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:18633] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I want to talk about the increase in the penalty. One of the problems with the Minister increasing the penalty to 5 years for possession with knowledge is that most members of the public will think it is about increasing the penalty for child pornography. Actually it is about increasing the penalty for the possession of any objectionable publication. That is where the problem lies and the Law Society identified that in its submissions to the Government Administration Committee. 
One of the committee’s recommendations was that if the focus of litigation was to target child pornography then consideration should be given to objectionable publications involving child pornography having a different maximum potential penalty from other types of objectionable publications. We want to focus on child pornography—and there is a huge increase in the penalty for possession of objectionable publications in general. The penalty for possession of objectionable publications—I think it was “without knowledge” as defined in the original legislation—was $2000 and no prison penalty. Under this bill the penalty for possession of objectionable publications “with knowledge” goes to 2 years’ jail and Supplementary Order Paper 326 jumps that up to 5 years which is a heavy penalty. The reason we object to this heavy penalty being applied across the board is that the definition of objectionable material is fairly broad covering sex horror crime cruelty and violence. 
Historically in New Zealand we have seen what happens as society liberalises. In previous times the  
Little Red School Book 
 and things that Germaine Greer said when she visited New Zealand in 1971 or 1972 were seen as objectionable and bans or criminal cases ensued etc. But often what is objectionable today is allowable tomorrow if we get outside this area of child pornography and look at things particularly in the political and moral realm. A year or so ago a chap in Auckland Bruce Hubbard emailed the American Embassy. He accused the Americans of “napalming babies”. The American Embassy took offence. The police charged him. Later they dropped the charge. But the fact that it got to that point indicates there could be a bit of a problem about what is considered objectionable and what is not. Should we really be applying a 5-year penalty to people at that level? 
There is a problem too even with the age restriction clauses in the bill having such large penalties. Again as the Law Society said under the new penalty provisions a person is liable for up to 10 years’ imprisonment for showing a 17-year-old an objectionable image but no offence is committed under section 127 if it is shown to a person on his or her 18th birthday. Sure the maximum penalty for possession may be applied primarily to real child pornography offences and the section on sentencing states that it is an aggravating factor if effectively it is child pornography. So child pornography offences may be at the very top of the scale in the judge’s mind but other objectionable publications could be very heavily penalised. Also we have to be more cautious about possession penalties and make a bit of a distinction between possession and trading. Although possession should be penalised I think the people we are really trying to hit on the head are the traders the distributors and the people who are profiting. To provide for a penalty of 5 years for possession of objectionable material that might not even be child pornography—it might be in those other areas I talked about—can be quite dangerous. We are in a very difficult area altogether here with the way cellphones are developing enabling the sending of pictures. It is a very very difficult area. We do not want to go mad in terms of our penalties at this point.