? Senator GARETH EVANS —The Minister for Foreign Affairs, My Hayden, has a well- known capacity to think for himself about these matters, and long may he retain it. Senator Chaney —He needs it; he has not got many mates. Senator GARETH EVANS —I shall leave the hand-jivin', Spyder-drivin' Leader of the Opposition to a later occasion, for those who missed his contribution to radio this morning. The PRESIDENT —Order! I ask the Attorney-General to answer Senator MacGibbon's question. Senator GARETH EVANS —I am not in a position to give Senator MacGibbon any further information on this matter without reference to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I shall do so and give him an answer as soon as possible. Senator PRIMMER —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Finance. When can I expect a reply to my question of 1 November 1983 concerning allegations of a retirement racket involving the former head of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Sir Nicholas Parkinson? Will the Minister inquire whether Sir Nicholas holds a current driver's licence and, if he does, what was the date of his last eye examination? Senator WALSH —In response to the first part of Senator Primmer's question, I cannot tell him the date on which the Minister will provide an answer to his question. I shall contact the Minister for Finance to ascertain whether he will provide an answer and, if so, when. As to whether Sir Nicholas Parkinson holds a current driver's licence and the date on which he had his last eye test, I do not have the faintest idea. I do not think that question falls within the scope of the Minister for Finance, either. Senator HAMER —Is the Minister for Resources and Energy aware that the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Dolan, has accused him of leaking the draft new Australian Labor Party policy on uranium? Did the Minister or anyone acting for him leak the document to the Australian Financial Review? If not, has the Minister been in touch with Mr Dolan to seek an apology? Senator WALSH —Some people might find it hard to believe that Senator Hamer's question is not a Dorothy Dixer, but it is not. I telephoned Mr Dolan yesterday to draw his attention to the fact that he was reported by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as having accused me of leaking a draft document. I told him that I wanted to raise two matters with him: Firstly, I told him that I did not leak it and, secondly, I wanted to know what led him to believe that I had. His answer to the second statement was that a sequence of events led him to believe that I had leaked the document. His response to the first statement-that is, that I had not leaked the document-was that he accepted my assurance that I had not done so. He told me that if he were asked to comment publicly on that matter again-- Senator Chaney —He did not require you to prove the negative; that is your form. Senator WALSH —I cannot prove that I did not leak the document. How could I? The only thing one could prove is that one did leak it, and I am not able to do that either. Senator Peter Rae —Can you not have a leak inquiry and find out who it was? Senator WALSH —I do not regard it as being of sufficient importance. The PRESIDENT —Order! I ask the Minister to answer Senator Hamer's question. Senator WALSH —Mr Dolan said that he accepted my assurance that I had not leaked it, and he said that if he were asked to comment upon it publicly again he would state that I had told him that I had not leaked it and that he accepted my assurance. I do not regard the whole incident as being terribly important. Senator BOLKUS —I refer the Minister for Resources and Energy to a report that appears in today's Age newspaper which states that there is a split between the Minister and his Department on the adequacy of existing methods for disposal of radioactive waste from the nuclear fuel cycle. Is this report an accurate account of the Minister's position and that of his Department? Will the Minister give an assurance that the Australian Government is actively involved in the quest for adequate, safe disposal technology? Senator WALSH —The quotation in the newspaper report to which Senator Bolkus refers is correct. I might add that the submission made by my Department to the Slatyer inquiry is a public document, so there is nothing untoward about a journalist getting a copy of it, reading it or quoting directly from it. However , the conclusions drawn in the newspaper report are not entirely correct. Indeed , I think they are quite incorrect. The preferred technology referred to in the quotation reproduced by Mr Gill in the Age article refers to the technology of vitrification. That is the technology currently preferred by most nations using atomic power. The reference to the length of time required before that technology can be applied is related to the need for the reactor rods to go through the thermal cooling process, and associated with that thermal cooling process is the decay of the shorter lived radioactive isotopes. If those spent fuel rods were stored in large numbers in a fairly concentrated location without having gone through that cooling process, significant dangers could be associated with the resultant heating of the ambient environment. One final point that I should probably make is that an international conference of experts on radioactive waste management was held in Seattle in May last year. That conference concluded that adequate technology exists. The prime task now is the demonstration of that fact by individual countries at specific disposal sites. The conference recognised the importance of non-technological considerations and proper national management of radioactive waste disposal, in particular the political, legal and administrative frameworks of individual countries. I think that is about all I need to say in summary. The quotation published by the Age is correct, but I do not believe that the conclusions it drew from it were correct. Senator PETER RAE —My question is addressed to the Minister for Industry and Commerce. By way of brief introduction I refer to the matter I raised during the adjournment debate on Thursday, 29 March, and the Minister's response on Monday, 2 April, in relation to the lengthy delays in the testing of imported fabrics in Melbourne and the cost of disruption thereby created. I refer also to the Minister's reply that there are in fact two acceptable testing authorities, namely, the Australian Government Analytical laboratories and the laboratory of the Australian Wool Testing Authority. Is it a fact that the Australian Customs Service has decided to accept clearances given in reports of the Australian Wool Testing Authority, subject to section 186 of the Customs Act? Is it not a fact that the Minister misled the Senate in claiming that test reports of the Australian Wool Testing Authority will be accepted by Melbourne Customs? Is it not a fact also that the Melbourne branch of the Australian Customs Service is refusing to accept the reports of the Australian Wool Testing Authority? Will the Minister take action to rectify this blatant rejection of head office directions to Customs? Will he give a commitment not to mislead the Senate in future? Senator BUTTON —I do not propose to give any commitment about allegations of that kind. We can come to that in the course of debate if Senator Rae wants to. The purpose of the honourable senator's question was to see whether the procedures which I understand are practised by Melbourne Customs conform with the view expressed by Customs officers at the Federal level. The honourable senator will recall that in my answer to him on Monday I dealt with a question which had been put to me the previous Thursday evening, I think, and supplied some detailed information, including the information that on 22 February Customs had written to the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce, I believe, advising that the Wool Testing Authority would be a suitable tester-if that is the right word-of the materials in question. I am not aware of any qualifications which have been placed on that by Cusoms. I will investigate that matter and I will advise Senator Rae of the answer. I add that it would be my view that the testing of the fabrics in question should be facilitated by the Customs in Melbourne and not obstructed. The PRESIDENT —I draw the attention of honourable senators to the presence in the presidential gallery of a delegation from the Republic of Korea National Assembly led by Mr Pan-Nam Ho. On behalf of honourable senators I issue to the delegation a warm welcome to Australia and to this chamber. I wish it every success in its visit to Australia. Honourable senators-Hear, hear! Senator ROBERTSON —I direct my question to the Minister for Veterans' Affairs. I am very concerned that war veterans and the widows of war veterans, who have given selfless service to their country in times of great national peril, may suffer as a result of the actions of striking doctors. Is the Minister contemplating any steps in order to protect their access to medical treatment, and particularly to treatment for war-caused disabilities? Senator GIETZELT —The question Senator Robertson poses to me does not represent any great problem. Despite the fact that the Department of Veterans' Affairs has nine hospitals, six of which are general repatriation hospitals, there is no dispute involving doctors operating in those hospitals, whether they be members of the salaried staff or specialists in the Department. In other words, the problem that the Minister for Health is having with the doctors, particularly with the specialists in the public hospital system, does not exist in the repatriation system. I think that is to the everlasting credit of the doctors who operate in my area. Since 1979 salaried specialists have had the right of private practice in the repatriation general hospitals. That contract requires them to charge no more than the schedule fee. They accepted that in 1979 and have done so again in 1984, so there is no problem. In the light of that experience, one wonders why the Minister for Health is having such difficulties with specialists and salaried doctors in the public hospital system. It seems clear to me that a significant section of the medical profession is at odds with the industrial position taken by the Australian Medical Association. It is pretty clear that there is a lot of unease in the medical profession about the hard line position that is being taken by the AMA. I give Senator Robertson and the Senate an assurance that entitled veterans and their dependants, war widows and others who receive medical treatment through the repatriation general hospitals, will not suffer as a result of the self-interests of any doctors in the public hospital system who have a conflict with the Minister for Health. Senator KILGARIFF —I direct a question to the Minister representing the Prime Minister. Is it correct that the Prime Minister has written to the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, Mr Paul Everingham, indicating that if the people of Cocos (Keeling) Islands choose on 6 April-that is, in two days time, the day on which they are to decide their future-to integrate with Australia, it is the Federal Government's decision that they will become a part of the Northern Territory? Have the islanders been given an opportunity to indicate with which State or Territory they wish to be integrated? Is it a fact that the people of Cocos (Keeling) Islands have stated that they wish to join with Western Australia, with which they have strong trade and communications links? If there has been no consultation with the Cocos Islanders, and having in mind that the islands are some 3,000 kilometres from the Northern Territory and have no previous association with the Territory, why is it that the Government has chosen to integrate Cocos (Keeling) Islands with the Northern Territory? As this decision has been made against the wishes of the Northern Territory Government, and quite possibly without consultation with the people of Cocos (Keeling) Islands, what then is the future of, say, Christmas Island? Having in mind the Federal Government's current changes in the responsibilities for various islands , is it the Government's intention to return Ashmore and Cartier Islands to the Northern Territory which, prior to gaining responsible self-government in 1978, did include these islands? Senator BUTTON —I am aware that the Prime Minister has written to the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory about this matter, but I am not privy to the Prime Minister's correspondence with the Chief Minister. Accordingly, I am unable to answer all the interrogatories which have been administered to me about the details of that correspondence. Nor am I in a situation in which I can indulge in speculation of the kind 'if this, then that', and I do not propose to do so. I will ask the Prime Minister for more detailed information about his correspondence with the Chief Minister and provide the honourable senator with an answer as soon as possible. Senator COATES —My question is directed to the Leader of the Government in the Senate. Has there been any response yet from the Tasmanian Government to this Government's very reasonable offer to the State as compensation for the Gordon below Franklin Dam, which offer has been well received within the State and even praised by the media? If not, is it expected that such a response will be received soon so that this long running issue can be finalised? Senator BUTTON —I certainly agree with Senator Coates's description about the generosity of the offer made by the Commonwealth Government to the Government of Tasmania. The answer to the question as to whether there has yet been a response is no. I understand there will be a meeting with the Premier of Tasmania on Friday at which, presumably, a response will be articulated. Senator Walters —There is not meant to be a response before then. Mr PRESIDENT —Order! Senator BUTTON —Mr President, Senator Walters is assisting me in answering the question by saying what is meant and what is not meant. The answer is that I believe there will be a response on Friday. The details of that response will then become public and no doubt will be a topic of questions and discussion in the Senate. Senator LAJOVIC —I ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce whether he has seen an advertisement in Monday's Daily Telegraph addressed to the Prime Minister and all Cabinet members. This advertisement has been authorised by a combined delegates committee of the Vickers Cockatoo Dockyard Pty Ltd, Sydney. Amongst other things it states: Given the present workload, Vickers Cockatoo Dockyard will lay off 1,000 workers by 1985 with the first wave of retrenchments commencing on Friday, 6th April, 1984. The advertisement continues: A decision not to build a second ship can only mean that this Labor Government has taken a conscious, bloody-minded decision to close down the Shipbuilding/ Ship Repair Industry in the Port of Sydney and add a few thousand more workers to the already overcrowded dole queues of Australia. The PRESIDENT —Will the honourable senator ask his question? Senator LAJOVIC —I ask the Minister whether he can inform the Senate what action has been taken or is intended to be taken by his Department or the Labor Government to preserve and maintain this industry in Sydney. Senator BUTTON —The Vickers Cockatoo Dockyard is a naval dockyard. Its work is commissioned and performed at the behest of the Department of Defence. Let me come now to the important points in Senator Lajovic's question which concern simply the threat of closure of the Vickers Cockatoo Dockyard, as has been suggested in some quarters, or the threat of redundancies at that dockyard as a result of lack of demand. The lack of demand can occur in two areas. Firstly, it can occur in respect of what is the prime function of the Vickers Cockatoo Dockyard, that is, of building ships for the Royal Australian Navy. Secondly, it can occur if Vickers Cockatoo Dockyard were in a position to attract commercial work as a result of a lack of commercial work. Both those possibilities are a threat to the work load and the work force at the dockyard. In relation to the subject matter of the advertisement, a number of meetings and discussions have taken place under the aegis of the Minister for Defence Support, at which my Department has been represented, with representatives of Vickers Cockatoo and of the work force at Vickers Cockatoo, almost on a week by week basis. Those discussions are continuing. I add that the Government cannot be in a position to make decisions about the building of ships which it may or may not want on the basis of particular demands. If that precedent were carried throughout industry, of course the Government would be building all sorts of things which it may not require in all sorts of industries. That is the situation. I make the general comment with regard to shipbuilding generally in Australia that a report was commissioned by my Department into the shipbuilding industry. A shipbuilding task force was established and the demand for ships in the foreseeable future in Australia is extremely poor. The fact is that Australia has an overcapacity of shipbuilding facilities and very little demand in the foreseeable future. Fortunately the projections of the shipbuilding task force have been somewhat alleviated by two orders from State governments-in New South Wales at Carrington Shipways Pty Ltd in Newcastle and at Australian Shipbuilding Industries (W.A.) Pty Ltd in Western Australia. There have been some orders from the Western Australian shipbuilding industry for trawlers which will be exported to various South East Asian countries. That is some light in terms of the general problems of the shipbuilding industry. The problems of Cockatoo Dockyard are extremely difficult. The advertisement to which the honourable senator referred indicates that. But the Government is in constant discussion with both the company and the unions concerned about that matter. An announcement will be made at an appropriate time. Senator McINTOSH —I direct a question to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations. As the Minister is well aware, there is no compilation on a national basis by the Australian Bureau of Statistics of the number of work days lost due to industrial accidents. Because he will be aware of the difficulties this poses for the development of an effective and coherent national policy on occupational health and safety, does he envisage any moves in the near future to rectify this situation so that the Government may properly arm itself with the necessary statistics to fight against the disastrous effects of industrial accidents in Australia? Senator BUTTON —I am not in a position to envisage any moves that might be made either by the Treasurer or the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations in relation to the compilation of industrial accident statistics on a national basis. I offer the comment that it seems tragic and most unfortunate that after many years there is still no such compilation by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It would seem consistent with the Government's initiatives in relation to the establishment of a health and safety commission that such statistics should be available at a national level. I do not know what steps have been taken in relation to that. I will try to obtain a detailed answer from the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations and the Treasurer who is the Minister responsible for the Bureau of Statistics. Senator BOSWELL —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Transport and refers to the front page story of last Saturday's Brisbane Courier-Mail which stated that the surveillance contracts of two firms are to cease. One of them was responsible for the Great Barrier Reef surveillance using a Nomad aircraft which had a 360-degree radar search. Can the Minister confirm the above? Is it a fact that the Government has done a sweetheart deal with Skywest Airlines Pty Ltd to have it take over the Great Barrier Reef and Northern Territory surveillance? Why was this done without going to public tender? Senator GIETZELT —As I indicated on Monday in reply to a question from Senator Evans, the question of surveillance referred to by Senator Boswell no longer is under the jurisdiction of the Minister for Transport or the Minister for Aviation whom I represent in this place. It now reposes in the Special Minister of State. The specific details would therefore need to be addressed to the Special Minister of State. Senator BOSWELL —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Can I direct that question to the Minister representing the Special Minister for State? The PRESIDENT —Can the Minister representing the Special Minister for State provide the answer? Senator GARETH EVANS —No doubt I would be able to if I had heard the question. I will do my best to respond to Senator Boswell at the conclusion of Question Time . Senator REYNOLDS —Is the Minister for Education and Youth Affairs aware that the education of children in the Torres Strait is the responsibility of the Queensland Department of Aboriginal and Islanders Advancement? Is this situation providing equal opportunity when children are attending state schools supervised by a non-education department? What steps will the Commonwealth Government take to ensure that all Queensland children are eligible to education conducted under the auspices of the appropriate government department? Senator RYAN —I am aware of the educational problems of children living on the Torres Strait Islands. I also believe that those problems stem to a very large extent from the fact, to which Senator Reynolds drew attention in her question, that the education services for the Torres Strait Islands are not under the control of the Queensland Department of Education but of the Department of Aboriginal and Islanders Advancement. What that means is that islander children are the only children in that State who do not have the benefit of a proper educational administration of their educational services. I understand that at present some 14 schools in the Torres Strait are administered by the Queensland Department of Aboriginal and Islanders Advancement. The Commonwealth Government believes that education services are most properly provided by the professional educational authority in the State, which in this case would be the Queensland Department of Education. There are problems. Assessments show that the achievement levels of islander children are low and that the general educational standard falls short of that on the mainland. I think there is a clear link between the quality of teaching, the educational outcomes and the teaching personnel available. I understand that the Queensland Government is at present considering the transfer to the Department of Education of responsibility for education in the islands. We would strongly support such a move. If the Queensland Government fails to bring about such an appropriate administrative re-organisation, I believe that we ought to assess whether we, as the Commonwealth Government, will need to become more directly involved in the educational provisions for these children. We cannot resile from our responsibilities to those children and at this stage we do not believe that their educational needs are being properly met. However, I intend to write shortly to the Queensland Minister for Education, Mr Powell, about this matter. It is also my intention to visit the Torres Strait Islands as soon as time permits so that I can get a first hand assessment of the situation. Senator MASON —My question is directed to the Minister for Resources and Energy. I remind him that in answer to my question without notice last Friday about nuclear reactors, he indicated that a program of centrifuge enrichment of uranium was continuing at Lucas Heights and would continue for the next 12 months. I ask the Minister: What is the reason for the continuation of this program? How much enriched uranium has been produced since the program began? How much is expected to be produced by the time the program finishes? To what extent has that uranium been enriched and to what extent is it expected to be enriched by the time the program finishes? Since increasing the enrichment of uranium is simply a matter of how many times it passes through the centrifuges, is it not a fact that the Lucas Heights facility has the potential to produce weapons grade enriched uranium? Senator WALSH —The reason that the program is being continued is to enable completion of a test bed of centifuges which will be used in a research program, in conjunction with the Australian Safeguards Office, into the application of safeguards techniques to centrifuge equipment. Never at any time has the amount of enriched uranium exceeded one half of a kilogram. Once having been enriched- remembering that this is just a research program not a commercial program-the enriched uranium is then remixed with the residual material and run through a second or third time. The level to which it has been enriched is not beyond 4 1/ 2 per cent which, while somewhat higher if I remember correctly than normal power reactor enrichment levels, is very much lower than the level of enrichment required for weapons or for research reactor rod purposes. Finally, since Australia is a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, all those relevant activities at Lucas Heights are subject to international supervision. The final question asked by Senator Mason related to whether Lucas Heights has the potential to produce highly enriched uranium. The answer is that it is not designed to produce highly enriched uranium. To do so would require that the facility be redesigned or rebuilt. Even if that were done-there is no plan to do it-the highly enriched uranium would only be produced in very small quantities. Senator CROWLEY —My question is directed to the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on the Status of Women. I have received a number of submissions from women concerned about the winding down of the National Women's Advisory Council. Despite my reassurances that the broader consultative mechanism is being set up, their concern persists, or at least their persistence does. Can the Minister say how far the planning has proceeded and when any announcement about the new committee might be forthcoming? Senator RYAN —The planning towards the establishment of the new consultative body is very well advanced. Letters have been sent to a significant number-in excess of 20-of national women's organisations inviting them to submit the names of women who they believe could make an important contribution to this body. When we receive those names we will have to make a decision about the first body, based on considerations of balance of issues, of the ethnic background, geographical spread, of course, which is very important, the differences between country and city women, age and so on. We expect that when we announce the first national women's consultative council we will be announcing a body that will be much more broadly representative than the previous NATWAC was of the interests of women and women's organisations. We will be rotating membership of this body over the years so that different organisations will have an opportunity to make an input in to it. When I finally announce the new body I will make it clear that no organisation will have, of right, a permanent place on the Council but, rather, that there will be opportunities, from time to time, for different organisations to participate. This is a necessary approach because the number of women's organisations which would have members able and willing to participate in the national consultative body is very large. Of course, there are financial and administrative limitations on the size of the council. I am waiting right now for the lists of names to come forward from women's organisations. I expect we will be able to make an announcement shortly. When we do I think that all women' s organisations which are interested in government policy and in making an input into government policy will be reassured that the new consultative arrangements are more extensive and more broad based than the previous ones have been. In conclusion, our decision to broaden the range of views coming to the Government in a consultative capacity through a national women's council is, in no way, a criticism of the women who have served on the NATWAC. On many occasions I have expressed my appreciation of the work of previous advisory councils and, in particular, of the work of individual members and the convenors of those councils. We see this as a development of the work that the NATWAC began but a very practical and constructive development. Senator MISSEN —I refer the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs to recent articles by Mr Robin Osborne relating to political arrests by the Indonesian Government in the province of Irian Jaya and the imprisonment of Melanesian suspects without formal charges or prompt trials. In the light of an answer given by the Minister in response to my question without notice on 13 September 1983 that the Government 'will keep Parliament advised as appropriate' on human rights abuses of the Melanesian population in Irian Jaya, I ask the Minister: Firstly, what information has the Government received from its various diplomatic missions in respect to the arrest two months ago of 30 alleged supports of the Melanesian underground who included the curator of the Condrawasih University's anthropology museum, Mr Arnold Ap? Secondly, will the Australian Government use its good offices with the Indonesian Government to make inquiries about the safety of Mr Ap and his co-detainees and to make every possible effort to ensure that they all receive proper trials or are released without delay? Senator GARETH EVANS —Senator Missen's question is an important one. I do not have a detailed briefing on these matters at the moment. I will draw the matter to the attention of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and get an answer for him as soon as possible. Senator COLEMAN —My question is directed to the Minister for Veterans' Affairs. I refer to recent reports, particularly over the last few days, of incidence of vandalism at the war cemetery at Karakatta in Western Australia. Can the Miniser advise what action he can take to prevent or even to counteract this deplorable behaviour? Senator GIETZELT —I think there have been about six different cases of vandalism in the Perth war cemetery over the past couple of months including three in the last five days. Whilst there has been no substantial damage it is a concern to the Department, the Government and to citizens generally. The damage that has been done may not be regarded as substantial. Nevertheless, such vandalism is to be deprecated and condemned. We are very concerned at reports that are circulating that headstones in the adjacent civil cemetery have been damaged as recently as last Friday evening. Of course, I am particularly anxious, naturally to see that that does not occur in our war cemetery. I have asked the Department to examine appropriate security measures. Following that there have been consultations between the Department of Veterans' Affairs, the Office of the Australian War Graves and the Returned Services League. The Perth police have mounted regular patrols of the cemetery and the surrounding areas. We hope that this will prove to be effective in respect of our areas as well as in respect of the civil cemetery. If not we will be looking at taking more stringent measures to protect such important areas in Perth. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —My question is directed to the Minister for Resources and Energy. I refer to the Minister's reply today on the alleged differences between this Department and him on nuclear waste disposal. I ask: Is there any waste disposal technique other than vitrification in commercial use today? If so , what is it and where is it located? If vitrification is the only method fully developed, is there any other technique fully proven in laboratory research and ready for commercial implementation? Again, if so, what is that technique? Is the Swedish technique, which the Minister has supported, developed beyond the research stage and proven? Is not the vitrification scheme dependent on a long cooling period of up to 30 years in above ground silos? Is it not a further fact that, until the cooling process occurs, the canisters cannot be buried in the ground because of the danger that vitreous materials tend to leach in the presence of heat and water? Does not this fully confirm the submission of his Department? Senator WALSH —Senator Sir John Carrick asked a large number of questions. I am not sure whether I have got them all down. The first question was whether any technique other than vitrification is in commercial use. Strictly speaking, I do not think it is correct to say that vitrification is in commercial use, let alone any other technique, because with all of the known possibilities, to my knowledge it is necessary to have a prolonged period of thermal cooling and substantial- Senator Sir John Carrick —Except synroc, which is proven. Senator WALSH —Except- Senator Sir John Carrick —Mr President, because the Minister has an obvious voice disability I would be very happy to accept a written reply. I think this is a serious subject. To save him any difficulty I suggest that he give me a written reply. The PRESIDENT —I think that is sensible in view of the Minister's disability. Senator BUTTON —At Question Time on 29 March Senator Foreman asked me a question relating to the Community Employment Program in my capacity as Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations. In the course of providing an answer to that question I indicated to Senator Foreman that I may be able to provide an update of the figures provided in relation to South Australia. The figures which I provided on 29 March related to the period until mid-February 1984. I am now able to say that as at 16 March 1984 368 CEP projects were approved in South Australia creating over 2,700 jobs. A total of 903 applications had been received in South Australia to 16 March 1984 involving requests for over $100m of CEP funds and involving also the creation of over 5, 400 jobs. Senator GARETH EVANS —On 27 March Senator Coleman asked me a question about United States nuclear weapons policy. The Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Hayden) has provided the following answer: In relation to the first part of Senator Coleman's question, the Minister notes that whereas the Soviet Union has pledged not to be the first to use nuclear weapons, the 16 Western Governments which constitute the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation alliance, including the United States of America, have pledged not to use any weapons, nuclear or conventional, except in response to an attack. It remains part of NATO's strategy of flexible response, however, to leave open the possibility of using nuclear weapons in response to an overwhelming conventional attack by Warsaw Pact forces so as to deter such an attack. As to the second part of Senator Coleman's question, the Minister notes that the statement which she quoted and indeed other sections of the report to which she referred in her question indicate that United States defence strategy does not envisage a pre-emptive nuclear strike or 'first strike'. Senator KILGARIFF(Northern Territory) —by leave-Last night when I was speaking during the adjournment debate I noted that Senator Gietzelt came into the chamber and spoke to Senator Grimes. I presumed that he was asking whether I had sought permission to table a document. I would suggest that Senator Grimes said yes. This called to my mind what Senator Gietzelt had to say on the previous night, 2 April, when replying to remarks I had made on the adjournment. He said: . . . I suggest that part of the protocol and tradition in this place is that if honourable senators want to incorporate documents-Senator Kilgariff will surely admit that the Minister was pretty tolerant in allowing a number of documents to be incorporated in Hansard-it is customary for those documents to be referred to the Government, with a view to obtaining approval for their incorporation. As the Opposition Deputy Whip, Senator Reid, was not in the building when Senator Gietzelt made that statement I was unable to do anything but to say that I always carry out the protocol of this place and that I had done so on that occasion. I have checked this matter with the Opposition Deputy Whip. As soon as I had stood up to speak the Deputy Whip on this side of the House went to Senator Gietzelt, who was the duty Minister, and showed him the documents that I was going to ask to be incorporated. Yet, three minutes after my request for the incorporation of this material through the hands of the Deputy Whip had met with his approval, he stood up to make the statement that I should refer the documents to him for approval. I would suggest that Senator Gietzelt owes the Senate and me an apology. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —I have received a letter from Senator Chaney proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion, namely: The threat to the independence of the media posed by the Government's absurd over-reaction to any critical comment. I call upon those senators who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places. More than the number of senators required by the Standing Orders having risen in their places- Senator CHANEY(Western Australia-Leader of the Opposition)(3.06) —The Opposition has brought forward this matter of public importance because it believes that we are getting to a serious point with respect to the present Government's reaction to media comment which could not be considered in any way adverse to the Government. What I wish to put before the Senate was, in a sense, encapsulated this morning by yet another brilliant cartoon from Mr Tandberg in which he showed a cheerful Australian Broadcasting Corporation announcer saying: 'And now at great expense to the management' and then turning to the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) and saying 'I will ask the Prime Minister a difficult question'. It has been evident from the reports which have been very widely circulated following the Caucus meeting held by the Australian Labor Party yesterday that the Prime Minister has turned the attention that he has given publicly to the media whenever they have dared to criticise him. He displayed his objection before the Caucus along with other senior members of the Labor Party. It is the belief of the Opposition that this matter is serious and should be brought to broader public attention. I welcome the fact that Senator Button took a different stance at Question Time this afternoon from that which has been reported on the part of some of his senior colleagues. I asked Senator Button whether he believes that the ABC is running a consistent line against the Hawke Government. With admirable economy of words Senator Button replied: 'No'. I believe that there would be few, if any , people in Australia who watch the ABC who believe there is a consistent bias against the Government in the ABC. Indeed, I am sure there would be many people who would regard that suggestion with very cynical amusement. It is all very well to have Senator Button dissociating himself from that sort of remark. The fact is that the most powerful people in this Government-and we all know who calls the shots in the Hawke Government-Mr Hawke and Mr Hayden appear to have been extremely critical of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. I am not one who believes that the media should be free from adverse comment from politicians. People who choose to enter the area of public comment are entitled to be differed with and politicians are entitled to defend themselves. But I think we are entitled to look a little more carefully at statements which are made by the Government with respect to the ABC. Of course, the Corporation, while being an independent body which has its own statute, is a creature which is controlled by a board appointed by the Government. Most importantly, it is a body which is financed by appropriations of this Parliament which can be made only if the Government puts them forward. So in fact we are dealing here with a section of the media which is subject to the ultimate government sanction-that is, the restriction or cutting off of funds. There is a great uniformity in the reports which have flowed out of the Caucus meeting of yesterday. The Age newspaper has Mr Hawke, the Prime Minister, declaring that the ABC should seriously look at itself and hinting that its funding would suffer if it did not improve. We are told that Mr Hawke and the Foreign Minister, Mr Hayden, strongly attacked the ABC at a meeting of the parliamentary Labor Party and that Mr Hayden said it was a second-class organisation compared with the commercial stations. We are also told that the Prime Minister has said that people in the community are asking why we are funding an organisation like this, and that if this sort of feeling builds up it should be reflected in a number of ways. That report in the Age is consistent with what was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian. Some interesting additional comments are reported, with Mr Hawke saying, according to the Australian, 'Freedom of the Press is freedom to lie, I suppose'. We are concerned that in this public attack made by senior members of the Australian Labor Party on the ABC there is a threat to the independence of that extremely important organisation. But it goes beyond the ABC. There is no shortage of people in the present Government who lash out at the media when the media behave in a way they do not like. All sections of the media are subject to some government influence. The Government through the appropriate statutory bodies controls the broadcasting industry. It has considerable powers in this area. Obviously the goodwill of the Government is important whether in the granting of concessions in respect of some of the gambling games that are given government monopoly or in the licencing arrangements. Senator Button —Not by us. Senator CHANEY —No, but I am referring to government generally. Around Australia we have more than our fair share of Labor governments. It would be dishonest and facile to suggest that there are not plenty of opportunities for governments to put pressure on the media, if that is what they wish to do, particularly if governments believe that the media do not have an appropriate role to play in criticising government when they see it as being wrong. I am not referring to some vague concern dreamed up by the Opposition as a point of political attack on the Government. It was interesting that Mr Robert Haupt, who is an independent commentator in newspapers and on television, interpreted what had been released in very much the way I have put forward. Mr Haupt said on television this morning: I think his attack on the ABC was in some ways more menacing. I think Brian Toohey can look after himself, quite frankly. But the Prime Minister specifically raised in the caucus room funding of the ABC. Now the caucus room these days is a semi public forum. The Prime Minister must have known that that was a message to the ABC and a message to every journalist working for it. I don 't think you do that sort of thing lightly. When the Prime Minister raises funding he is browbeating the Australian Broadcasting Commission. I think that is very significant. That is very much in the spirit of the Opposition's concern in this matter but the Government, as the occasional recipient of Press criticism, lashes out and makes threatening noises when some of that criticism comes from the ABC. Indeed, the Government has lashed out in a similar way at other sections of the media. The seriousness of the position is underlined by the political context in which the attack has occurred. It is no secret that the Government, which is led in this place by Senator Button, and led generally by the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, is at an allegedly record level of popularity. We have a government which is not oppressed by the fact that it has slipped in the opinion polls. According to the most recent Morgan polls, it is a government that is recording an approval rate of 57 per cent, and a Prime Minister who is recording approval of 74 per cent. That has been the culmination of a gradual rise in the polls for the Government. Nobody would deny that over the 12 months or so that the Government has been in office it has received a good Press, and by that I mean good, positive coverage from most sections of the media, both print and electronic. One wonders what the response of the Government will be when, as Premier Cain found when his Government slipped some 20 points in a relatively short time, it, too, comes under criticism and when its popularity is at a lower point. I regard this morning's media reports as incredible, yet I believe they occurred for no other reason than the Government's extraordinary positive publicity ever since the election. Probably the present Government has had the most extended media honeymoon in Australia's political history. If this were a one-off problem, if this were the first time this had occurred, one might wonder whether it was some temporary mental aberration on the part of the Prime Minister. But the fact is that Senator Button led the charge in this area when the Government first took office. It was Senator Button who first caused concern in this chamber with his rather loose criticisms of the then chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, Dame Leonie Kramer. Most honourable senators will remember that occasion in May last year, less than a year ago, when Senator Button, no doubt speaking on behalf of the Government, said that it was his regret that the then chairman, Dame Leonie Kramer, had not always adopted the attitude of being without fear or favour. I do not want to traverse all that ground again, but leading the Government in this place is Senator Button, who had a high reputation for his interest in the media. It was thought that he had a great deal of sympathy with the ABC. But we know that over a period of some days when that matter was controversial he maintained the view that prior to the election the ABC had not been without fear or favour with respect to the Labor Party. I doubt whether there was a single impartial political observer who would have agreed with Senator Button on that. Surely it highlights the great danger when politicians choose to make judgments in this area, judgments which could be inimical to the interests of bodies which in the ultimate the Government controls. Senator Button is alleged to be one of the most liberal members of the present Government, yet he was the one who initially challenged the impartiality of Dame Leonie Kramer. One might say what does that matter as all politicians are prone to make the odd loose statement. The Attorney-General, Senator Gareth Evans, says that everybody makes all sorts of strange statements in the privacy of their telephone conversations, and perhaps strange statements are made here in the Senate as well. We all know what happened to Dame Leonie Kramer. She disappeared from view in relation to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Although the Minister for Communications, Mr Duffy, said he would be very surprised if her name did not go forward for consideration for the post, the fact is that that respected woman who was in charge of the Commission was not reappointed when the new corporation was established. I believe there is some message in that. Dame Leonie got her warning through the mouth of Senator Button . I suggest that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has now got its warning through the mouths of Mr Hawke and Mr Hayden. There are many other examples of great sensitivity on the part of members of this Government to the most minor newspaper criticism. Senator Gareth Evans is a man who has a quote for all seasons and for all arguments. I suspect that it would be hard for this place to discuss a motion of public importance without being able to provoke some loose comment from Senator Gareth Evans in support. Most honourable senators will remember the way he has talked about the National Times and a reporter called Mary Ann Wilkinson who dared to expose some of the dirt and trouble that affect this country, and who wrote articles that ultimately had their place in leading to the resignation of Mr Jackson. It was the sort of journalism that once might have been admired by Labor members, by people such as Senator Gareth Evans and Senator Button. But on 30 March in the Senate the Attorney-General talked of the National Times in these terms: 'It would appear that the National Times is as illiterate as it is amoral'. That is a nice illustration of the attitude of members of the present Government to those sections of the media which have dared to give them some criticism. One finds, for example, that Senator Gareth Evans in exactly the same way talked of the Age newspaper in quite deprecatory terms because of its role in daring to publish the tapes which have led to the establishment by the Attorney-General of a police task force and the appointment of a special prosecutor. The Attorney- General's reference to that matter on 28 February was: I think it needs to be said, finally, that the role of the Age newspaper in this whole affair has not been a very proud one, particularly for a paper so prone to suggest its moral and intellectual leadership of the profession of journalism in this country . . . There are plenty of senior members in the present Government, such as the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, the Foreign Minister, Mr Hayden, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Button, and the Attorney-General, showing an extraordinary sensitivity to criticism. It appears they are prepared to put down those sections of the media which dare to criticise the Government. I think that all of this is even stranger when one looks at the reputation which this Government has, and which I think it deservedly has, for a very high degree of media management, because what we have in this Government is a preparedness to tackle things on the basis that the way it will be perceived and dealt with in the media is extremely important. There was a very interesting discussion in the program that I mentioned earlier , the national Today show, with Mr Haupt, about Mr Hawke's management of the media. Again the views of the Opposition on this matter might be suspect. It might be thought that we are simply playing politics, but I do not think even Senator Button is going to get up and suggest that Mr Haupt is playing politics in making his comments and doing other than putting forward an honest opinion on the matters on which he is commenting. Mr Haupt was asked to comment on the fact that the Leader of the Labor Party, the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, had not bothered to go or had not gone to the Victorian and Western Australian annual conferences. The questions were put to him: Was it not normal for Labor leaders to go? Why did Mr Hawke not attend the conference? Mr Haupt said: I think it is a similar thing to why Prime Ministers don't debate Opposition leaders. There was going to be trouble at the conference and I think that Mr Hawke's handlers think that it is best to keep him as far as possible from trouble. The questioner went on to ask what the response would have been to Gough Whitlam behaving in the same way: Is this another example of careful media management? The answer was: Yes . . . Mr Whitlam would have been made to look as though he was on the defensive or running away from trouble. I think that Mr Hawke has got superb media managers. This was not raised as an issue and we seem to have accepted in the media that Mr Hawke is going to be treated differently to the way that his predecessors and particularly the way Mr Fraser was treated. I think it is a very good case of media management. Mr Haupt went on to deal with the matter which I wish to deal with in closing my part of this debate, and that is, why it is important that the media not be browbeaten by the present Government in the way that it is obviously setting out to do, and why it is important that there should be some exposure of why it is that the Government is having the smooth run which it is presently having in a media sense. I do not believe it is because Senator Button, after all his protestations against the previous Government's so-called management of the media through the Government Information Unit, and his Government have chosen to expand that Unit and to spend a great deal more of the taxpayers money on putting out the Government's message. The fact is that we have a government which has chosen to be a government of illusions and broken promises. Quite clearly it wants a compliant media in the lead-up to its planned, unjustified early election which the Prime Minister has been supposedly honest enough to tell us is going to occur probably later this year. What is quite clear is that the election strategy which is being followed by this Government is one of clearing the decks, of deferring hard decisions and simply not coming to grips with any of the issues which a government might be expected to come to grips with. Let us just look at the attitude which has been adopted by the Government with respect to the major matters which might have been the subject of legislation in this place and which might have been the subject of debate and difference in this place as well as in the media. We find that the Government came forward with a proposal for an assets test. That was deferred at the request of the Opposition to give people a chance to make submissions. That assets test has now been put aside, sent off to a committee. I ask the Leader of the Government: Will we get an opportunity really to debate the Government's intentions in this matter before the next election? We had a deal of fuss about the prospect of a change to the taxation of lump sum superannuation payments. I ask him: 'What has happened to the legislation there? When will we get to grips with that issue? Will that be after the next election also? We had the Attorney-General come in here the other day and say: 'The Bill of Rights is something we are putting aside until after the next election. That is something which we simply do not wish to debate in a pre-election atmosphere'. We have had the clear statement from the Prime Minister and the Treasurer (Mr Keating) that they are not going to muddy the pre-election waters with a capital gains tax debate. That is something to be dealt with after the next election. We had a promise from this Government that it was going to legislate nationally for land rights. I invite the Leader of the Government in the Senate to tell us whether there will be national legislation for land rights between now and the next election. I think I know the answer, but I would quite like to hear a government answer. We heard the Attorney-General come in here and postpone the referenda which, although they had a wide degree of support in this Parliament, were clearly going to be strongly opposed by some State parties. That was taken off the agenda because this Government is going to maintain its popularity by doing nothing and it is going to try to have a lead-up to the election in which no one in the media is going to deal with the negative issues which surround this Government. Any section of the media which tries to raise those matters will be subject to vilification and abuse. We have seen it here in the Senate. We know now that it has been going on in the Caucus. We know, of course, that Senator Button's friend Mr Duffy was courageous enough to get up and defend the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and to try to get some balance into that argument. It will be interesting to see whether here, in this more public forum, Senator Button is prepared to show his principles-as I think he tried to do in answering my queston at Question Time today-to show whether he will give some support to the view that the media should remain independent and fearless in the face of a goverment which is petulant, mean- minded and threatening in the face of a very much smaller level of public criticism. Senator BUTTON(Victoria-Minister for Industry and Commerce and Minister Assisting the Minister for Communications)(3.26) —Mr Acting Deputy President, that was a fine piece of rhetoric for a government in exile and, of course, the real sting in the tail is, I suppose, the allegation that the Government is maintaining its popularity by doing nothing. That comes strangely from the lips of the Leader of the Opposition (Senator Chaney). This Government is popular because it has done something. It has restored the economic health of this country after seven years of economic disaster under the Fraser Government. Opposition senators interjecting- Senator BUTTON —Honourable senators opposite can speculate on all those things, but the fact of the matter is that it is popular for that reason. Not only have its major economic decisions been applauded by the electorate, they have been applauded by the Opposition's Deputy Leader in the House of Representatives. Senator Messner —What economic decisions? Senator BUTTON —Many of the decisions made by this Government, such as the floating of the dollar-something which the Opposition did not have the guts to do-have been applauded by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. The decision on lump sum superannuation was a matter of some- Senator Messner —Where is the legislation? Senator BUTTON —I said that the decision on lump sum superannuation was applauded by some members of the Opposition. The decision to impose the means test on over 70-year-old pensioners was something which Senator Chaney, as Minister for Social Security, ran away from for years, and the Opposition knows it. There are a number of other decisions that fall within that category. I am sorry to stir the Opposition about these sorts of issues which are not relevant to the subject matter of this debate. Senator Messner —You raised them. Senator BUTTON —I raised them. I will continue to raise them if necessary, and I will probably do better at raising them than Senator Messner does at Question Time. But let me say this: The subject matter of this debate is something of a storm in a teacup and something of a perennial. Senator Chaney relies on information-I forget how he put it, it was a most unfortunate word he chose- which seeped out of a meeting of the parliamentary Labor Party yesterday. He alleges from that, on the basis of doing a Rorschach chart of the various newspapers on a bit of blotting paper or something, that as the reports are somewhat similar in various newspapers, they are accordingly all correct. Now when I say this debate has something of a perennial flavour about it, let us look at what was said by one of my predecessors in the Senate, Senator Withers, who has now left the chamber but who, as leader of a government in the Senate had this to say on 24 March 1976: Do not raise the Australian Broadcasting Commission. You blokes have been leaning on it for years. It is full of your supporters and has been pumping out your propaganda year in and year out. This is not a matter of opinion; it is a matter of notoriety. The sooner it is cleaned up the better as far as I am concerned. A then senior Minister in the Fraser Government had that to say on the public record. He did not say it in any party room, he said it here in the Senate. If those words are not a threat to the independence of the ABC what is? Senator Chaney, in trying to make his case today, has relied on alleged comments by the Prime Minister, alleged comments by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Hayden- Senator Chaney —You should correct the transcript. Senator BUTTON —No, I will not correct the transcript. He has relied on comments by those two Ministers and, for the purposes of the debate, has elevated Mr Hayden to a status which even he would not claim in terms of the importance of the remarks which he made. Senator Lajovic —Not yet. Senator BUTTON —Hope springs eternal in the heart of Senator Lajovic. 'Not yet', he says. Let me say at the beginning that I affirm and agree with some of the points made by Senator Chaney. First of all, this is a very popular Government. I affirm and agree with that, and it is important to put it on the record right at the beginning. Secondly, I agree with the suggestions made by Senator Chaney about the importance of the independence of the media, particularly the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. I assert the right of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to make, within the law, what programs it wants to make . Indeed, this morning it had Senator Chaney on a program called Politicians and Their Music. During that program it was revealed by the Leader of the Opposition that he used to practise hand jiving while listening to the Darktown Strutters Ball, and it was further revealed by the Leader of the Opposition that he so loved the film The Graduate that he now drives an Alfa Romeo Spyder, as did Dustin Hoffman in the movie. I wonder whether the Leader of the Opposition shares the other fantasies of Dustin Hoffman in the film The Graduate. That was not revealed in the program. It is very important that the people know the views and fantasies of the Leader of the Opposition as revealed on that Australian Broadcasting Corporation program. I assert strongly the right of that sort of program to be made even if the views expressed may be reprehensible to people of my degree of propriety in these matters; even if I may find some of Senator Chaney's habits and tastes slightly distasteful. The subject of this matter of public importance is faintly ironic. Let me be frank about this: There has been a long history of politicians from both sides of the Parliament, during times when each side has been in government-the coalition happens to have been in government for longer than we have-attacking or criticising the Australian Broadcasting Commission and the media. We are criticised for the alleged competence of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) in handling the media; of course the last Prime Minister had his own competencies in that regard too. He was the inventor of the doorstop interview as a means of communicating with the electorate. At the heart of this whole topic, brought forward allegedly as a matter of public importance, is the suggestion that the Government is somehow threatening the independence of the media. That is just an absurd overreaction to the stories which Senator Chaney alleges have seeped out of the Caucus. Let me look at what has actually happened. Certain members of the Government are reported in today's media as having criticised individual Australian Broadcasting Corporation programs and certain newspaper articles. That happened; there is no doubt about that at all. Indeed, in respect of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation program which I understand was the subject of criticism yesterday, Senator Sir John Carrick asked a very proper question the other day which by implication-I do not say this in any critical way of the honourable senator- Senator Sir John Carrick —There was no criticism at all; it was seeking to see whether an objective job had been done. Senator BUTTON —I am not seeking to criticise the honourable senator in any way. All I am saying is that his question carried with it the implication that perhaps there were some inaccuracies in that program. Senator Sir John Carrick —On a very complex matter. Senator BUTTON —It was on a very complex matter, and certainly that was the subject of discussion in the Parliamentary Labor Party. There was criticism by some members of the Party in respect of the contents of the program. Senator Chaney —That is a very different sort of criticism. Senator BUTTON —And a very important one. There was an expression of disagreement with the views expressed in some of those programs and indeed with the views in some articles in the National Times. Those opinions hardly amount to a threat by the Government to the independence of the media. That is the issue with which I want to deal. If the Opposition seriously asserts-I do not believe Senator Chaney did-that no-one in parliament, in government or opposition, has a right to question or comment on programs or newspaper articles , that is absurd. Senator Chaney —I specifically dealt with that. Senator BUTTON —I said that I do not believe the honourable senator was saying that. Senator Chaney —Before you came in I specifically dealt with that. Senator BUTTON —All right; Senator Chaney specifically dealt with that. I accept his assurance. Of course members of parliament have a right to criticise programs and articles in the media and in so claiming that right they, in my view, by implication assert the right of others to make those criticisms. I think that is the essential point in this debate. As I was saying, the truth is that everybody in the community has a right to criticise the media just as they have a right to criticise those of us who are engaged in politics. I would have thought they exercised that right in an atmosphere of great freedom. If I might say so, I believe they exercise that right with some exuberance and at times, indeed, flamboyance. That is something from which we all suffer in the particular occupation we have. So there is no truth in the suggestion that the Government would in any way seek to circumscribe the independence of the media. If the Opposition wants to know what the Government's policy is in relation to the independence of the media, particularly the ABC, it has to have a calm look at the facts. There is no confusion about them. The Government's view of the independence of the ABC is evidenced by the new ABC legislation which this Government introduced and which ensures the independence and integrity of that organisation. That is very different from saying that the ABC or any other form of media is immune from criticism of any kind, as I said earlier. There has been no attack on the integrity and institutions of the media. Certainly quite forceful comments have been made about programs, and I see nothing exceptional in that. If one looks first of all at what the Government has done and at the legislation which was passed last year in relation to the ABC one sees that the legislation places the responsibility for maintaining the independence and integrity of the new Corporation on the Board of the Corporation. There can be nothing clearer than that. I go back a step further and say that the Government' s attitude to the independence of all forms of media is laid out in the Federal platform of the Australian Labor Party. While the uranium policy might be open to different interpretations, this section of the platform is not. I quote that section of the platform: Information and comment by all forms of media should be governed by fair and democratic principles, and not by ministerial or other political interference, nor by any sectional or private interest, including that arising through monopoly control. With respect to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation which is the principal body concerned in this little bit of brouhaha going on here today, it was spelt out by the Minister for Communications (Mr Duffy) in his second reading speech in these terms: . . . this Government is committed to maintaining a strong and independent ABC, able to meet the broadcasting needs of the Australian people. I contrast that attitude to the establishment of the independence of the ABC by legislation last year with the attitude of the previous Government. The coalition, when it was in government, concocted an elaborate commissioner of complaints structure whereas the Dix Committee of Review of the Australian Broadcasting Commission recommended only an ABC appointed community affairs officer to receive complaints. If ever there were an overreaction by a government it was that absurd commissioner of complaints proposal. This commissioner of complaints proposition, which was in the ABC legislation of the previous Government, which fortunately as a result of the election never saw the light of day in Parliament, provided for an outside fully fledged statutory officer appointed by the Government who would have the function of dealing with complaints and imposing penalties, if you please, in respect of complaints. That immediately raised the question of whether that sort of procedure was applicable to ordinary broadcasters. It was a threat and it compromised and confused the role of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and its Board. That Board, not an outside body appointed by government, is supposed under the present legislation to be responsible for the Corporation's performance. That sort of proposal compromised totally investigative journalism if we consider the complaints procedure put forward by the Fraser Government. The Complaints Commissioner would have investigated 'unfairness, bias and defensiveness' not just in relation to individuals but generally. Thus if ever there was a vehicle trundled forward by a government for muzzling serious criticism in this country that was it; it was the classic sort of Trojan horse of 1982 in the hands of the Fraser Government. The then Chairman of the British Broadcasting Corporation had this to say about the Fraser Government's proposal: the whole package of legislation is so bad and so discriminatory that if I were a member of the ABC I would say let's down tools and walk off in protest. Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle —Who wrote that? Senator BUTTON —That was Mr George Howard, the former chairman of the BBC, the man who owned that fine house in that excellent serial, Brideshead Revisited. They are strong words indeed from the then Chairman of the British Broadcasting Corporation. They were made here in this country in late 1982 as a comment on the Fraser Government's proposals for the Australian Broadcasting Commission. They are strong words indeed in terms of the Opposition's over- reaction to reported remarks made yesterday. No criticism like that has ever been levelled at the performance of this Government in relation to independence of the media. The then Government, of course, was forced to abandon that legislation and was tipped out of office before it could be passed. By abandoning that legislation it acknowledged its errors; so the case is proven against it. This is not the first time that the Opposition has tried to stir up unfounded criticism over allegations of political interference. I will come to that in a minute. I just want to deal with one other very important question relating to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The Board of the Corporation is appointed by government. For the first time in the history of the Corporation this Government adopted a policy of submitting to a joint party committee names for the Board of the Corporation. Senator Chaney —How many names? Senator Sir John Carrick —Seven to be chosen from nine? Senator BUTTON —I am not sure of the exact number. Senator Chaney —That was a rort. Senator BUTTON —Senator Chaney regards it as a rort; he would not have done it in a fit. Under his Government his Minister used to come to me and tell me the names he proposed to put forward for the Australian Broadcasting Commission. I would approve the names as being fine and independent and the then Minister would put them up. Those names all got knocked over. Some of them were knocked over because in 1975 they signed letters objecting to the course which the later Fraser Government took. That is what Senator Chaney's Minister did. We submitted names and it does not matter how many names we submitted for the purpose of starting this process of bipartisan consultation. The Opposition's representatives on that body fully accepted and congratulated us on the process, not only at the meeting, but also here in the Senate. Senator Sir John Carrick can mumble about it now but that is what Senator Peter Baume said in the Senate. The members of the Opposition on that committee approved the names that were submitted by the Government. I hope that that process will be able to be expanded because it is another important step in securing the independence from government of the ABC. I said that this is not the first time that the Opposition has stirred up unfounded criticisms. Only last year, on 18 October, the now departed Mr Anthony alleged in Parliament that the Australian Labor Party Government had leaned on the ABC over election time in Queensland. These allegations were totally baseless. As a result of that the Minister for Communications began defamation proceedings against Mr Anthony. These sorts of things have happened over a long period. These things, like the allegations by Mr Anthony, debase the process of politics in this country. Likewise, this MPI has been stirred up on the basis of loose Press reports and a great reading into those Press reports of all sorts of suggestions. Like the allegations stirred up by Mr Anthony and the threats made to the ABC by Senator Withers in 1976, these unfortunately are the perennials of Australian politics. They are contrived just as is this MPI. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Elstob) —Order! The Minister's time has expired. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(3.46) — The subject of the matter of public importance today relates to allegations of criticism of the media by the current Government. In response to this Senator Button raised a distinction, on which he relied for most of his speech, between criticism of particular programs and criticism of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation or other sections of the media in general. I do not believe that anybody in this chamber would cavil at the proposition that every honourable senator or every member of the community has a right to criticise particular programs for whatever reason, whether because of factual error or biased presentation. But that is not in fact the substance of the propositions that appear in today's media reports. The basic allegation in those reports is that Mr Hawke told the Caucus yesterday that the Government had enemies in the media. He was not talking about a particular program. He was talking about the enemies of the government in the media. Is it not extraordinary that a government with a 20 per cent lead over the Opposition according to the latest gallup poll, a Prime Minister who is beloved of 78 per cent of the electorate and a government that extols the virtues of consensus and a need for national reconciliation, should start to develop a siege mentality at this stage of its innings? The Hawke Government may be popular but surely this does not give it any absolute monopoly on truth or virtue. There are credible alternative views within a community which must and should be put forward. Mr Hawke has made great play also recently out of labelling all those who raise the issue of corruption as using McCarthyist tactics. Mr Hawke now surely is demonstrating a McCarthyist mentality when he sees his enemies behind every paper or television program which criticises this Government. Let us consider a couple of examples to which Mr Hawke referred. As the Attorney-General (Senator Gareth Evans) mentioned, the National Times is one of those newspapers singled out for particular criticism because on a couple of occasions recently it has published allegedly secret government documents, the Austeo Papers and the 'Strategic Basis of Australia's Defence Policy'. The Government even went to the High Court of Australia on the first occasion to try to stop publication; finally, by agreement, a sanitised version was allowed for publication. The Government has refused either to confirm or deny the second paper. That has not stopped it from criticising the National Times and accusing it of telling lies. I do not think the Government can have it both ways. It cannot accuse the newspaper of telling lies and then refuse to confirm or deny whether the issue on which the paper based its comments is true or false. I think one draws from that that the Government is saying that the document is false. That then leads us into great difficulties with prominent members of the community who are in a position to know and have said openly that those leaked documents are true. I turn to the last paper on the list. The Australian Democrats, on behalf of a large group of people in the community, expressed concern about whether the Government was contemplating the development of nuclear weapons in Australia. The Government has denied that it has made a decision along those lines. That is fine, but other elements of equal importance in that paper have not been denied by the Government. I believe they are legitimate matters for discussion by the news media and matters for public discussion and complaint. The issues that have probably raised more ire from the Government than any others were those raised in recent times by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in a couple of its programs. What probably started the whole thing off was the Four Corners 'Big League' program that led to the establishment of the royal commission that investigated matters concerning the former Chief Stipendiary Magistrate of New South Wales, Mr Murray Farquhar. The second was the Four Corners program on nuclear safeguards. That is an issue of topical interest. Surely that must be one of the criteria that the news media apply when determining the types of programs that they wish to run. The Four Corners program was seeking to bring forward what Senator Sir John Carrick described today by way of interjection as an extremely complex issue. It is an extremely complex issue. It is one that I believe our citizens have a right to be informed about, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, as an organisation supported by public funds, ought to be willing to tackle such issues. Indeed, I believe that the ABC should be broadcasting programs and comments that are critical of government policy, of whatever political persuasion that government happens to be. From our point of view, there does not seem to have been terribly much change from the policies followed in the past with the coming to office of the Hawke Government. Attention has been drawn to that fact by many media programs. That is the role of the media in the community . I do not think it is fair or reasonable to attack the media for putting forward the sorts of programs that they do. The media must raise controversial issues and present minority viewpoints. They ought to present viewpoints opposed to government policy, because government policy often has a monopoly on the attention of the media. As I just said, the change of government has not changed the attacks made on the ABC. Let me list some of the attacks that have been made on previous occasions. An article that appeared in the Hobart Mercury on 7 March 1980 reads: A women's radio program broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Commission has been described as 'unprofessional' and 'crude'. Senator Walters told the committee that 'Coming Out 80' was unacceptable to the average listening audience. In an article that appeared in the Northern Territory News on 14 June 1980 entitled 'Complaint on documentaries' Senator Kilgariff is reported to have said that it had been indicated to the ABC that the Country-Liberal Party Government would not take part in future documentary filming unless it was assured of a fair coverage. Senator Kilgariff was making noises similar to those we have heard in the last couple of days. Senator Kilgariff was reported to have said: . . . Nationwide last week was a most malicious production. Recognising that all organisations can only be judged by their lowest and weakest link I can only deplore the level to which the ABC has sunk . . . I turn to an article that appeared in the Sydney Daily Telegraph of 10 April 1981 entitled 'Claim of ALP ''mole'' in the ABC'. That is a good title. I was rather gleeful when I found that article but its contents did not live up to the sensational title. The article reveals that Mr Sinclair, the Leader of the National Party, said that a senior ABC reporter had maintained an open-line contact with a Labor Party official during the last election campaign. No substantive evidence was provided. An article dealing with the Dix report in the Bulletin of 8 December 1981 reads: Sinclair and some other Ministers, including the Prime Minister, are said to wonder whether an ABC, more concerned with news and current affairs and less with cricket and situation comedies, would be even more of a problem than the present organisation which is seen as being too often irresponsible and biased to the Left. Since Senator Button has been attacked, I think I should draw attention to the celebrated headline that appeared in the Australian of Monday, 22 February 1982: 'Decline of the ABC: Kramer versus Fraser'. In that article Dame Leonie Kramer is reported to have said: I have no intention of presiding over the decline of the ABC. The article went on to say: That is encouraging, for there are those within the ABC who firmly believe that Mr Fraser's Government is determined to squeeze the commission to the point where it can no longer act as an alternative to commercial television and radio. So it goes on. The last article to which I wish to refer is under the heading ' Left-Wing Bias seen by Court'. That refers to Sir Charles Court, the former Premier of Western Australia. That article brings us back to the present situation. In that article Sir Charles Court is reported to have said: In my experience there have always been a number of interviews against my side of politics and there left-wing bias has come through in the way they've presented the story. It is always interesting to note that when a group of people in the media attack one, one always sees that as resulting from the bias of the journalists. Politicians are prone never to look at their own policies if they are attacked, but rather to attack back. That might be a characteristic of the species, but sometimes it is a pity that that happens because critical comment about one's policies ought, I believe, to be met in the first instance with an examination of whether there is any substance to the criticism. If no substance can be found presumably another course of action will follow. At the end of the article an even more interesting comment is attributed to Mr John Knight, the Executive Director in Perth of the ABC current affairs program Nationwide. Mr Knight is reported to have said this about Sir Charles Court: His idea of a fair go was to have as long as possible to put his point of view unchallenged. The Minister for Resources and Energy (Senator Walsh) has been making the same complaint about the Four Corners program. One cannot expect to have included in any television program everything that one says. One would have a legitimate complaint if one considered that the parts of the interview used were not representative of the overall views that were put. However, having viewed the Four Corners program and read the transcript, one is led to the conclusion that certain questions were dealt with in full. The question is put and the answer is there. I am quite sure that many questions that were asked and answers that were given were not televised. Any person who has had a television interview would know that that is the case. One cannot expect all the questions and answers to be included. If a comment is included, surely it cannot be said that much of the interview was left out. The concern rather should be whether the part that was included in the broadcast was edited in such a way as not to represent the views that were expressed. I hope that in the course of this debate we might have clarified the concern that was felt about the particular segment of the program. In the article to which I have just referred, Mr Knight is reported to have said further: It's in the nature of politicians to complain and attempt to get as good a deal for themselves as possible. I do not know whether that is symptomatic of politicians; it seems to me to be symptomatic of human beings. Politicians would not be human beings if they did not try to get as much coverage as they possibly could of their point of view. Presumably if they hold a view firmly they believe it to be correct. I believe that the essence of criticism in a community such as ours ought to be directed at the factual content of the program, not the continuous allegations that we hear that there is some type of underlying running bias and conspiracy afoot. As I have shown by referring to the various articles, allegations of conspiracies are easily generated by people in government and, as anyone who knows anything about the law will realise, such conspiracies are difficult to prove. I think that it is far better and far healthier to try to pinpoint precisely where that program has made a mistake in a factual presentation of a selection of material which does not adequately represent the viewpoint that was put or whatever else the actual complaint is rather than the generalised blanketing operation of condemnation of media services. As politicians, whether we like it or not, the views of politics, the information we put forward, will be carried to the community via some media service. It is important for us, as it is for the media , to try to make sure that those views, when they are carried, are as accurate and as clearly representative of the various positions in political life as possible. I do not believe that is assisted by the types of comments that have been made in recent times by members of the Government. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK(New South Wales)(4.01) —The Senate is debating a matter of public importance in these terms: The threat to the independence of the media posed by the Government's absurd over-reaction to any critical comment. I stress that this debate does not concern the right of any person here or in the community to make criticism of any part of the media. We do not criticise Government members for valid criticisms of the media. What this debate is about is the reaction of the Government, including the three or four most senior Government members, one of whom is the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke), which can only be construed as menacing, threatening, bludgeoning and as trying to wipe out any right of the media to criticise the Government. This debate is about the Government's over-reaction by way of threat. The Leader of the Government in the Senate (Senator Button) did not direct himself in the whole of his 20-minute speech to any point on that. In fact, he deliberately talked around it. He said that members did make criticisms of various programs in Caucus. The abysmal silence on his part was that he did not deny what the Prime Minister is reported to have said. The hub of this in terms of immediacy is a report published today in the Age newspaper over the byline of one of the most senior and respected journalists in Australia and indeed in the Press gallery, Michelle Grattan. She wrote: The Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, declared yesterday that the ABC should 'seriously look at itself', and hinted that its funding could suffer if it did not improve. In the knowledge that that has been reported, the Leader of the Government in the Senate has made no denial at all. The Prime Minister is reported as saying- no denial has come forward-that if the Australian Broadcasting Corporation does not stop its criticisms the Government will cut its funds. That is an outrage. That is what this debate is all about. Michelle Grattan went on to say: Responding to a backbencher's question, Mr Hawke claimed the ABC was 'running a consistent line against the Government'. 'People in the community are asking why we're funding an organisation like this ,' he told Caucus members. 'If this sort of feeling builds up, it should be reflected in a number of ways.' The Prime Minister did not specify the ways. It is quite sinister to say 'it should be reflected in a number of ways'. What has happened is that the Prime Minister is on record in the Press as threatening the media, specifically the ABC and saying it would reduce its funds if criticisms did not stop. There has been no rebuttal of this. There is nothing new in this at all. One will recall that in the unedifying situation of Senator Button's attack on Professor Kramer, a great Australian, it appeared that Mr Hawke had telephoned the ABC and used threatening tactics. I quote from a transcript of the program Nationwide of 6 May 1983. Richard Carleton asked Professor Kramer: Would you give a broader account of the tone of that conversation? Was Mr Hawke rude to you? Did he threaten you? . . . . Was it a raised voice he used at you? Professor Kramer is a mild, mature person. Her reply was: Yes, oh yes. Richard Carleton asked: And was he telling you what you had to do? In his view? Professor Kramer replied: Well he was very insistent and expecially in the matter of my having to get back to Senator Button within 24 hours. What kind of a dictatorship, a standover of the ABC, was that? A member of the Australian Labor Party telephoned the ABC and, in a threatening tone, sought to order the Chairman that something had to happen within 24 hours. Senator Coates —He was in opposition. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —Yes, he was in opposition. The man has not changed his spots on this. So we have a pattern of yesterday and the past. Thank God for the independence of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and for Australia that there are people of courage such as Dame Leonie Kramer who refused to be bludgeoned. If this were just another situation, a rare occurrence, one would wonder. The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Lionel Bowen) is on record as saying, on 18 May, that the ABC was 'so anti-Labor it would exploit any situation at all'. He went on to the ugly inference, a revolting inference, that because the Hawke Government intended to reorganise and restructure the ABC the ABC brought forward the Four Corners program. Could there be any nastier assertion? Could there be any more foul an assertion than that? On the AM program the Deputy Prime Minister was asked whether he was 'getting in the way' of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Hayden. Mr Lionel Bowen said: Honestly, what's wrong with the ABC these days is it's so anti-Labor. The transcript of the interview went on: Clearly irritated earlier in the interview, he said: 'The tragedy of the ABC is it is so selective in its broadcasting. Where do we go from here? It is one thing after the other. Honourable senators will remember that the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Button, attacked Professor Kramer and then tried to force her to release the letter he had written to her. Why did he do that? He was trying to put the onus on her. In the end, we have had to force the publication of the information which revealed a grossly unedifying attempt by Senator Button to use duress. Indeed, the action taken by Senator Button was not supported by the Minister for Communications, Mr Duffy, in another place. So there is a long record of attempts at intimidation. Senator Button said today that he had been fair and that nothing could be fairer than the way the Government had approached the reconstruction of the ABC; had it not offered the Opposition a choice of the members of the panel? My goodness, I wonder whether the two Ministers concerned, the Leader of the Government in the Senate and the Minister Assisting the Minister for Communications, Senator Button, and the Minister for Communications, Mr Duffy, remember these words now. On 6 May, when Senator Button was asked about the new Board he is quoted as saying of Professor Kramer: In my view her name should certainly go forward for consideration, now, on the new Board of the Corporation. Mr Duffy did better than that. He said that he would be 'surprised if Dame Leonie's name was not on the list going to Cabinet for appointment to the new Board'. He said that the names were in his head. The names went forward and not one included Professor Kramer. In fact, not one included any member of the former Australian Broadcasting Commission. It was sheer humbug for Senator Button to say: 'We gave the Opposition a choice'. The Government came forward with a panel of nine from which the Opposition had to choose seven. What kind of choice? Let us get to the nub of this matter because these are the elements mentioned today. Senator Button's main speech was directed, because he wanted to avoid the thrust of the weakness of his Prime Minister in this, to the legislation that the former Government, the Fraser Government, brought forward to reorganise the Australian Broadcasting Commission. Everybody knows that in fact most of it was based upon the report of the Dix Committee of Review of the Australian Broadcasting Commission. I recall what Senator Button said today, that in fact for the most part the legislation brought in by the Hawke Government was an adoption of the Fraser Government's legislation and of the Dix Committee recommendations. Today he said what an outrage it was that there was an attempt to put into the legislation an independent complaints commissioner and that the Chairman or former office bearer of the British Broadcasting Corporation had said that it was an outrage. What a short memory Senator Button has. The BBC has an independent complaints commissioner. So much so did the BBC consider it an outrage to have somebody there appointed by the Government, who did it appoint as the first independent complaints commissioner? It was the former Lord Chief Justice. So indeed was it wrong to suggest a complaints commissioner? Was it wrong to suggest that one should have somebody like that? What happened today was an attempt by Senator Button that must fail. He attempted to turn the whole of the argument away from the Prime Minister's reported statements. He did not deny that those statements were made. He has failed to remember what he has said in attacks on the ABC and what Mr Hawke said during the election campaign. What are the facts? The facts are that the Chairman of the ABC, Professor Kramer, came out of that unedifying effort of Senator Button's as a person, a great Australian, with great courage, with great objectivity and a total unwillingness to be pushed around by Mr Hawke or Senator Button. The world approved her stand. Her penalty for that was that she was sacked and so were her colleagues. What happened? The Labor Party is annoyed that the ABC had the courage to show a Four Corners program on the New South Wales Rugby League. What was wrong with exposing corruption which a royal commission in the end acted upon and found the allegations proven? Indeed, one person has been the subject of conviction and another person is up for trial. What outrage is it that Government members find something wrong with a media expose of something which revealed a tragic miscarriage of justice and, indeed, perversion of the magistracy? Mr Hawke got indignant because a young woman named Jane Singleton dared to ask him some personal questions. Government members have not been indignant when over the years people have asked many more personal questions, many more close to the bone than that. But no, the Prime Minister was in high dudgeon. Nobody is to touch the narcissus ego, the egocentric image of this Prime Minister. If they ask him a difficult question, what does he do? He gets in high dudgeon, gets on his horse and rides out of the studio. Then what happened? Now there are all sorts of attacks upon the National Times because it published a document which it was implied here was wrong. The Attorney-General kept implying that it could not be right. But yesterday no less a person than the Chief of Defence Force Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Neville McNamara, said that the document was right. Is it not an outrage that the Government was caught out, that the left wing now can see what the right wing of the Labor Party is doing? It is not a question of principle. It is that it was caught out. It is irked because, remarkably, so many of the people in the media who are reporting these things with honesty are people who have been active members of the Labor Party in the past, are active members of their branches and are reporting with honesty. The purpose of this debate is to focus upon the threatening and menacing nature of the speeches by the Prime Minister and others. Let anybody say that Michelle Grattan was reporting wrongly. Why has that not been done? It would be a bit late to do it now. The time to say that it was wrong was when Senator Button spoke. But what happened was that Senator Button, deliberately, with eloquent silence, moved away from anything of the report on Mr Hawke and talked about people talking about issues. It had nothing to do with this debate. The debate is about the threatening nature of Mr Hawke and others to the ABC that they will cut off their funds if they do not stop criticising. Senator COATES(Tasmania)(4.16) —If anything is absurd, to use the word from the matter of public importance raised by the Opposition, it is the matter of public importance itself. I am amazed at the effrontery of the Opposition raising this matter, based on a beat-up of a Caucus discussion in passing yesterday. Just because Michelle Grattan, for whom I have great respect, writes something, it does not make it always correct. She has been known to be wrong at odd times in the past. Senator Sir John Carrick asks for a denial of some of these things that the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, is alleged to have said. I can deny them. I do not remember many of those things being said in the debate yesterday. The Opposition argument is based on whether those reports are true. All I can say is that it is a pity that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has not had the support of the other side of this chamber before this. In passing, before I go on to other matters, I want specifically to answer Senator Sir John Carrick's point about the British Broacasting Corporation complaints commissioner. The arrangement that the BBC has is nothing like the proposal from the Liberal Party of Australia in its original Australian Broadcasting Corporation Bill of 1982. Senator Chaney took on a degree of being incredible when he said: 'I find these allegations of what is reported to have been said incredible'. Then, of course, he realised what he had said and said: 'However, I believe them'. Senator Ryan —Typical. Senator COATES —It may well be typical, as Senator Ryan says. We have a matter of public importance based on several newspaper reports alleging certain statements attributed to the Prime Minister. However, we have to deal with these issues and, because they have been raised by the Opposition, I will attempt to do so. I will deal with the ABC, the National Times, and the media generally. Everyone knows that it is the Australian Labor Party and this Government which can proudly claim to support the ABC and its independence. It has a record of doing so over the years. It is in our platform and it is our policy. Our record over the years can be pointed to. We still support it. We still have to defend the ABC against attacks from the present Opposition. Members of the Opposition still flay it for being full of Marxists, a term occasionally used by members of the Opposition. A few minutes ago Senator Sir John Carrick referred to some of the people in the ABC being members of the Australian Labor Party. I suppose there may be some, but I always presume that they give much higher credence to their ethics as journalists than to any membership of the ALP in the same way as would those in that organisation who are members of other political parties, such as Senator John Carrick's own party. Senator Ryan —And the National Party. Senator COATES —And the National Party of Australia in particular. Of course, the Opposition wants continually to criticise the ABC because it is basically opposed to its existence. It is opposed to public corporations generally. It would rather sell it off to the private sector. I suggest that the Opposition's defence of the ABC is full of hypocrisy. It is hollow for the Opposition at this stage to support ABC independence. It is the Opposition-especially the National Party part of it-which year after year has attempted to intimidate the ABC. It was the Fraser Government which ran down the ABC's funds, which led to its currently being not as good an organisation overall as many of us would like it to be. This Government wants to improve the ABC and get it back on its feet as an organisation of which we can all be proud. Of course there are times when reports are inaccurate in the ABC, in the newspapers and in other parts of the media. Sometimes it is due to error and sometimes it is due to incompetence. We all admit that. Most journalists try hard to do the difficult jobs that they are given, but that does not stop them from occasionally getting things wrong. That is only a matter of great regret if that activity is consistent and if a correction is not allowed. Of course, most of the time a correction is allowed. Of course some reports are seen to be one- sided. That is part of what the media are all about. They put a point of view and represent it. We all get upset about media reports which we think do not properly represent the facts as we see them or which do not support our opinions . That applies to the ABC and to the private media. Nobody is suggesting that there is any sort of ABC conspiracy against the Government. Of course, we have to admit that the Government comes under more fire than the Opposition at times because the Government is actually doing things. The Government, and especially a reformist government like this one, is being criticised because it raises issues and because it tries to introduce new measures of change for society. All we hope is that when politicians are criticised-we are fair game after all-that criticism, if unfair, is so judged by the public. The matter of the Jane Singleton interview on the ABC was raised as one thing that Mr Hawke might have been upset about. I did not hear the interview; I read a transcript of part of it. All I can say about that interview is that it was a good try by that journalist. She had the right to try to needle the Prime Minister, but it was also reasonable for Mr Hawke to be angry in response because he wanted to talk about policy and not about peripheral matters. The Minister for Communications, Mr Duffy, has a record of which he can be proud. He introduced the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Bill in about May of last year. It included a guarantee of independence for the ABC. Section 8 of the Act states: It is the duty of the Board- . . . . (b) to maintain the independence and integrity of the Corporation; (c) to ensure that the gathering and presentation by the Corporation of news and information is accurate and impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism; As I said, this Government supports the independence of the ABC. That is indicated by our putting provisions relating to its independence in the Act. When the Minister introduced the Bill last year he asserted that this Government was committed to maintaining a strong and independent ABC which would be able to meet the broadcasting needs of the Australian people. This Government believes that Australia's only national broadcaster, the ABC, has served and must be able to continue to serve in the forefront of Australian broadcasting. We are proud of the ABC. We also put into the Act statutory recognition of the ABC's independent news service. The Minister has been accused, on barely one or two occasions, of interference in the ABC. On each occasion he has, quite satisfactorily, been able to answer those accusations. They are ideas dreamed up by the Opposition. For example, Mr Lloyd, as reported at page 86 of the House of Representatives Hansard of 3 May, asked the Minister: Was the Minister or any member of his staff approached or contacted by anyone suggesting that he intervene either to weaken the content of the Four Corners program alleging political interference by the Premier of New South Wales in the course of justice in that State or to prevent the segment being televised? Mr Duffy said: I thank the honourable member for his question. The answer is no. On 5 May in the House of Representatives the Minister was asked about the litigation involving the ABC and whether there might be interference. As reported at page 245 of the House of Representatives Hansard he said: . . . there has been no interference in respect of litigation. That has been answered. There will be in fact no interference by this Government in respect of any litigation against the ABC. He went on to say that there would not be any interference. The former Leader of the National Party of Australia alleged that there had been an attempt to change the coverage of an election campaign on 18 October. Once again that was quite satisfactorily answered by the Minister, Mr Duffy, who believes in and supports the independence of the ABC. I turn now to the article in the National Times. It was said that this Government was unhappy with that journal. All I can say in response to the Opposition is that I think it is healthy that papers like the National Times occasionally publish what they do and have done over the years. It might make some of us uncomfortable, but we are here to be made uncomfortable at times. We are not here only to be comfortable. We should be put on a spot when that is appropriate. When it is not appropriate we hope that the public will be able so to judge. The National Times may have been less than responsible in its editing of the extracts it used, but I was quite pleased that some of the shallow thinking and writing of the people who wrote the paper concerned was exposed. I do not see that the Australian Labor Party should be the only party to have to defend the articles. A lot of the thinking in the paper is that of the Opposition, which appointed some of those people in the first place. Certainly, I think the National Times has been consistent. It has had a consistent line to expose the defence and security establishment. I think that as long as it is fair about it and about the way it publishes it, it is legitimate. If it becomes a vendetta without being fair it is not legitimate and it is fair enough for people to criticise it in response. I think that has been accepted by both sides in this debate. Criticism of programs is quite legitimate. However, that is not interference in the independence of the ABC, the National Times or anybody else. I turn now to the media generally. I think it is amazing to try to suggest that the Government is in a position to threaten the independence of the media. Of course, it is independent of the Government. It is privately owned. The ALP more than any other group has, over the years, suffered from newspapers generally which are opposed to its ideologies and its policies. We have not been able to do anything about that except to react and criticise in return. However, that is not interference in its independence. In any case, the attitude of particular papers can vary over the years. The Australian strongly supported Labor in 1972. By 1975 it was our most vociferous opponent. There was a continual tirade of abuse by that newspaper. Mr Murdoch even published a book proudly presenting the front pages of 1975 and related that to what he saw as the downfall of the Whitlam Government. The Age newspaper is an establishment newspaper. It always has been and it still is. I acknowledge that in recent years it has taken a more reasonable line on many issues, has a more balanced news coverage and allows for a variety of opinions to be published. We, as politicians, have to grin and bear it when we are criticised. We can be angry and grin and bear it. The Hobart Mercury has been mostly against us. We have thought that there has often been unfair criticism. However, one can now point to a much fairer attitude by that journal. I have been pleased, in recent weeks, to see a more balanced editorial attitude. In any case, none of us should be free from criticism. The media itself should also not be free from our criticism. If there is a threat to the independence of the media it is the threat from commercial interests. One can raise the possibility of a lack of independence because, for instance, of the effect that the tobacco advertising lobby has on newspapers. The problem that I see sometimes with the ABC, not in terms of its news coverage so much but in terms of its general programming, is the habit of the Corporation to go after ratings by having people such as Bruce Bond in its programs and being involved in promotions in which free passes to cinemas are given away in return for what is effectively the advertising of those commercial organisations. In conclusion, one can say that if this or any other government threatens the media such a threat will rebound on it in that the media in unison will react badly to that government. So I can say that there is no basis for this matter of public importance. There is no threat. The Government is not in a position to threaten the media, and especially the ABC which will remain independent. It will do so with the wholehearted support of me and the Government. Senator MESSNER(South Australia)(4.31) —The Senate is debating a matter of public importance which was ably brought forward by the Leader of the Opposition , Senator Chaney. The matter of public importance reads: The threat to the independence of the media posed by the Government's absurd over-reaction to any critical comment. This matter has arisen as a result of remarkably uniform publicity which appeared in today's newspapers. The stories which appear today in various newspapers right across the nation bear a very great resemblance to one another. Those newspapers contain reports of the Australian Labor Party Caucus meeting which was held in Canberra yesterday. The newspapers commented upon certain statements made by both the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, other Ministers and other members of the Parliament with regard to the effectiveness or otherwise of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. I would like to make the point that Senator Coates, who has just finished his speech, acknowledged the very point that we are making and the points that were made in today's newspaper articles. Clearly, Senator Coates stood up here today and defended the independence of the ABC and other Press organisations to put down a critical view of the Government. That point, of course, has been clearly acknowledged. It is the basis of our matter of public importance today. We are very glad that Senator Coates has seen fit to support the Opposition on this matter. I hope that he has a great deal of satisfaction in addressing that matter to the Prime Minister. No doubt he will seek to make that point in the course of debate in the Caucus when the next occasion arises. The point clearly has to be made that the Government, through the Prime Minister, apparently as a result of the articles which appear in the Press, is clearly trying to browbeat the Press and the independent media in this country. I do not have to put forward those words on my own behalf. I need only quote what was said by that very significant, independent and very well respected political reporter, Robert Haupt, when interviewed today in Canberra on the Channel 7 Today show. He said that that was exactly the objective of the Prime Minister yesterday-to browbeat the media into accepting the line which the Government wants to put down. He drew the attention of the public to this very significant attempt to muzzle the independent media which, of course, is the funnel for dissenting views in this country. I think it is very obvious that, if one follows the course of events in recent times that the Prime Minister has taken, one can see that he appears to be so brittle when under attack. The fact is that he so easily falls apart at the seams when asked questions about his personal life of matters affecting his policies which are not accepted at face value by the media or others. These are the occasions on which this kind of attack commences. We have seen this a number of times not only from the Prime Minister but also from leading members of the Government. We recall Senator Button's outrageous attacks on Professor Dame Leonie Kramer last year. All of us will remember that particular episode which brought degradation to Senator Button's reputation. Of course, this attack was very ably handled by the Chairman of the ABC who as a result, of course, was fired from her job. Senator Ryan —What? Senator MESSNER —The Government, of course, will deny that. Obviously that is a very clear statement in the light of the events that occurred at that time. Then , of course, there was the famous Rugby League issue that the Four Corners program had the temerity to bring forward. It was claimed that leading members of the Australian Labor Party were involved and they were referred to. There were inferences in connection with certain activities on the part of leading members of the Labor Party. Senator Robert Ray —Oh, rubbish. Senator MESSNER —Well, why was the Government so sensitive about it? Why did the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Lionel Bowen) get up at that time and deny that point so clearly? Why did he criticise and attack the ABC for having the temerity to get up and say these things in public? They were not the only cases that have occurred in recent times. In the last few months we have seen attacks on the National Times and in particular the Age newspapers by Senator Evans, the Attorney-General. The first law officer of the country, who is a champion of civil rights, has been attacking the independent media. But again he has used the power of his position and that of the Government to browbeat the media into submission to the Government's particular viewpoint. We saw this only in the last few days in regard to the National Times articles about defence leaks. Consequently and obviously the sensitivity of this Government knows no bounds. Senator Coates and his colleagues have made pathetic attempts to defend the Government's point of view. Indeed, they have fallen for the trap of admitting the problem and supporting the Opposition and as a result indirectly criticising the Prime Minister. I would like to reiterate an earlier point that I made, and that is that there is a remarkable consistency in the articles which appeared in the newspaper today. Senator Coates —That proves that they are right, does it? Senator MESSNER —Whether the honourable senator claims they are right or wrong is beside the point. It appears to me that someone in the Government has a very clear objective in mind because the leak was quite obviously released in such a way that one can see that the Government is out to damage the media generally. It appears to me that this is a determined and deliberate attempt to muzzle the media in these circumstances. Why else would these reports read in such a consistent manner? Every newspaper, every reporter appears to have been given the same story. This is quite clearly the way in which this exercise has been undertaken. This Government stands absolutely condemned in the eyes of the public for its attempt to deny independence to the media which, is, of course, its basic right. Let us look at the reasons why the Government perhaps has chosen to do this at this time. For the last several months we have been warmed up to the idea that we should have an election this year. The Prime Minister has very coyly hinted at an election either in the latter part of this year or in the early part of next year. The story about elections, of course, is well known. Every time a Prime Minister, especially a Labor Prime Minister, seeks to go to the polls such a step must be clearly to his advantage. Therefore, we are being exercised towards a point of view which accepts that an election this year is good for the nation, just as everything else that the Government claims to do is good for the nation. The timing of that election is critical to the fortunes of the Government. It is the Prime Minister's intention to ensure that there is no election next year. We must ask: Why does he want an election this year? The answer is obvious. He knows that he cannot win an election next year because of the collapsing policies of his Government. Senator Ryan —That is ludicrous. Don't you read the newspapers? Senator MESSNER —I can read the gallup polls as well as the Minister for Education can. However, those polls do not tell the whole story, and she knows it. She knows that the Government wants an election this year so that it can confuse the people in putting back the present Government on the basis of false promises and false premises. The policies of this Government that were announced before the election last year have either not been put into place or have been totally denied. One has only to quote the assets test as an example. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, Senator Button, in his remarks dealt with the lump sum superannuation tax. I remind the Government that it is now 10 months since that announcement was made, and still we have seen no legislation on that topic. Is the Government running scared? Indeed it is. It does not want that legislation in the Parliament while it is thinking of an early election. So it is the case with the assets test and many other matters. One has only to examine the Senate Notice Paper to realise how little legislation the Government is bringing forward for discussion. For all the business the Government has put on the Notice Paper we could easily pack up here tonight and go home. The Government is hoodwinking the people of Australia on the basis that it wants to be elected this year. It has not got the guts to go to the people next year when the result, as it knows, will be entirely different . This is at the base of the Government's attacks on the media and the way it has undertaken those attacks in an orchestrated way in the last few days. Those matters are at the core of the Government's intention and lie clearly before us all as an obvious attempt to pull wool over the people's eyes. The activity in the last day or two is not the first attempt-and it will not be the last-by the Government to try to confuse people through control of the media . Before the last election great concern was expressed by Senator Button, who criticised the former Government for its activities carried out through the Government Information Unit. Yet this country has seen established the greatest example of thought police in this country's history through the establishment of the National Media Liaison Service, which is spending more than one million dollars a year. Today senators had put on their desks another edition of a wonderful document which claims that the Unit is putting the Government's activities in focus. It is doing it in such a way that one can see nothing else in the photograph but the Government and its so-called achievements. There is not a mention of the issues which it has avoided. No publicity is given to the Opposition and its views; merely favourable news is presented in a biased way in the document. It presents no balance, even though the Government claims to have a monopoly in such matters. The document is an absolute disgrace. It is an attempt to issue pure propaganda to the public over the name of and printed by the Government Printer. It is outrageous that the Government has undertaken that kind of activity. The point has been well and truly made in this debate that this Government is deliberately setting out on a campaign of muzzling the media in an election year . It knows that it will be going to the people this year, preferably before the Budget, when it has to disclose the size of the Budget deficit and when it has to admit that it cannot offer the tax cuts it claimed it would give to the people. Already the present Government has laid the groundwork for that kind of proposition. Consequently, the Government will continue its obvious activities to hoodwink the people of Australia. Let the Government, in all the honesty over which it claims to have a monopoly, examine the activities of the National Media Liaison Service. I challenge Senator Coates to examine what is going on in that bureau in Tasmania. If he can satisfy himself as to the honesty of its activity, that it is providing a genuine service for all parliamentarians, I will withdraw my remarks, but I guarantee he will find the opposite to be true. If the Government wants to prove the honesty of its position, let it challenge the National Media Liaison Service now. Senator RYAN(Australian Capital Territory-Minister for Education and Youth Affairs)(4.46) —I rise to close this debate-a debate which has been the greatest waste of time in this place ever inflicted by the Opposition on the Government. There are matters of public importance which ought to be debated in this place. We do have grave problems in the economy. We still have an unacceptably high level of unemployment. We have many problems in the area of manufacturing industry. We have problems of poverty and remaining problems of discrimination. Those are all matters which this Government believes should be debated in a constructive fashion in this place. But what does the Opposition bring before the Senate today? An absolute non-event which it claims is a matter of public importance; namely, a complaint that as a result of some media reporting of some views that were supposed to be expressed by some members of Caucus yesterday somehow the Government is threatening the independence of the media. What an absurd accusation, and what a waste of time. The Opposition today has reached the nadir of its parliamentary performance. I cannot think of anything sillier than that at a time when we all admit we have serious economic, social and other problems in our society, all the Opposition can do is to read the newspaper, see a little bit of garbled reporting about what may or may not have been said in the Caucus room yesterday, and try to blow it up into some kind of issue relating to the independence of the media. It is pathetic and displays yet again the total lack of capacity in the Opposition for any kind of analytical approach to the serious problems facing our economy. In a sense, the media are the only opposition in this country. There is no opposition on the benches opposite. The Opposition has no idea how to present views on the serious problems facing our society. If it were not for the media in this country I do not think anything of public importance would ever be raised. The Opposition is clearly incapable of deciding for itself that something is important. Opposition members merely examine the morning papers, pick on the most trivial aspects of reportage and then bring them into the Senate in order to waste everybody's time debating them. I find it particularly ironical that we suddenly have an Opposition composed of the conservative elements in this place accusing a Labor Government of attempting to interfere with the independence of the media, in particular the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. I came into this place first in 1976. During my first few years in this place I, in common with my colleagues Senator Sibraa and Senator Colston who joined me at that time, sat in this place day after day listening to abuse, attacks and accusation about the ABC. Scarcely a day passed without conservative members of the then Government attacking the ABC for political bias and all sorts of Marxist plots. It was a pathetic performance . Not only did members of the then Government attack the ABC for its alleged bias; they made practical attacks and undermined the capacity of the ABC to be this country's major public broadcasting organisation. I can remember a few of them because I sat here day after day and had to listen to them. There were funding cuts. Have a look at what happened to the budget of the ABC, a matter now of such new and sudden enthusiasm of Opposition members. Honourable senators should have a look at what that Government did to the funding of the ABC during its seven years in government. Have a look at what it did to the staffing of the ABC during its seven years of government. It ran them both down to the stage where we inherited a ramshackle broadcasting organisation in the place of what had once been one of Australia's finest public institutions. Honourable senators should have a look at the talent drain that occurred from the ABC during the period of the Fraser Administration. Journalist after journalist, current affairs analyst after current affairs analyst, left the ABC because they could no longer work in such a run-down organisation, because they could no longer tolerate the political attacks that were being made on them by the Government. There was an exodus of talent from the ABC during that time which greatly weakened its capacity to fulfil its statutory responsibilities to the Australian people. There was almost a cessation of training of new, young talent. Look at any area in the ABC now-the technical, production, journalism, drama and cultural areas-and honourable senators will find that virtually now new young talent has been trained over the last few years; again one of the reasons for the fact that we inherited such a chaotic and ramshackle organisation. Honourable senators should look at the discriminatory employment practices which prevailed within the ABC during the Fraser administration, documented discriminatory practices-(Quorum formed) It is just further evidence of the absolute poverty of the Opposition's approach to what it alleges today to be a serious topic that Senator Jessop walks in and the only intelligent contribution he can make to the debate is to call a quorum and thus cut short the time allowed for the debate. I was pointing out that the present Opposition has an appalling record with regard to the ABC. As a result of that when we came into government a year ago we inherited an organisation which had deteriorated drastically from what it had been in its heyday. There was a time when the ABC was one of Australia's finest public institutions in terms of current affairs, dissemination of information, development of Australia's cultural life, education and in bringing services to regional and remote areas. It had an outstanding record. But all of that was virtually destroyed during the period of the Fraser administration. Now what have we done? My colleague, the Leader in this place, Senator Button, pointed out that we approached the business of restoring the capacity of the ABC to its central role in our democracy in a very open-minded and bipartisan fashion. What have we done to the ABC? We have given it a new board, which was appointed with the consultation and agreement of Opposition members, a land-mark in a bipartisan approach to the ABC. We have given the ABC more money. We have given it a new charter, enormous freedom in its employment and management practices, and the board has appointed a new manager. We hope that it will in time regain the central and constructive place it had in Australian social and political life. As yet I have not seen a great deal of evidence that many changes have taken place. In fact I feel, I guess along with a lot of honourable senators in this place, a little disappointed that we have not seen more improvements implemented more rapidly in the last 12 months. But being reasonable-and we on this side of the chamber are reasonable-we must recognise that we cannot undo the damage of seven years of attacks, demoralisation and political interference, all of which have been documented in the debate today, in a one year period. So we still have very high aspirations that the ABC will be able to improve its performance, and we look forward very much to that happening, not because we are worried about the occasional criticism or the occasional negative item on the ABC concerning the Government, but because of our deep philosophical commitment to the idea of a publicly funded independent broadcasting corporation which can reflect at the highest possible standards comment, consideration and information on all the major economic, social and cultural issues of our time. Senator Chaney —Did you tell the Prime Minister that yesterday? Senator RYAN —They are our aspirations for the ABC. Senator Chaney has just joined the debate. Quite clearly our aspirations have not yet been realised. Obviously a year has not been enough time. I believe that there are still areas of the ABC where the standard of program delivery is poor. I say that without attempting to undermine our aspirations for what the ABC should be. The Opposition, with its incapacity to analyse anything accurately, seems to be unable to distinguish between the criticism that might fairly and justly be made of a particular item or, indeed, of a particular journalist or program, with a fundamental attack on the institution itself. We, in the Australian Labor Party and now the Labor Government, have been the historical, traditional defenders of the ABC, and we continue to be that. Now that does not mean that we must turn a blind eye or must pretend that every item, every program and every journalist is performing or is presented at the highest possible standard. Quite clearly that is not the case. There are many defects in the performance of the ABC, defects which have their roots in the attacks on it made by the Fraser Government. Obviously members of our Government criticise individual items on the ABC, and the ABC criticises us for criticising it. What is new in that? I am really glad Senator Chaney has come in because he has inflicted this debate on us, he has pretended that there is something novel and shocking in an individual politician being critical of an individual item or even an individual journalist. I think that politicians and journalists are engaged in a natural adversary situation and will continue to criticise each other for as long as we have a democracy in this country. For the Opposition to pretend there is something shocking-- Senator Chaney —Mr Deputy President, I raise a point of order. The honourable senator is totally misrepresenting my case and the case of the Opposition, which specifically said that we were not talking about that sort of complaint. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —The honourable senator is making a point and not a point of order. Senator RYAN —That is another pathetic attempt by the Leader of the Opposition ( Senator Chaney) to dissuade the listening public from the fact that the Opposition is absolutely impoverished of ideas, absolutely impoverished of any constructive approach to any issue of public importance at all. I want to pass briefly to the other dreadful attack we are accused of making, on the National Times. Frankly, I am very disappointed in the National Times because it seems to me that the National Times misses many opportunities. This country, this society, really needs a high quality weekly journal that makes critical, informed comment about economic, social and cultural issues and so on. Our society would be greatly enhanced by such a journal. The National Times has been able to fulfil that need in our social and political life for short periods , but too often it misses the opportunity of being what it really could be. Obviously I do not have time now to say anything further, but I simply say that the reporting by the National Times of defence issues has not always been fair and honest and in the best interests of our society generally. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —The discussion is concluded. Motion (by Senator Scott) agreed to: That the Senate take note of the paper. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senator ROBERTSON(Northern Territory) —by leave-I move: That the Senate take note of the paper. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned. Senator COLSTON(Queensland) —On behalf of the Standing Committee on Education and the Arts I present a progress report on the Committee's reference: The development and implementation of a co-ordinated language policy for Australia. Ordered that the report be printed. Senator COLSTON —by leave-Honourable senators will recall that the Senate Standing Committee on Education and the Arts has before it the following reference: 'The development and implementation of a co-ordinated language policy for Australia'. This matter was originally referred to the Standing Committee by the Senate on 25 May 1982 but lapsed with the double dissolution of the Parliament on 4 February last year. On 10 May 1983 I informed the Senate that the new Committee had decided to continue the reference. On that occasion I referred to the wide scope of the reference. The Committee has identified 12 separate areas of inquiry. These range from the role of English and the learning of modern languages, to the educational use of Aboriginal languages. Today I am making a report to the Senate on the Committee's progress on the reference. Public hearings on the reference began in Canberra on 24 September 1982 when the Committee took evidence from the Commonwealth Department of Education and Youth Affairs and Professor Einar Haugen, Emeritus Professor of Harvard University and a world renowned socio-linguist. Public hearings concluded, again in Canberra, on 31 October 1983 when the Committee took evidence of a supplementary nature from, amongst others, Commonwealth departments and instrumentalities concerned with language issues. The Committee's public hearings were held not only in Canberra but also in all State capitals, in Darwin and in Alice Springs. The Committee received 240 submissions and 179 documents, and took evidence from 94 witnesses. One of the submissions was written in Walmajarri, an Aboriginal language of the north east of Western Australia. The evidence taken by the Committee related to matters as diverse as Aboriginal broadcasting and the provision of library material for the handicapped. The transcript of proceedings of the Committee's 21 public hearings totalled 2,393 pages. During the course of the inquiry the Committee visited two schools-the North Ainslie Primary School in the Australian Capital Territory, which teaches Modern Greek, and St Therese's School on Bathurst Island, which conducts bilingual schooling in English and Tiwi. The Committee also visited the Midway Migrant Centre at Maribyrnong in Victoria to observe the teaching of English as a second language to refugee adults and children. The Committee wishes to thank all those who gave of their time, knowledge and experience in preparing submissions for the inquiry. It also wishes to thank all those who appeared before it to give evidence. As well, thanks are extended to the teachers and administrators at the education institutions which were visited . The Committee assures all who provided submissions that matters raised in their submissions will be taken into consideration in its final report. The Committee's work on the reference has suffered two interruptions. Firstly, on 1 October 1982, the Senate referred to Student Assistance (Loans Guarantee and Subsidy) Bill 1982 to the Committee for inquiry and report by 16 November 1982. Secondly, as I mentioned earlier, the Committee ceased to exist with the dissolution of the Parliament on 4 February 1983 and work on the inquiry did not recommence until 5 May 1983. Despite these interruptions, the Committee has completed its public hearings and is now drafting its final report. Owing to the complexity and wide scope of the reference, the drafting will require considerable time. The Committee has, however, set itself the task of finalising a report for tabling as early as practicable in the 1984 Budget session of the Parliament. Senator ROBERTSON(Northern Territory)(5.08) —On behalf of my colleague Senator Tate, I present the third report of the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills concerning the Acts Interpretation Amendment Bill 1984, the Bass Strait Freight Adjustment Trust Fund Bill 1984, the Canned and Frozen Vegetables ( Export Inspection Charge) Bill 1984, the Canned and Frozen Vegetables (Export Inspection Charge) Collection Bill 1984, the Honey (Export Inspection Charge) Bill 1984, the Honey (Export Inspection Charge) Collection Bill 1984, the Quarantine Amendment Bill 1984 and the Torres Strait Fisheries Bill 1983. Ordered that the report be printed. Senator ROBERTSON —On behalf of the Committee I lay on the table Scrutiny of Bills Alert Digest No. 3, dated 4 April 1984. Debate resumed from 8 March, on motion by Senator Macklin: That the Senate take note of the report. Senator DURACK(Western Australia)(5.09) —This very important report of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts on HMAS Tobruk deserves a considerable amount of consideration and discussion by the Senate. Unfortunately I am not ready to proceed with the debate this afternoon. I am not aware that any other senators are particularly anxious to speak this afternoon. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Other honourable senators do wish to speak on this report- Senator Maguire, for one. Senator DURACK —I was going to seek leave to continue my remarks. Senator Robertson —If you would like to move the adjournment, we will agree to that. Senator DURACK —I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned. Debate resumed from 14 December 1983, on motion by Senator Watson: That the Senate take not of the report. Senator MAGUIRE(South Australia)(5.11) —Senator Watson, Senator Georges and I were members of the Joint Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts which looked at the matter of the Australian War Memorial. The War Memorial was originally the subject of the Committee's 196th report which was tabled in April 1982. That report looked at the curatorial and conservation functions of the Memorial. Those problems were the subject of a response from the Department of Finance through the standard procedure of a Finance minute. During 1983 the outstanding matters which were raised by the Public Accounts Committee in respect of the War Memorial were finalised by the Finance minute procedure; that is, the response from the Department is in fact the subject of this report we are discussing today; the 221st Report of the Public Accounts Committee. Originally the report looked only at the War Memorial itself, but during the inquiry it became evident to all members that there were problems in other institutions and the report was widened to look at Australia's entire national collection. I am pleased to say that some of the original Public Accounts Committee Australian War Memorial recommendations have now been implemented. For example, there has been, as recommended, an expansion of staff ceilings at the Memorial. There has been the creation of a number of permanent positions of curator and approval has been given by the Government for a position of registrar of collections. I am pleased to note that the Government has given approval for an $11m modernisation and renovation building program at the Memorial. That will enable an enlarged aircraft hall to be constructed. At present a number of aircraft are being kept in very unsatisfactory conditions. The original problems at the Memorial were identified by the Auditor-General during a comprehensive audit in 1979-80. He found inadequate control of items, security problems, inadequate stocktaking, and general problems with the assessment of the collection. There were gaps in catalogues and there was nothing in the way of maintenance or restoration programs. As a response to those problems being identified the Australian War Memorial put a response before the Public Accounts Committee. In that response it was very interestingly pointed out that it held some four million items in the Australian War Memorial and a value of over $100m was put on the collection. In responding, the Memorial saw that staff shortages were the major problem in maintaining the collection. The Australian War Memorial conceded most of the points made by the Auditor- General as to the inadequacies of the organisation. The Public Accounts Committee, in carrying out its investigations, said that the problems at the Memorial were not unique within the national collection. It went on to examine a number of other elements of our national collection. It looked at the National Library of Australia, the Australian National Gallery and the Australian Archives. The Public Accounts Committee came down with the unfortunate conclusion that Australia's national collection was at a crisis stage following years of neglect and lack of recognition of its worth. It is interesting to note in that connection that the Memorial itself indicated that something like 450-man years of work was required just to overcome the conservation backlog; that was basically just to overcome the most pressing problems. The Public Accounts Committee saw a need for a more equitable and co-ordinated allocation of resources within the national collection. It saw the need for a review from the national viewpoint as to the value of the national collection and the price the nation was prepared to pay for its being maintained. As a result of the investigations by the Public Accounts Committee, in 1982 we saw the establishment of the Advisory Committee on National Collections which includes representatives of the Department of Home Affairs and Environment which chairs the Committee, the National Library, the Australian Archives, the Australian War Memorial, the National Gallery and provisionally the Museum of Australia. The functions of ACNC will be to advise the Minister and to report on such matters as the scope for increased co-operation and the sharing of resources between the various institutions in the national collection such as conservation staff and to prepare a study of ways and means of improving conservation in this country. In relation to the Australian War Memorial, the Public Accounts Committee specifically recommended that a corporate plan be adopted by that body. I am pleased to say that that recommendation was adopted. The institution now has a plan for the period to 1987. The Committee also recommended that all institutions within the national collection make staff aware of the need for preventative conservation and that appropriate storage conditions be provided for in handling and care of documents. Those matters are now being looked at. Even matters that many people would believe are mundane, such as the quality of paper on which records are prepared, are now being examined. Suitable paper for storage of Australian Government records and so forth for future years is being provided. The Public Accounts Committee also recommended that early action be taken to house the existing collection, to ensure that that occurred in an organised and effective manner and to catalogue fully all items of the collection. In respect of the Museum of Australia, the new store is to be completed this year. I believe that some of the national ethnographic collection will be kept in that store. The Public Accounts Committee also recommended in respect of the Australian War Memorial that there be a more formalised approach to staff training, development and research activities and said that action was needed if the Memorial were to perform its museum role. During 1983 in response to that recommendation a survey was done at the Memorial of staff training needs. Certainly there is momentum in that area. The Public Accounts Committee also recommended a program of management for conservation be implemented by the Memorial as a priority matter. The Committee has been informed in the minute of the Department of Finance that over the next five years there is to be a systematic conservation stocktake of all collections within the national collection. The proposal for the Museum of Australia is proceeding. One element of that proposal is for a national maritime museum. I have taken note of the excellent and comprehensive study put forward by the State Government in South Australia for a maritime museum to be located in that State. In conclusion, I think the Public Accounts Committee can take some credit for being the catalyst which identified the conservation crisis in Australia's national collections. I certainly acknowledge that thanks should go to the Department of Home Affairs and Environment and the various agencies in the national collection for their positive response to the Public Accounts Committee report. Overall, the Committee is pleased that the main thrust of its recommendations in relation to the national collection has been accepted and implemented. In fact, the Committee is more than satisfied with the responses it received, and I think that is an unusual result to achieve in an inquiry. It shows what can be achieved by parliamentary committees. It is vital that our national collection be maintained and restored to a high standard. After all, it forms a key part of our national heritage. It is hoped that much will have been done in time for the bicentenary year celebrations. In the period leading up to the bicentenary I believe that we can show that the effects of the past neglect of our national collection can be rectified. I seek leave to continue my remarks . Leave granted; debate adjourned. [COGNATE DEBATE: CUSTOMS (CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS) REGULATIONS CLASSIFICATION OF PUBLICATIONS ORDINANCE] Debate resumed. Senator WALTERS(Tasmania)(5.21) —This is the continuation of a debate commenced this morning when Senator Mason and Senator Harradine moved for the disallowance of regulations and ordinances concerned with the new Commonwealth censorship procedures adopted in relation to publications. The regulations and ordinances brought down by the Government have created a complete shemozzle in the States. A meeting of Attorneys-General last year agreed that there ought to be some uniformity throughout Australia in the application of censorship procedures to pornographic material. However, the Attorney-General (Senator Gareth Evans) in his usual fashion brought down regulations and ordinances that were meant to be substantiated by the States. Of course, that has not occurred. The States have not yet put in place regulations and ordinances; they have not yet passed the necessary legislation to make the censorship procedures uniform throughout Australia. The Attorney-General thought it a good idea at the time-he could not resist it-to put in place the legislation enacting those regulations and ordinances even though the States have not yet put in place complementary legislation. The situation now is that the States find it difficult to do anything about dealing with the literature and publications-that includes videotapes-entering those States. The Attorney-General, in a paper in which he sought to explain the new procedures, said: The barriers to the importation of hardcore pornography have been lifted. There are some exceptions other than child pornography-publications which incite terrorism and publications containing extreme violence and/or sexual violence. The Attorney-General said that, apart from those sorts of publications, the barriers to the importation of pornography have been lifted. He went on to assure us that this step is being taken because the Government believes that adult persons are entitled to read and view what they wish. The Attorney-General assured the Senate today that, apart from Senator Harradine and me and a few other extreme people, all Australians support the action he has taken. I ask the Attorney-General whether he has any evidence at all that suggests that the Australian people support the expansion of the range of hardcore pornography available in this country. The range has been expanded to include X rated or Category 2 material. The guidelines laid down by the Attorney-General-I will come to this matter later-are extreme from anyone's viewpoint. Senator Gietzelt —The biggest obscenity of all is war and you never say anything about that. Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations (Amendment) Senator WALTERS —I pay Senator Gietzelt the compliment of believing that he would not be very interested in Category 2 stuff. No matter how extreme Senator Gietzelt is, I do not really believe that he would relish watching that sort of stuff. Senator Gietzelt may not have even looked at the guidelines and therefore may not even know what they contain. We are told that the Commonwealth, which up to date has supposedly had complete legislative control over the sort of pornography imported into Australia, will now wash its hands of that control and the the Film Censorship Board is to be told that all it can do is say whether material should be prohibited from import. The guidelines are very explicit. Indeed, Senator Evans says very clearly that publications prohibited from importation will include child pornography involving minors under 16 years of age, publications that promote, incite or encourage terrorism, and those that gratuitously depict extreme cruelty, particularly when combined with a sexual element. He makes it clear that the Film Censorship Board and those who censor publications will be able to prohibit the importation of material that comes into those three categories only. All other material will be able to be registered. The States must make their own arrangements. Of course, he ignores the fact that the States have not yet made their own arrangements. The Attorney-General has said that at the State level distributors will not be compelled to seek to have videotapes classified, that the seeking of a classification will be completely voluntary. It will be up to the distributors whether they have classified the video tapes they send out. I have received many complaints from people who live in the Australian Capital Territory. Yet the Territory has the necessary legislation in place. Residents of the Australian Capital Territory have complained that when they have gone to a video shop to find something for young family viewing over the weekend they have found that the videotapes available contain no classification. The tapes do not show whether they are suitable for general viewing or whether parental guidance is recommended. People do not know what sort of video they might be buying. They are obliged to ask the proprietor whether a particular video will be suitable for viewing by 7 and 8-year-olds. Senator Robertson —You would be pretty dim, wouldn't you? Senator WALTERS —Senator Robertson can laugh but he should look at the situation in the Australian Capital Territory. Senator Robertson —I have. You are talking a lot of nonsense. Senator WALTERS —If Senator Robertson questions what I am saying, obviously he has not looked at the situation in the Australian Capital Territory. He is interested only in the Northern Territory. The Commonwealth Government enacts legislation that affects the Australian Capital Territory. The situation is that parents in the Australian Capital Territory have no indication at all whether the videotapes are suitable for viewing by 7 or 8-year-olds. They are obliged to ask the individual proprietor whether he believes a particular videotape is suitable for a 7-year-old to look at. Obviously a system under which the distributors are able to seek a classification on a voluntary basis will not work. Belatedly the Attorney-General has said that he can see some sense in such a suggestion and that perhaps such a system will not work. Perhaps the system of seeking classification has to be a compulsory one. Perhaps the distributors will have to be made to go through the censorship procedures and have video tapes classified. Clause 19 of the ordinance sets out in quite a bit of detail the classifications for printed work. The Attorney-General's Department has laid down quite clear guidelines as to what material is likely to be contained in Category 1 and Category 2 publications, those being the restricted publications. Category 2, which is the new classification, is quite incredible. I ask the Attorney whether he has brought to the attention of honourable senators opposite the guidelines that he has set down, because when I read them through I did not know what they meant. I got out a dictionary and could not find all the words in the guidelines in it. Honourable senators opposite might be very sophisticated in this area, but I have not found one member of our side of the Parliament who knows what all of them mean. Perhaps honourable senators opposite deal more with this sort of thing and know about it in some detail, because through interjections they claim that there is something wrong with me that I do not understand all the words. Perhaps they are more au fait with the subject. I invite the Attorney-General to tell me, by way of interjection, whether there are similar guidelines for videotapes as there are for printed publications with pictorial material. I am very keen to find out whether that is the case. I did ask the Attorney-General's office whether it could ascertain for me whether there were clear guidelines regarding videotapes. I was told that there might be ; the office did not know but it would try to find out for me. I have applied several times and have been told that the office still does not know and, up to this time, it is still trying to find out for me. I ask the Attorney-General again whether there are any set guidelines. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Elstob) —The honourable senator should direct her questions through the Chair. Senator WALTERS —Through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, I ask the Attorney- General whether there are similar guidelines for videos. Have similar guidelines been put out in relation to the classification of videos as there have been in relation to categories 1 and 2 of printed material with pictorial matter? Senator Gareth Evans —Yes. As I told you through my staff, there are draft guidelines in existence prepared by the Chief Censor which are to be debated and discussed by the ministerial council on Friday. Senator WALTERS —Are we entitled to see them? Senator Gareth Evans —No more than you are entitled to see the first lot. Senator WALTERS —I am not quite sure why. I was told by the Attorney-General's Department that they could be confidential. This really worries me. We are being asked to consider and vote on whether the Attorney-General's guidelines should be brought down and I have been told that I am not entitled to see them. What sort of a position are we put in? I have in my hand the guidelines relating to printed publications with pictorials. I do not have the guidelines concerning videos. I asked the Attorney whether he would give me the guidelines for the videos and he told me that they are confidential and that there is no way I am entitled to see them. Senator Harradine has just given me a copy. Yes, I see that they are the same as those applying to printed material. Senator Chipp —Read them out. Senator WALTERS —Senator Chipp has asked me to read them out. There is no way I will read them out. He can read them himself. The Australian Capital Territory House of Assembly has already had second thoughts about these regulations and ordinances. It passed them but on 27 March it unanimously decided to have a rethink. The House of Assembly sent the whole lot to its Standing Committee on Education and Community Affairs. The amendment that was unanimously agreed to by the House of Assembly stated that the Standing Committee on Education and Community Affairs should urgently consider the implications of the changed Customs regulations and their relation to the Classification of Publications Ordinance. Mrs Cains said she moved the amendment because she believed the Committee had not understood the situation previously. Obviously she was correct because Ms Walmsley joined her-those women do not usually see eye to eye-and said: I share her concern that the current regulations to the Customs Ordinance do enable material to come into Australia which clearly are exploitation of women. So it went on. Everyone who took part in the debate agreed and the motion was passed unanimously. The House of Assembly is certainly having second thoughts and is taking action to overcome the problem. I fail to understand one thing: The feminists opposite would normally join me on this issue, I should have thought, yet there is complete silence from the Labor women opposite. Normally they would say they believed the exploitation of women was abhorrent. I do not believe any women in Australia would be party to passing this sort or rubbish. I do not believe any women would agree with it. Yet Labor women opposite kowtow, do not put up a fight and pass this sort of stuff. Perhaps at the meeting on Friday the Attorneys-General will be more aware of the feelings in this place. Senator Evans has said that he wants us to put off debate until after the meeting of Attorneys-General and that he will convey our feelings to the Attorneys-General. He does not want a vote to be taken. I can assure the Attorney-General that nothing will impress the Attorneys-General more than this place saying: 'We will not go along with those regulations and ordinances'. There was not complete agreement at the last Attorneys-General meeting. Tasmania and Queensland did not agree to this action. Both Tasmania and Queensland want compulsory certifications. The Attorney-General has attempted to put forward that the Attorneys-General were in close agreement. There was no close agreement at all. Let us consider what is happening in Sweden. I do not know how many people saw the film Not a Love Story which was screened in Canberra. Sweden was one of the countries which originally opened the doors to pornography. The film Not a Love Story depicts exactly what is happening in Sweden at the moment. Sweden is now seeking more controls on pornography. The film pointed out that the reason Sweden is moving back to more controls is that, when the gates were opened, a certain standard of hard core pornography, which was pretty low, appeared. Over the years it became worse and worse until now it is so bad that the powers that be in Sweden are saying: 'We have had enough; it is sickening. We are moving back'. Let us look at what happened. Senator Chipp —That is the nature of pornography; the devotees are never satisfied. Senator WALTERS —Let us look at 1971 when Senator Chipp was Minister for Customs and Excise. Senator Chipp —I never let pornography in. Are you saying I did? Senator WALTERS —Senator Chipp should listen. I am saying that we should look at 1971 when he was Minister. At that time, in February 1971, a debate was on about censorship. At that time both parties had a free debate. It was not a party debate. It was a conscience issue. I believe that is what should be happening here. Again, I ask the Attorney-General whether he will allow his party a free vote on this. Senator Gareth Evans —No, of course not. Don't be absurd. Senator WALTERS —It is absolutely incredible. He says: 'No. I have got them caucused. There is no way I would give them a free vote'. I asked him whether he would give them a free vote and he said: 'No, not on your life'. He has got them caucused. What more does he want? Senator Gareth Evans —I wish it was up to me, but I don't have any say in it. Senator WALTERS —He did not say it was not up to him. He just said: 'No, I will not give them a free vote'. There was an agreement in 1971-I am sure Senator Chipp will remember-between the States and the Commonwealth Ministers. The State and Commonwealth Ministers then introduced an R rating. This present agreement between the States and the Federal Government is not new. It has been done before. In 1971 Senator Chipp stated that there was agreement between the State and Commonwealth Ministers on an R certificate rating. At that time he said: It is my fond hope that by the middle of this year the R certificate system will be in operation throughout Australia despite the vigorous and spirited opposition that is being conducted by people in certain quarters. So for the first time we had an R rating. He went on to say-he may well laugh at this: That is all I have to say, except that I wish to give an example of material covered by some of my last remarks. I am being criticised rather extensively for the prohibition of 'Playboy'. This comes under the heading of taking account of the limited availability of some works. Only 2 issues of 'Playboy' have been banned since the beginning of 1969 and I would regard- get a load of this; this is Senator Chipp- the standards of this magazine as a bench mark beyond which we will not go in permissiveness as far as sex is concerned. That was not so very long ago, 1971. In 1971 we moved to an R rating and, according to the Minister at that time, Senator Chipp, he would not allow anything more permissive than Playboy. Ten years later we moved to an X rating. What will happen in the next 10 years? What will happen by 1991? Will we then think it is all right to have child pornography too? Senator Grimes —No. Senator WALTERS —We are now told 'no' by the Government but in 1971 we were told by Senator Chipp that we would not move from Playboy, that it would not get any worse than that under his Ministry. We have had this gradual erosion, to which Senator Chipp alluded earlier, of standards. Senator Gareth Evans has said that no State government-it was a play with words-has objected outright to the Federal Government's procedures. He could have said that only one State Government, South Australia, has complementary legislation. But he did not put it that way. He did not put it that only one State Government has already got complementary legislation. He said that no State government has objected outright to the Federal procedures. Perhaps we will find that out on Friday. It depends on what impression one wants to make. About half an hour or so ago I received a letter from the video industry; boy, is it putting on the hard word. Senator Grimes —Ha, ha! Senator WALTERS —It depends on one's mind, Senator Grimes. Members of that industry are lobbying very hard and saying: 'For heaven's sake, do not disallow it'. I wonder why they are saying that. It would not be a bob or two to them, would it? The letter states-it is completely dishonest: If the ordinance is disallowed those X rated video movies may be available without restriction- At least they have the honesty to say 'may' be available without restriction. The letter continues: including to children. This would cause some concern and I am sure it is not the intention of the Senate to create such a state of confusion. What absolute rubbish! It is not the truth. I hope those in the video industry who have any sort of regard for their credibility will take the author of this thing to task when they read Hansard, if they are interested enough to read it. All that will occur if the regulations are disallowed is that the Government will be able to enforce the present legislation, the law as it is now, that states that a person shall not sell or otherwise publish for gain an objectionable publication. All the Government has to do is enforce the law. There will be no need for the X rated videos to be available without restriction , as the industry tries to tell us will happen, nor are the videos likely to get into the hands of children, as the industry would like us to believe, if we dare try to stop it being able to sell this sort of stuff. Senator Harradine —It is untruthful blackmail. Senator WALTERS —It is complete blackmail and I am surprised that the industry would do that. But no doubt other members of the industry will indeed take the author to task about it. As I said earlier, the barriers for importation of hard pornography, according to the Attorney-General, have been lifted. We are now faced with the situation of the Commonwealth washing its hands of its responsibility. I am not liable to wash my hands of that responsibility, nor is the Opposition nor, evidently, the Australian Democrats or Senator Harradine. We will see what the Attorney-General can accomplish on Friday. I have much pleasure in supporting both the Australian Democrats and Senator Harradine in their motions for the disallowance of those regulations. Senator CROWLEY(South Australia)(5.49) —I wish to address the important considerations raised by these motions, not so much the administration, et cetera of the regulations and so on alluded to but more the underlying philosophical questions addressed by these motions. Firstly, the question that has to be addressed is how much importance we place on civil liberties. I have heard Senator Mason argue that this society takes decisions to deny individual civil liberties, for example, the case of road rules. I know also from my medical experience that our society quite clearly supported the mandatory requirement for smallpox vaccination until very recently when the world was declared free of smallpox. No individual could insist his or her right to go without a smallpox vaccination on returning to Australia without submitting to some numbers of weeks in quarantine. In both of those cases there was a clear denial of individual civil liberties on behalf of the common good. In both of those cases common sense prevailed, that is, the good sense that balances community good against individual needs or preferences. However, I believe that they are not good analogies for the question we are addressing here. In both of those illustrations there is clear evidence and a clear understanding of the balance of community good against the loss of individual civil liberty. In this debate, the civil liberty issue is whether or not we judge that adults in Australia are entitled to read, hear and see what they wish, in private. We do not have any solid evidence to suggest that that happening in this community leads to a considerable loss of the common good of the community. There are claims of evidence to support that view. But I believe that view is not widely held or widely substantiated. By that I do not mean to necessarily justify that there are not some people who are ill-affected by their freedom to watch, read or see such material. But in terms of the analogy proposed by Senator Mason, I do not believe there is any evidence to substantiate the common good versus individual liberties in this case as in the previous mentioned cases. I want to address the way this debate has been shaped or taken up recently by a number of women, in particular, by a group calling itself WAVE, Women Against Violence and Exploitation. This group has focused its concern on the proposed X rating classification for videos and the corresponding State legislation to legalise the sale of hard core porn videos. The X rating classification has the support of many groups which have sought consumer guidance; that is, some information about the content of videos so that people can make informed or appropriate choices depending on their preference. A number of honourable senators have alluded to the fact that some people, when they have gone to borrow or buy videos, have found, at the end of an acceptable family film or G rated movie, that they have been submitted to trailers about movies of a quite different sort, sometimes trailers about M or even X rated movies. I think there has been total agreement in this chamber that that sort of thing must be stopped . People who, in good faith, accept a G rated film do not wish to find that they have an X rated attachment at the end of it. Senator Harradine —That is what I raised this morning. Senator CROWLEY —Indeed, the honourable senator did. To my surprise I find myself in agreement with him. In fact, I think I could also say that it is pleasant to find Senator Harradine in agreement with me on this matter. There is no doubt that these are just the sorts of things that the classification proposals are attempting to address. It was for these and other reasons that there was an attempt to classify the material. The attempt was sought and welcomed by many people in the community. If people are to make reasoned choices they can properly do so only if they have the necessary information, the consumer protection, that they need so as to make that informed choice that provides them, if you like, with the necessary information. People have to address that problem. I think the community has done so and I think this Government is attempting to do so in its classification scale. For people to make proper choices they need to have the necessary and the appropriate information. One way of doing that in terms of the video films that are available in our society is to make a classification of them. My concern is that the Women Against Violence and Exploitation arguments may replace one set of exploitation with another, that is, the exploitation of censorship that has been used against women in the past. In the past women have been denied information about contraception. If ever there was a very destructive form of censorship it was that. I refer to the aforementioned article by Adele Horin which appeared in the National Times on 30 March 1984. Although I know that part of this article has been incorporated in Hansard, I would like to read another part of it. It states: In the US, where the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees free speech , the Women Against Pornography are more cognisant of the dangers of censorship than their Australian sisters. 'We do not advocate censorship. We respect the First Amendment stricture against imposition of prior restraint on any form of speech,' their leaflets state. Feminists here-- 'here' meaning in America- concede that banning pornography will not even begin to attack the reasons why so many men hate and oppress women. And they work on many other fronts to end sexism and violence against women. Yet-- and in Australia perhaps- they still appeal, as the puritans have always appealed, to the censor. What we need to make clear is where we will draw the censorship line. There has been complete agreement in this chamber about those things that are beyond classification-such matters as child pornography, violence and terrorism and snuff movies are not even to be considered as part of the classification. It is those films and those items that are listed as eligible for X rating that are the problem for some of the women. The women argue that the pornography in the X rating classification films continues to encourage the exploitation of women. It encourages the attitude of women as sex objects, as nothing more than possessions to be used by men as men will and as people who are dependent on what men will do to them or would want of them. I argue that that attitude of women is depicted in a much wider context in our society than just in X rated movies. Perhaps the way it is presented in X rated movies is more explicit and more horrific. But that kind of attitude of women as sex objects very widely pervades our society. One only has to open newspapers each day, read most of the magazines or follow the advertising on television or in films. The attitude that regards women as sex objects continues , very broadly, in our society. To effect the changes of attitudes in our society that women want, and rightly so, it would seem more effective to insist that the recommendations of the 'Fair Exposure' booklet launched late last year by this Government-it was jointly launched by Mr Macphee and Senator Susan Ryan-be applied to all those magazines, newspapers, films, advertisements, et cetera. Those guidelines and the accompanying use of non-sexist language would meet the requirements to change attitudes in our society much more widely and much more effectively than censorship on X rated movies with the incumbent limited scope and the inherent dangers of extending the limits of censorship. I will now go sideways, partly for my own edification. I can tell Senator Walters that I too went to the dictionary but I looked up different words. Unfortunately, I have to confess to knowing the meaning of every one of the words listed in the guidelines, but that may be the advantage of a medical education. I first looked up 'Eros'. Eros means: 'Love, god of love, Cupid'. I might say that I am dependent here on the Concise Oxford Dictionary, a reasonable volume. I then moved to 'erotic', which means 'Of love, amatory' and then to 'eroticism', which moved away from love, and which means 'sexual desire or excitement'. I then looked up the word 'pornography'. To my shock and horror I discovered that pornography derives from a Greek word 'porne' meaning harlot. So pornography means 'description of manners et cetera of harlots, treatment of obscene subjects in literature, inflammatory literature' et cetera. But I am appalled and once again reminded that when our society wishes to put a nasty connotation or a mean interpretation on something so often it turns to words that derive from women. I found it shocking to discover the origin of the word ' pornography'. Another word that I looked up was 'libertarian'. In the Concise Oxford Dictionary it means 'Believer, believing in free will, advocate of liberty'. From there I went to 'libertine', which means 'Free-thinker on religion; licentious (man); free thinking, person allowed to do as he pleases'. I think what has happened of recent times is that 'libertarian' has become confused with 'libertine'. I would not like us to see our society encouraging that kind of shift. Perhaps it has already happened but maybe we can halt the process. I found the origins of these words informative for this debate, at least in the back of my head. Until we understand what those words mean, where they derive from and what they can be used to say I think we can be slightly wrong in the emphasis we place on this argument. To Senator Walters's surprise, I am sure, I would like to say on record in this Senate chamber that I am certainly perturbed at much of the pornographic material and the view of women portrayed therein. I am absolutely sure that I speak for all women in this chamber. Certainly I know that I speak for Labor women both in this chamber and in the House of Representatives who also are totally opposed to the exploitation of women, particularly as portrayed in pornographic material. What I say that distinguishes Senator Walters from me is what I am prepared to do in response to that and what I judge to be the better way to address the problem. I prefer education and information to banning and an increase in censorship. I would include in that information the classification of videos so that people can more freely choose to reject that material. As Senator Chipp said earlier in this debate, there is no law that requires people to watch this material. People are quite free to reject it. The word 'feminist' has been bandied around somewhat and somewhat loosely too. I guess we need to define what we mean by 'feminist'. Again, the Concise Oxford Dictionary defines a feminist as any person who works for the betterment of women, that is, men as well as women can be, and very often are, good feminists. But not all feminists hold the view expounded by the WAVE women. While there is sympathy for the opposition to the revolting way women are often represented and exploited, there is a considerable difference of feminist response to how best to solve the problem. It is important to keep in mind the longer view of what we aim for. If we are looking to a society that holds all men and women as worthy of equal regard the process of achieving that is the critical question. I would emphasise the word 'process'. I stress again that my preference is for education and information rather than banning and an increase of censorship. I think the proposals in the legislation as put by the Attorney-General (Senator Gareth Evans) in this place today go some way to attempting to provide the information via classification so that people, in the process of being better informed and having better consumer protection, are better able to make the choices that they prefer and in particular are better able to oppose the exploitation of women rather than resort to the heavy hand of censorship to do it for them. Senator BJELKE-PETERSEN(Queensland)(6.03) —I support the motions of Senator Mason and Senator Harradine for the disallowance of regulations and ordinances in respect of video material. By making a change in the Customs regulations the Government has allowed into Australia a considerable amount of material such as hard core pornography which previously was not available. I have a paper from the Attorney-General's Department which states: Barriers to the importation of hard core pornography-other than child pornography, publications which incite terrorism and publications containing extreme violence and/or sexual violence-have been lifted. I understand that video material is virtually the same as the items listed in that paper. I repeat that the paper says that barriers to the importation of hard core pornography have been lifted. I feel that the Senate, by supporting the motion today, will be seen as doing away with the degradation of women firstly in the Australian Capital Territory and then throughout Australia. I wish to refer to a letter written by Mrs Esther Doyle, State President of the Catholic Women's League of New South Wales, which appeared in the Australian today. She made the following points about the importation and distribution of pornographic material: 1. Material promoting the degradation and exploitation of women should be refused classification. 2. All pornography should be banned. Reason: Classifying it gives it legality. 3. The views that adults should be entitled to indulge in pornography, or that it should not be permitted only if it offends reasonable adult persons, are naive and irresponsible. I agree with Mrs Doyle when she states: . . . There is no way that such material can be prevented from getting into the hands of those not able to cope with it. It is very difficult to stop children viewing material such as this which comes into a home. She maintains in her letter: In the past decade existing laws have not been suitably enforced. It is imperative that these laws be enforced and that more precise wording be introduced into further legislation to deal with technological developments such as video discs. No one could be so unrealistic as to believe that television and films have no effect on their viewers. Our legislators must face the fact that the young, the unbalanced and the perverted will be affected by viewing horror, violence, sadism, sexual deviation, etcetera, and many will perform criminal acts as a result. I consider that the action of the Attorney-General (Senator Gareth Evans) was premature in making a change to the Customs regulations that could result in a flood of hard core pornography into Australia. In fact, the industry has felt that it has been given a green light for video sex. Unfortunately, when the change was made to the Customs regulations the State governments did not have their legislation in place to censor X rated hard core pornographic video material, although I understand that South Australia has now got complementary legislation in place. I am pleased to see that the Queensland Government is doing something about this matter. I note that the Queensland Government made a statement this week that it will bring forward new legislation on video censorship which will, I understand, mean the banning from our State of all video films with X censorship classification. It is said from time to time that Queensland is a bit of a stuffy State because of its censorship laws. However, it seems, when one reads an article in one of Queensland's daily newspapers, that although Queensland has censorship laws one store in that State produced a collection of sex movies which an attendant said could not be put on the shelves. This could be the result of the new censorship procedures which came into operation in February. The newspaper article continued: The movies were brought out with no hesitation and the attendant offered them for hire. Although one of the films is banned from cinemas, no law can ban a video of the same movie. I feel that that is an important point. The article pointed out that the manager of the television rental company said that his libraries had a standing order banning people under the age of 18 hiring videos. The article continued: But he said there should be strict guidelines on what videos could and could not be hired. These are important facts. However, there is a time lapse between bringing in the legislation and putting the legislation in place. Therefore, I feel it is necessary to pass the disallowance motion to give all States time to put their legislation in place. I believe that this Government cannot legislate to treat the Australian Capital Territory as an island. If all the other States decide that they will go ahead and put legislation in place, I think it is very important that we do it together. The New South Wales Women's Advisory Council in a report to the Premier of New South Wales on hard core pornography said: Sexually explicit subordination of women, graphically depicted in pictures or words including the showing of women as things, commodities or objects or where women are injured, degraded, abused, tortured et cetera is not the sort of material that any women want to be available in Australia. That is something of which the Senate should take note when examining this motion. Senator Harradine —That is right. X rated videos will be some of those. Senator BJELKE-PETERSEN —Yes, I agree with Senator Harradine. In common with other senators, I have had much correspondence about the need to disallow the regulations and ordinances on video material. An article in the Queensland Courier-Mail on 20 March stated: Lack of censorship of video movies could have a major effect on society by allowing children to view sex and violence at home, according to police. They are concerned unrestrictive viewing of videos in the home could have undesirable influences on juveniles. Police say videos distributed for home viewing in Queensland need censorship control, but admit it is almost impossible to monitor what people watch privately. . . . . Another senior police officer said the problem had arisen because no clear censorship guidelines had been set for videos, when compared with present restrictions on cinema films, television and reading material. . . . . He said sex and violence seemed to be becoming noticeable in the Australian way of life and this was reflected in juveniles. 'If they are exposed to pornography and violence, it must have an effect on them'. That is why it is necessary for the Senate to support this disallowance motion. If it is supported, then most certainly the Government will be able to enforce the law as it is now. The Censorship Board will be able to make judgments, as in the past, in relation to material as well as on films for public viewing. I certainly support the disallowance motions moved by Senators Mason and Harradine . Senator WALTERS(Tasmania) —by leave-I wish to correct a few words I said in my speech. I said I had the pleasure of joining Senators Harradine and Mason in their move to disallow the regulations and ordinances. I now find that the Australian Democrats have decided not to support the motion. The Attorney- General, Senator Gareth Evans has, as he said in his speech, been able to buy their lousy vote. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Elstob) —Order! I would ask the honourable senator to choose other words. Senator WALTERS —Senator, I am quoting what Senator Gareth Evans said. I am not using those words but am quoting him. It was his comment that he was able to buy their lousy vote. The Democrats have fallen for that and have changed their minds. Their vote has been bought and they no longer intend to support the motion. Senator MISSEN(Victoria)(6.14) —I support the motion for disallowance of these regulations. Unfortunately, as I was engaged on other matters I did not hear all the debate. Therefore, I have not followed all the twists and turns which have occurred in connection with the attitudes of some of the other parties on this topic. But I desire to put on record my view, and also to make some comment on the regulations and the position as I see it. We are considering the disallowance of a number of regulations and what has happened, as I look at the statement prepared by the Attorney-General's Department, a statement which has been made fairly public, I note it reads: Officers of the Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department will be empowered to classify publications under the Australian Capital Territory Classification of Publications Ordinance 1983. These classifications will apply in the Australian Capital Territory and some States. The document goes on to state: Barriers to the importation of hard core pornography-other than child pornography, publications which incite terrorism and publications containing extreme violence and/or sexual violence-have been lifted. I am somewhat concerned at the lifting of those bans. My view on censorship is, I believe, the same view that is adopted by most liberals. It is that, in general, people should be able to hear and see those things that they want, purchase what they want to, and not be hampered in what they do in their own homes. However, there are exceptions, and always must be, in regard to a number of areas. I refer to matters that affect children and other people who are worried by these matters, particularly women, who deserve our support. It was interesting to see that there is a wide degree of support in this matter by women of different political views in respect of rights and liberties. On this matter they seem to take a common view that this new venture by the Commonwealth should be reconsidered and not allowed to go ahead at this stage. In the course of considering the disallowance, it has been suggested by the Attorney-General (Senator Gareth Evans) that there would be difficulties if the disallowance goes ahead with problems being caused through the revival of existing regulations. There is also the point that under section 49 of the Acts Interpretation Act there may be difficulty in putting in a new regulation to cover the same ground. I realise that some of these points may have already been made in the debate by other speakers, but I feel it is important to ensure that these things are said and understood. Under section 49 of that Act if we disallow regulations, then no regulation being the same in substance as the regulations so disallowed or deemed to be disallowed can be made within six months of the date of disallowance. It is clear that if the Senate in its majority is of the opinion that this is an unsuitable form of regulation, then the one that appears will not be one that gives the same substance. It will indeed be substantially different in substance. Senator Harradine —The Minister can introduce the legislation. Senator MISSEN —Yes, the Minister can introduce legislation, or under clause 49 we can rescind the resolution if something better comes forward, or we can also by resolution approve the making of a regulation. We do not even have to have legislation. The clause contains adequate provisions for dealing with the position. I heard the Attorney-General's remarks before lunch, and they had initial persuasive effect so that one was led to take the view that if things were held over for a few weeks-there are meetings to be held on Friday-all would be well. But in the meantime I suggest there could be importation of goods, films and videos. Senator Gareth Evans —What a gutsy libertarian performance! Senator MISSEN —I am glad to see the Attorney-General back in the chamber, trading his usual insults. I hope he will keep it up because every time he does so, it does wonders for me back in my home State of Victoria-his State of Victoria, too. Any insult he feels like indulging in is all right. Senator Gareth Evans —It was not an insult but a statement of fact. Senator MISSEN —It was the tone of voice used by the Minister. I still regard myself as a better civil libertarian. The Minister may well say that I have not had the testing that he has had in the last year. He may have fallen by the wayside, and I feel sorry for him. Senator Gareth Evans —You are about as good a civil libertarian as you were a defender of the Constitution in 1975. You are always standing up but never for quite long enough to be counted. Senator MISSEN —I have often had tests. The Attorney-General has made that comment on other occasions. I hope he will think of something new to say. He is becoming dull and repetitious as well as being insulting. I do not forgive him for that. Let us get back to the subject. In my belief these regulations are grossly defective. Perhaps I may deal with the import of videos and films, and I agree substantially with the arguments advanced by Senator Mason this morning. Having heard Senator Mason's speech this morning, I must say I agree substantially with the argument he was advancing, but I think I would take it one step further. He was concerned with the fact that what were not to be allowed were those publications which, according to the wording, 'gratuitously depict in pictorial form extreme violence or cruelty, especially when combined with any sexual element to the extent that they should not be imported'. I do not see why we should be restricting only extreme violence. It seems to me that grossly excessive violence is being shown in this community. I have no doubt that it is having a considerable effect on children and on our society and evidence of this is coming forward. I think a considerable amount of violence, not just coupled with a sexual element, is something that should be greatly restricted. I draw the attention of honourable senators also to the fact that that passage does not cover just depictions of gratuitous extreme violence, only that which should not be imported. So it would be possible to import material showing extreme violence if somebody makes a decision that it is not sufficiently bad not to import it. Who makes the judgment? On what criteria is the judgment made? I do not know. But it seems to me that that may be a point which has not been made, and it is another defect in these provisions. So far as the opinion of the community is concerned, I am impressed with what the members of the Australian Capital Territory House of Assembly have said to the Senate in this matter. In the letter we received from Mrs Bev Cains, we are told that the House of Assembly unanimously supported her proposition that ' these amendments and Ordinances do not seriously attempt to curb the flow of hard core pornographic material'. I break in to say that the statement of the Attorney-General says that the Government is lifting the restrictions on this. Mrs Cain said: 'Please note the debate from the House of Assembly'. I have certainly done that. She further said: I believe you, as legislators, have a serious duty to uphold the dignity of all people. You recently considered at length the Sex Discrimination Act. I hope you will objectively attempt to make the matters before you address the serious matter of the degradation of women. I speak not from any great experience of pornography-I would find it extremely boring and I certainly have made no attempt to make myself an expert in that area-but I have no doubt from what I have read and heard that many productions are made which are degrading and offensive to women. So we found in the debate in the Assembly women of very considerably different views agreeing that this is degrading. They were very worried at the continuance of the application of these regulations in the Australian Capital Territory. It seems to me that we must take a responsibility in this Parliament. I hope we will not hold the matter over from today so that in the next few weeks, when Parliament is not sitting, there can be a flood of imports of videos and other material to this country which will, of course, then spread and will probably keep the industry, such as it is, alive for a year or two, making use of the opportunity which it has while the regulations are still on foot. I believe that the actual importation of this material, much of which is filth, is the most important area. By coming into this country it will help to degrade the standards of this community. I know it is not for us to impose our standards on the community. At the same time we must hold some line in regard to the material which is available; material which we know will come into the possession of or be seen by children, which will be shown in homes and which will lead in due course to a further lowering of moral standards in this community. For these reasons I believe these regulations ought to be disallowed. Certainly then there ought to be some effort made to find a better and more restricted means of imposing proper controls on this industry, if I may call it that, so that we do not find our people subjected to a great mass of unsatisfactory imported material. For these reasons I support the motions for disallowance and hope that the regulations and the Ordinance will be disallowed today. Senator BOLKUS(South Australia)(6.25) —I rise to speak in this debate which has centred on the disallowance of Customs regulations in respect of prohibited imports of cinematographic films and the Australian Capital Territory Classification of Publications Ordinance. It is with a certain degree of sorrow that I have to follow Senator Missen because in his contribution this afternoon he managed to dispel, at least in my mind, the reputation that he had of being an alert civil libertarian. Of course he did make the concession for himself that he had not been involved in the debate during the day and as a consequence missed some of the manoeuvrings. Had he been here he would have realised that one point that he made had, in fact, been accommodated by the Attorney-General ( Senator Gareth Evans)-the point on extreme violence which was raised by Senator Mason. The Government has indicated an inclination towards accommodating the point made by the Australian Democrats. Senator Missen would have also realised that that was not the only point on which the Attorney had indicated a willingness to move. He would also have realised that with those movements today, together with the meeting planned for Friday of this week with State Attorneys-General, there could very well have been an opportunity for a uniform approach to be rekindled in this area, an approach which is vital if we are to look at an orderly system of regulating this area. At the moment the Senate is presented with a disallowance of regulations, with utter confusion following therefrom, or an adjournment for approximately a month , at which stage the Government can come up with a set of revised ordinances and regulations. It is not a major concession to ask the Opposition to be reasonable in this matter. It is claiming that the floodgates will open in the space of a month or so and we will be flooded with pornographic and objectionable video material. It also claims that the material is here at the moment, so where is the consistency in its argument? The material is here. The regulations and the laws have not been proven to be adequate to accommodate the particular problem that the community highlights. It is for this reason that the Attorney has taken the approach to trying to organise uniform legislation to cover both areas of responsibility-that of the Commonwealth and that of the States. The actual regulations embody the Government's policy in this area-a policy of allowing adults an entitlement to read, hear and see what they wish subject to a number of qualifications. It is subject to the qualification that there is protection of those who can be easily exploited, especially children, subject to protection against persons having unsolicited material which is offensive to them thrust upon them; and subject to the viewing of such material being in private. We have had much thrown at us in respect of pornography and much of it has been pursued by the normal forces of darkness in this place-the Senator Harradines and the Senator Walters. They are the ones who are claiming that community standards are such and so on. But I for one would resent and object to my standards, my sense of morality and the morality of many others in this community being controlled by the morality of those who have spoken before me. What is offensive to some of them is not necessarily offensive to me, and what is offensive to me is obviously, in many instances, not offensive to some of them. One thing that the Opposition should recognise in this respect is that bad laws cannot be enforced. It is impossible to lay down a legislative framework to enforce private morality. We have a responsibility to go to a certain extent, but we also have a responsibility to protect the interests of individuals. As I have said, bad laws lead to avoidance. In this instance they lead to uncontrolled black markets. They lead to breach of copyright where people with video taping facilities available to them can produce whatever they like on their own. It is bad laws that have no respect in the community and it is those laws that we are talking about enforcing at the moment. What the Government is on about is a system of effective regulation. It is on about a realistic approach to a particular problem about which the Opposition is obviously concerned. As I said earlier this evening, it is an approach that fits within the constitutional framework that we have to take into consideration. Under our federalist system the Commonwealth has certain areas of control, as do the States. The Commonwealth's area of control is in respect of the importation of films, videos and literature. The States' area of control is that of the exhibition of films or the advertising, displaying or selling of publications and videos whether they are produced locally or imported. This breakdown of powers and functions was recognised by earlier speakers, and I am glad to say was recognised by the shadow Attorney-General, Senator Durack. Speakers on both sides have recognised that the problem is such that it may best be met in the area of sale and distribution rather than in the area of importation. That has been one important aspect of the debate today. As I said, the Government's proposals implement a certain framework. They are based on a system whereby Customs officers have the initial detection role and from there on the Attorney-General's Department, with the relevant censorship tribunals, has the responsibility of deciding what is and what is not a prohibited import. In respect of printed matter, the proposals advocate four sets of classifications-unrestricted, restricted (category 1), restricted (category 2) and denied classification. The Attorney-General has made the restrictions clear but I think those listening to the debate should be alerted to the fact that in respect of category 1 restrictions there should be no sale to minors, and there should be other restrictions on the conduct of sale. Category 2 provides even further protection for those who do not wish to have such material imposed on them. In respect of the fourth category, denied classification, the Government is concerned to ensure that totally unacceptable erotica or pornography, be it child pornography or pornography that is extremely degrading, is prohibited from sale, display or hire. This framework is not a charter for open slather on these publications. The Government recognises that there should be control and prohibition of sale in certain areas, and we are moving towards adopting those sorts of principles. I turn now to videos, which have attracted wide debate this afternoon. We are proposing a system that is almost identical to that currently applying for cinema. We have the classifications of general, parental guidance, mature audiences only and restricted. However, we recognise the need for a further video classification-the X rating. X rated material will attract prohibition against cinema showing. We also recognise, once again, that there are problem areas with child pornography and with other material of an extremely gross nature. That will not be allowed to be sold. Sale of restricted and X classification material will be allowed on special conditions but this framework does not allow for the legal sale or propagation of extremely gross pornography or child pornography. As I have said, we have embodied these princples in the regulations. This framework prohibits pictorial child pornography, incitement to terrorism and, also, as the regulations stand at the moment, gratuitous, extreme pictorial violence and sexual violence. As I indicated earlier, the Attorney- General has shown flexibility in accommodating the points made by the Australian Democrats in respect of their request to delete 'extreme' from the criterion of extreme political violence. As has been indicated already today, even though the video classification system is one of voluntary classification, there are penalties when the conditions of the system are not met. Even more importantly, where an importer, distributor or other person does not apply for classification they will risk prosecution under State obscenity laws and under the laws of the Commonwealth. So, in effect, the Government has come up with a system which will accommodate the particular problem that we have in Australia. Over recent years a number of people have come to my office with problems concerning Customs. They have come from other countries and have brought with them films which may be family films-in this respect I do not refer to pornography, but to legitimate videos of families back in Greece, Italy or wherever-or foreign language films. These people have said to me: 'Look, I came back to Australia after a visit overseas three months ago and I am still waiting for a video to be approved and checked by the relevant government department.' On inquiry I have discovered that there is a massive backlog because we do not have the facilities to check, especially foreign language films. That is one aspect of the backlog that already exists. If we do not approach the particular problem we have now with a sane, rational approach, with one that is selective in that it attacks the problem area and in doing so allows exemption for the legitimate areas-for example for the educational and entertainment areas-we will find that this backlog will increase and the resources will be even more inadequate. As a consequence, the enforcement authorities will be missing out on the detection of the illegal material that we do not want spread through the community. That is the problem that exists at the moment. If we were to pursue the approach of the Opposition, we would find that problem accentuated even more . I refer briefly to one of the points Senator Harradine made. He claims that the Government shows naivety and that, as a Party, we have shown naivety for over 10 years. Senator Harradine's Press statement of 2 April 1984 indicates that the naivety of which we on this side are supposed to be guilty is more adequately sheeted home to Senator Harradine. He made this rather amazing statement: By introducing a new 'X' rating the package will institutionalise the importation, production and traffic in hard core pornography. Senator Harradine —That is right. Senator BOLKUS —He may claim it is right but it is also right that hard core pornography now exists. Senator Harradine will not understand, in this debate or in many other debates on enforcing laws of morality, that unless the community holds sufficient respect for laws they cannot be enforced properly. In this particular case, unless we recognise the legitimate interests of a democracy, we will find there is no respect for the laws in question. He cannot and will not understand that unless they have sufficient respect in the community, they will not be enforced properly. That then leads to all sorts of other problems. In conclusion, we have the option of a deferral to allow a system, that I would have thought appealed to the Opposition and to Senator Harradine, that would allow further discussions with State Attorneys-General this week, that would allow a further clearing up of the regulations and that would cause absolutely no inconvenience to the Senate. We have 11 more sitting days in which we can discuss these regulations and make a decision. In that period the Attorney- General could very well come up with a revised framework which could be accepted by a majority of States. We ask why Senator Harradine and the Opposition are not prepared to do that, when the Opposition spokesman recognises that advances could be made on the particular proposals? Why cannot Senator Harradine carry his side to ensure an adjournment if for no other reason than in the interests of good government? All I can say is that once again we have an indication here of either Senate stubbornness or a massive degree of shortsightedness by conservative Opposition members of the Senate. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK(New South Wales)(6.40) —The Senate is debating a motion for the disallowance of certain Customs regulations. Those regulations relate to the regulating and classifying of video films. As the Attorney-General (Senator Gareth Evans) told us, the background is that the States and the Commonwealth had realised that measures relating to the classification of print media and ordinary films could not be applied to video; therefore, a new approach had to be made. It is fundamental for those who are debating this to understand that we are not debating or opposing the classifications of print media or of the ordinary cinematographic films. The motion for disallowance relates to regulations concerning video tapes which can be imported into Australia. Senator Gareth Evans —But others are caught up as well in the regulations you are seeking to disallow. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —That is what I understood from the Attorney. As I understand it-I hope I have it right-the Attorney said that the meeting in July of the States and the Commonwealth reached certain agreements on videos which the Government now seeks to implement in these Customs regulations which apply-- Senator Harradine —No, they did not reach agreement. There were reservations by Queensland and Tasmania. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —Senator Harradine is right, but I am repeating what the Attorney-General said. He said that they reached agreement and out of that agreement emerged these Customs regulations which will function in the Australian Capital Territory from 1 February. He said that the principles on which they should operate-I want to examine them because this must be a serious debate-are that as a starting point adults should be allowed to read, hear and see, in private, and indeed in public anything they want, subject to certain protections for them. There should be adequate protection of the interests of children. Consumer protection should be applied by way of giving guidance through classification and there should be a principle involving some four categories which would be excluded. I think that is a fair precis of what the Attorney said. I want it to be so because I do not want this debate to develop into a combative situation. The important thing that the Attorney said was that this was being done in acknowledgment of the impossibility of import controls. So he had obviously looked at the possibility of import controls, that is, putting a classification on and denying the import of certain material; but he said: 'No, that can't be done'. If that is so and if the Commonwealth through its Customs and its police forces cannot enforce import bans on certain classifications, what hope has the Government of enforcing any kind of ban on those excluded materials that it now classifies and says ought not to be circulated at all to adults or others? If import controls are imposible, what kind of sanction does the Government hope for? In fact, the refused classifications, it says, can be policed by prosecution. But obviously if prosecution is effective in this, it ought to be effective in upholding import controls. A number of people from the Labor side, from the Government side, in this debate have argued as though this is a matter concerning adults. It is not; it bears no relation at all to the question of cinematographic films or print media in which we can have classifications. The age of people can be checked at the entrance to such films and parents themselves can exert influence. A video tape is capable of manifest reproduction in as many copies as one likes. The video recorder today is part of the institution and in no way can it be said that under these regulations parents would have any ability to control whether their children are subjected to these kinds of tapes. So it is not an argument about whether adults should be given freedom. It is really an argument about what the parents of children in this community believe their children ought to see. It is not an argument of a paternalistic approach to adults. It is an argument that we all accept; everybody accepts a paternalistic approach to children. That is a very important point to make. In our classifications of print media and films we recognise paternalism with respect to juveniles. We recognise that and we cater for it. In these Customs regulations we have done the very reverse. It is a strange thing that in one of the most important areas of debate in the very social manners and customs of our people we have never asked the people of Australia by way of public inquiry-- Senator Harradine —He will not even give his own side a conscience vote on it. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —No. We have never set up an inquiry to ask parents what they as parents want their children to see. That is the standard. It is not for us to make a value judgment on this. It is for us to expose the problems and let the public see it. I repeat that there is a great danger whenever a question of censorhip comes up for people to be classified as either one of two things: Prudes if they feel that some kind of censorship is necessary, or permissive if they go the the other extreme. That is a nonsense argument and should be removed from this debate. Nobody in this Senate and nobody in the Government is arguing that there should not be some form of absolute exclusive censorship. Let us make that quite clear. Paternalism comes in from the very start. There are clearly defined and stated areas of exclusion. It has been decided that adults apparently are not adult enough to see them. That raises a very important question. Who should decide where we draw the line? Thus huge problems are being put to us in considering this subject. I concentrate for the moment on one thing. I will support disallowance because this is not a question of consenting adults in private; it is a question of what we as Australians want to do with regard to video tapes of all sorts of extremes in terms of pornography being exposed to our children. What do we want to do to protect the community from a cottage industry of pornography for juveniles? That is not a sense of paternalism on my part. I have the strongest sense that we ought to create a community that is waterproofed as strongly as possible to make good, balanced judgments and to resist the world. But that is not the argument. The argument is: Here are video films on which the Government says it is impossible to enforce import controls-I reject that-but somehow it will make a classification and somehow it will rest upon parents being able to see that their children do not see these things. Every parent would know that the manifest existence of the video recorder means that children will have recourse to these throughout the whole of the community. So what is asked for is a second look at this. The need is to go back to the drawing board because the Attorney-General-and I am not in any sense combative in this-has put forward conflicting arguments. If he says it is impossible for import controls to regulate things, how is it possible for the excluded categories to be regulated? Senator Gareth Evans —At point of sale, at point of hire. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —No. The point is that the point of sale could be the black market; adults and children could get even the excluded category. It is an admission of failure to say that that cannot be done at the point of import. In fact, this is an admission of defeat. The fact is that all through history men and women have argued about what ought to be the freedom of people. John Stuart Mill laid down some very real principles. Nobody has ever argued that there is absolute freedom. Absolute freedom is licence. Absolute freedom means that the libertine can do disastrous things. I have always understood that my freedom imposes a major responsibility on me. Freedom for the adult individual is a responsibility to see that the freedom and dignity of the other person are not tainted in any way. Senator Harradine —So to use mine that it does not injure thine. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —That is right. The fact is that we can assault not just by the force of the fist or a weapon but by words-words are the ugliest form of assault-and by graphic pictures. Assault is as abhorrent if it is by words or pictures as it is by the male fist. We in this community have a duty to understand that there are no absolute values except spiritual ones. In the society in which we elect to live, we elect to respect the relative values. We can wander in the journey of the freedom of the mind; that is one of our privileges. But we must then come to relative values by drawing upon our own spiritual, moral or ethical qualities, or those we understand the community believes in and supports. So it is nonsense to talk about this idea that the community can be given anything at all. Absolute values are absolute anarchy; they cannot exist. Nor in fact are those who are arguing the opposite point of view saying that. They are saying that all the people who argue for some protection are wrong but as a postscript they say that there has to be an excluded category and that they are going to decide what the excluded category will be. That is an absolutely nonsensical situation. That value judgment cannot be made by an Attorney-General or a State Minister; it can be made only by a public that is asked what it in its heart of hearts believes it wants. When dealing with the precious development of the character of the young, one must ask oneself what kinds of values one wants to develop in the young, what kinds of understandings one wants them to have of the human relationship. Human relationship is not some material thing that can be talked about in terms of simplistic anatomy or what I call plumbing. Human plumbing is the ugliest description of human relationship. Human relationship is a spiritual mystique. It is a precious thing. The only question in human relationship is the development of a consensus between people, a consensus in which at its best each person wants to give to the other so that he or she can widen the freedom of the other. In fact, in a strange way the freedom of the person who gives is widened. Therefore one has to understand that we are talking about a community that we want to build for the future, a community in which there is an understanding of this mystique of the human relationship, a respect for human dignity, a giving and not just a brutal receiving. To reduce the human relationship in any way to a physical relationship is to fail to understand it. The physical relationship, at its optimum, is again a mystique. It is a creature of the giving of the mind and of the spirit and not, as I say, some plumbing. I have frequently said, and I repeat, that it is the poets and not the plumbers who describe the human relationship. What we are really facing at this moment is a situation in which children, through video tapes, will get a completely distorted view of what the human relationship is. They are not in a position to protect themselves. There is no way in which they can protect themselves. I believe that every parent wants to ensure that his or her children develop the best, the optimum understanding of the relationship of human beings, how society intermeshes, how we develop, and the qualities we want of love and affection and of human interrelationship. Is that to be achieved simply by an engorgement into the community of pornography? As one who in his lifetime has seen his fair share of human brutality, I can only say that there is no gentle learning pattern in studying human brutality. To say that everybody should be exposed to every kind of activity that the human being can devise, to say that we should allow the greatest distortion on earth, is to fail to understand what we in this community are trying to do, namely, to get the message over as parents that we want the young to develop an understanding of what citizenship means and the importance of interrelationships . In the wider sense it is a good thing to throw open to the community, now that it has had a chance to look at the whole situation, the opportunity to decide what it wants. I wonder what would be said by the community at large if it were given the chance to choose at a referendum the values it wants. The community is not given that sort of opportunity. Senator Gareth Evans —What would they say about capital punishment? What would they say about Asian immigration? Put these things to the test. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —I hope the community would say about capital punishment what I say about capital punishment, and that is that it is the degradation of human dignity. Senator Gareth Evans —You know as well as I do the community would not. The PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —Mr President, I acknowledge that I should address my remarks through the Chair, but let me say to the Attorney-General that capital punishment is as ugly a form of brutality as any other form, and I have said that time and again in this chamber. Senator Gareth Evans —Majority rule is not always civilised rule, is it? Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —We exist to try to find out what is the best. A parliament exists to create an environment, not to create an end in itself, not to create a society. It exists to create an environment by rules, in which the human personality, the human dignity and the human spirituality burgeons. We are hear not just to earn our bread and butter but to create that kind of environment. One has to ask oneself under what conditions that will be achieved. Time after time the Parliament creates laws restricting human beings. To say that it is wrong to restrict the human being is to ignore the 300 or 400 Bills that pass through the hands of the Attorney-General each year. The function of a law officer is to look into the legal restrictions imposed by the laws that are laid down and within the legal framework to ensure that those laws are observed and that people who do not observe them are punished. Debate interrupted. Senate adjourned at 7 p.m. The following papers were presented: Canberra College of Advanced Education Act-Statutes-No. 53-Courses and Awards Amendment 1984. Governor-General's Proclamations-Commencement of Acts: Proclamations by His Excellency the Governor-General were presented, notifying that His Excellency had proclaimed the following Act and sections of an Act to come into operation on the dates specified: Migration Amendment Act 1983-2 April 1984 (Gazette No. S 119, 30 March 1984). Parliamentary Contributory Superannuation Amendment Act 1983-31 March 1984 for provisions other than the provisions specified in sub-sections 2 (1), (2) and (3 ) of that Act (Gazette No. S 121, 30 March 1984).