Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to thank all members for their contributions to this debate on the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Amendment (Classification Tools and Other Measures) Bill 2014. In particular, I would like to thank the member for Bowman, who always has a very sensible perspective on issues of classification. I noticed that although the members for Batman and Gellibrand were supportive of the legislation, they were keen to claim that it was Labor's legislation that we are now implementing. I seem to recall that the Labor Party was in government between 2007 and 2013, and yet they did not put this legislation into effect. If one of their priorities was streamlining the classification system, it would be reasonable to expect they could have found an opportunity within those two terms of government to progress the implementation of this legislation.

The member for Gellibrand has called upon me to implement other recommendations of the ALRC. We are going to do that. This is only the first tranche of reforms that we will be introducing. They are very sensible reforms. The parliamentary secretary at the table is well aware of them because they are part of our agenda to repeal regulation, to free up Australian society and stop people from being subservient to silly government legislation that does not add any particular value to community safety.

This bill introduces a number of changes that will provide consumers with more classification information and simplify elements of the National Classification Scheme by removing complexity and reducing costs to business. This is a very important part of our agenda and, as I said, this is the sort of work that the parliamentary secretary has been doing, culminating in the very first repeal day we had in this parliament, just last week. Reform of the scheme has been approached in stages commencing with this first tranche of reforms that were agreed by classification ministers at the meeting of the Standing Council on Law and Justice. The bill implements the Commonwealth's commitment to the reforms. The first phase of agreed reforms includes broadening the scope of existing exempt film categories and simplifying exemption arrangements for festivals and cultural institutions; enabling the classification of certain content using classification tools such as online questionnaires that deliver automated decisions; creating an explicit requirement in the Commonwealth Classification Act to display classification markings on all classified content; expanding the exemptions to the modification rules so that films and computer games which are subject to certain types of modifications do not require classification again; and enabling the Attorney-General’s Department to notify law enforcement authorities of potential refused-classification content without having the content classified first, to help expedite the removal of extremely offensive or illegal content from distribution.

These reforms will deliver benefits to industry including streamlining administrative processes and reducing the regulatory burden, making it easier for industry to comply with classification requirements. This will ensure that consumers continue to receive useful and accurate classification information. The bill also makes a number of minor and technical amendments to the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act to improve the clarity of certain provisions, address legislative anomalies and enhance the administrative efficiency of the scheme.

This bill has the support of the state and territory ministers for classification, who agreed to these reforms at the Standing Council on Law and Justice meeting in April 2013, to answer the shadow minister's question from before. Following the passage of this legislation through the Senate, the states and territories will pass their own complementary legislation to ensure the new arrangements for the modification rules and exemption arrangements for festivals and cultural institutions are appropriately regulated. These are sensible reforms which remove some of the unnecessary burden of the existing classification regime. As members would be aware, when you are dealing with national reforms in conjunction with states and territories sometimes progress is a little slower than we would like, but this is the first tranche of reforms we will be introducing to make sure that the National Classification Scheme works as efficiently and sensibly as possible and takes into account the constant advances we have in technology and the changing ways in which Australians view content. On that note, I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

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