Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition oppose schedule 1 in the following terms:

(1)    Schedule 1, item 3, page 3 (line 9) to page 4 (before line 1), item 3 to be opposed.

(7)    Schedule 1, item 13, page 10 (lines 17 to 19), item 13 to be opposed.

(8)    Schedule 1, item 16, page 10 (line 28) to page 14 (line 6), item 16 to be opposed.

These amendments are proposed in order to prevent the possibility of proscribed communities in the area of the Northern Territory emergency intervention being placed in exactly the same circumstances they were in prior to the intervention. Under this bill, the transmission of R18+ pornography would be able to be transmitted into communities where, today, that is not permissible. Immediately this proposed bill from government gains assent, it will be permissible to transmit R18+ pornography to a greater or lesser degree—and we can talk about percentages—into these communities.

Everybody in this place, and in Australia, would, I think, agree that the intervention has moved these communities, in so many ways, in the right direction. This clearly is a retrograde step. In the current circumstances in these communities it is not the pornography that is the problem; it is the dysfunctional nature of the community that is the challenge. It is not in every suburb of Australia that groups of 20 or 25 children can be found, with absolutely no supervision whatsoever, sitting around a television set with a DVD or movie player. That is the real issue. It is not the nature of the pornography, or how much pornography you have.

We have already had a great deal of evidence, over a period of time, that tragically indicates that across Australia, and particularly across many of the remote communities in Australia characterised by large numbers of Indigenous people, this lack of supervision means that many very young children are watching pornography and have already been exposed to degrees of pornography to the extent that they have become sexualised. They become more sexualised than they need to be at four, five, six, 10 or 13 years old. That fact has provided by independent sources, whether it was the Little children are sacred report or one of the number of other reports that have looked into child abuse in other Indigenous communities in other jurisdictions.

I am sure that all those opposite would agree that there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that we want to avoid the further sexualisation of children, particularly as a lot of the children in these communities at the moment are not your average run-of-the-day children. It is very difficult to make generalities without giving offence, but many of these children—not all of them—have already been exposed. And that is the challenge. They have already been exposed. So they are the most vulnerable. The notion that we would in any way allow into these communities any further exposure to any type of pornography that is deemed for adults is, I believe, simply an unacceptable situation.

I will give the minister opposite an opportunity to explain, but I really have absolutely no understanding of the motives for this. I know that those opposite believe the same as I do that these children fundamentally need as much assistance and protection as possible. I know that you are convinced by the reports and the science that you have already received. You have not argued the case at any time. You have said, ‘We accept this.’ Yet you know that this particular part of the legislation allows for the potential for some increase of pornography in the most naive community, who have already been affected by this, to be once again exposed.

We all heard about the precautionary principle, and I think this is one of the ways that you can really do it. We can argue the technical aspects of it—maybe it is 35 per cent; is it on one channel; is it across a narrowcast spectrum? We can have all of those arguments but, if you are applying any precautionary principle about legislation, you would say: ‘Why would it be that we currently have a situation where there is no permissible transmission of R18+ material into communities and we are now moving to an area where there is potential for more pornography to be transmitted into the community where there are young children and where it has not been demonstrated that individuals within that community are suddenly being supervised or that the circumstances behind that has changed at all?’

So, Minister, I hope that, when you have an opportunity, you will reflect upon the motive behind this. It is beyond me. I have guessed at some things. I thought that maybe it is too hard—and I say that with some sincerity. With the Telecommunications Act it might be too hard or too difficult to stop subscriptions. I am not really sure. But what I know for sure is that it has to be a retrograde step to take if today we have a situation where the figure is zero. That is a really good figure. I think anybody who has been working in this field would say that. You can ask: ‘How much more pornography do you reckon these kids can handle? What is the level of pornography in addition to what they have been exposed to already?’ People might say, ‘This is the number,’ and say it is 10 per cent more, or five per cent, or one per cent. But everybody in Australia would agree with me that the only answer to that is zero.

It is a little bit like the last solution. You know you have that solution in chemistry and it is the last drop that changes the colour? Many of these children may well be at that stage. We do not want any further pornography transmitted into these areas. I do not think any other Australian wants it. I can see absolutely no benefit whatsoever in that regard. The communities currently enjoy protection under the law from pornography. I am completely miffed about what particular mischief it is that we want to prevent. Whenever we come to this place with legislation or amendments, it is some particular innocent passage or it is some particular mischief that we wish to prevent. Minister, I will be extremely respectful because I know that you believe in the same things that I believe in—and everybody in this place does—but I have absolutely no idea about the motive of bringing this particular change to the legislation that will allow more pornography into these communities.

There is an opportunity, I suppose, to talk about whether or not it is 35 per cent of one channel or whether it goes right across the spectrum at 35 per cent of an entire subscription. To me it does not matter. I am not going to go into that detail; that is for government. I am supporting an environment which is so important—and we are making such inroads there—and if one more iota of pornography gets into those communities we know it has the potential to do extreme damage with our most naive first Australians. And that is unacceptable. That is the reason I will spare you from going into the criticism of the details that have been proposed.

There is one other aspect where the minister has decided that there will actually be a declared prescribed area. At the moment we have prescribed areas but we now have a new notion—and it is a difficult notion to accept. If we support this legislation, what will happen is that, if you are a prescribed area, the rule changes. The day this legislation has assent, pay subscription pornography can be transmitted into these communities. Imagine: here I am, I have woken up on a Tuesday and it has been transmitted into my community. The government is expecting that someone—an Indigenous person—in that community will put their hand up and say: ‘Excuse me, I think we have a problem in our community. I would like you to have a look at my community. I would like my community to become newsworthy in the context of sexual abuse and the context of the intervention.’ Where have you been? With all due respect, we get advice from all sorts of people—and those in the advisers box may have had something to do with that process. We can all remember the voluntary welfare quarantine. We knew that voluntary welfare quarantining would not work because they would not put their hands up. Why wouldn’t they put their hands up? Because people have a vested interest in standing over the women in the communities and saying: ‘Oh, you are going to put you hand up for voluntary welfare, are you? We’ll see about that, mate.’

It is the same circumstance and environment. It is just foolishness to say that someone will put their hand up. One of my Senate colleagues suggested something to me today, and I think it is a good suggestion—certainly a lot better than this. He said: ‘We could come from a default position of no pornography, where you have to put your hand up to have pornography. The minister might consider that. That default position would at least be reasonable to most Australians. At least protection would be the default position, rather than something else.’ I think there is a great deal of difficulty with the assumption that people in these communities are going to stick their hands up, that the most vulnerable people in these communities are going to say, ‘I’m going to be a leader; I’m going to stick my hand up.’ Let me tell you, Mr Temporary Chairman, it has not happened before and I suspect it will not happen in the future.

By doing this, we are actually creating two types of communities: we are having a declared prescribed community and just a prescribed community. The practical difficulties in doing this are just mind-boggling. Take one of the places in the Northern Territory within the intervention area, Wadeye. Wadeye is about 1,200 metres away from Melpi Ville—that is how close they are. If Leon Melpi or one of his mob, or someone from Wadeye, puts their hand up and says, ‘I would like you to stop transmitting pornography into my community,’ how are we going to divide those communities? Is Melpi Ville actually going to be seen significantly differently? As we all know, aspects of these communities are not neatly divided up so that you can say, ‘That is an aspect of your community and therefore Wadeye will not get a transmission,’ or ‘Some will and some will not.’

This whole process is fraught with difficulties. I wonder that this is now being suggested. It just beggars belief when you understand the practicality of trying to implement these sorts of changes and know the environment in which we are trying to make these changes. I really wonder about how much effort has been made with regard to these changes. But I say, with all respect, that I know that everybody is trying to do the right thing here. I just do not think they really understand the communities if they think people are actually going to say, ‘I’m going to put my hand up,’ when we know that, in every other case, the people who need to put their hands up never will.

As I said earlier, one of my mates suggested not long ago that we should have a default position. At least the default position would be something you could have a sensible conversation about. The default position would be no pornography, but somebody could put their hand up and say, ‘I’d like to have the transmission of R18+ because we can demonstrate to the government and to the minister that our children are actually being looked after, we can demonstrate that they are supervised, we can demonstrate that the nature of our community has changed, we can demonstrate you do not have to wait until the sunset clause which is placed on this and all other legislation associated with the Northern Territory emergency response; you can do it today, because we can demonstrate and the minister can have a great deal of satisfaction and confidence that the community is up to the place where they can supervise the children and there won’t be any accidental or deliberate grooming or any of those horror stories that we heard before the intervention, from many reports.’

In the absence of that, I have to say that I hope all Australians would see why we simply think that those aspects of schedule 1 are laughable. They are only laughable because I do not understand the motive. I am trying to be really respectful. We have had a very strong bipartisan approach to this. I cannot see any motive of difficulty that makes these communities a better place than today with regard to R18+ transmission. There is none, there should be none, and that is exactly how we should keep it. If we support the legislation that is being put forward by the government, there will potentially be some that is viewed by people. There is some shaking of heads. I am looking forward to an explanation from the minister about how that possibly cannot occur—that you can have absolutely no adult material being transmitted into these communities. Because that is the only way. That is what is happening today. If that is happening, that is great. We do not need any changes whatsoever to the current circumstances. We certainly do not need any changes. Even if the current circumstances are that there may be opportunities for people to get access to it, we do not want to make that access any greater because of the naivety— (Time expired)