Locke Keith: Films Videos and Publications Classification  Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Locke Keith: Films Videos and Publications Classification  Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:623;Page:18627] 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party supports this bill but we will move one amendment to clause 4(1). We will do that—and I think that Lindsay Tisch indicated the problem in his speech too—because the definition in it is a bit loose. Mr Tisch referred to the definition of a young person as perhaps being a bit broad. But perhaps the more fundamental point—I addressed it in my second reading speech and the Greens now have an amendment on it—is that the breadth of the definition of visual images of children or young persons who are nude or partially nude tends to put the emphasis on whether they are nude or partially nude and the reference to the sexual dimension is pretty vague. In essence child pornography is really about child sex and visual representations of that. To refer as the definition does to visual images that are “reasonably capable of being regarded as sexual in nature” is a bit broad. 
Clause 32 also has a definition of “child pornography” with reference to extraterritorial jurisdiction in relation to offences in this bill. That clause refers to the optional protocol to the United Nations convention on the rights of the child. I think that the definition is a good one and could be transferred to new section 3(1A) of the Act inserted by clause 4(1) in order to make the bill consistent. My amendment to the definition in clause 4(1) reads: “… a publication deals with a matter such as sex for the purposes of that subsection if the publication is or contains 1 or more visual images of a person who is or appears to be under 18 years of age engaged in real or simulated explicit sexual activities or a representation of the sexual parts of a person of that kind for primarily sexual purposes.” 
The existing definition in the bill can be a bit confusing because there are two types of people who may be producing or looking at images of nude people particularly of children. People who are into child sex or who are trying to get it often look at nude images of children or have nude images on their computer—that is true. But there is another category of people. That comes out for instance in Germaine Greer’s book  
The Boy 
 which has been a bit controversial. Are such images in relation to children deemed to be pornography or are they to do with general artistic appreciation? Germaine Greer looks at the history of the presentation of images of boys. That is a legitimate debate. I am not an expert on who is right or wrong in that debate but we do not want our definitions to be so loose that they tend to inhibit that sort of debate among people who are not into child sex and child pornography. So I think that the UN definition of child pornography in new section 145A(1) inserted by clause 32(1) is more clear that it is about people who are engaged in real or simulated sexual activities or about a representation of the sexual parts. That focuses on what I think we are really trying to get to when we attack child pornography. 
The Minister has also brought forward an amendment to extend the penalties in this bill. In general the penalties have been increased substantially. The Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 326 will increase the penalty for the possession of objectionable publications with knowledge of that from 2 years’ imprisonment to a term of 5 years. I do not think that that is really necessary because it is not just a penalty for people who are engaged in child pornography. It is a penalty that applies to all objectionable materials and I think Stephen Franks said earlier that there can be a problem in defining what is objectionable.