Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Orders) Amendment Bill

We have dealt with the really chunky, meaty—insert synonym here—section of the—

💬 Kris Faafoi: It wasn’t that chunky.

Oh, no, that is unfair—come on. That is unfair. It was chunky in the context of the bill, which is a small bill. Part 2 just deals with the various consequential amendments to the principal Act, and a couple of remedial things, I suppose. There is an amendment to section 29 and an amendment to section 107, which just, essentially, inserts the two new sections that we inserted in Part 1—so amended section 133 and then new section 133A as well. Also, clause 10 just slightly amends the section of the Act around the Attorney-General’s consent being required for private prosecutions of certain publications—that is, of course, the two sections we have just inserted.

It is a funny old power, the power for the Attorney-General to order—well, not order prosecutions but to consent prosecutions. It is a strange old power, but it is a necessary one, in many ways, to, I suppose, prevent vexatious litigants, and one that is meant to be a bit of a check on vexatious behaviour. Sometimes, maybe, it is not. Maybe it could be used a touch more throughout our statute book. But it is an appropriate one when it comes to what we talking about here, for the various reasons that I have canvassed previously.

There is not a huge amount more to add in relation to this part. As I say, it is the consequential amendments to the principal Act, and they should be supported.

It is a pleasure to rise in respect of Part 2 of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Orders) Amendment Bill, talking about the consequential amendments to the principal Act, as brought about by this small but technical and very useful bill. I am talking about and drawing attention to clause 8 in respect of amending section 107, “Inspector may seize publications”—again, drawing our attention to the fact that there need to be tools in the tool box so that once we bring about interim restrictions, the monitors of this, the people who will bring about compliance with this, will have the tools in their tool box to be able to make sure that the interim orders are adhered to, which is of course extremely important. So that consequential amendment has occurred, in particular replacing the words “publication is being publicly displayed in contravention of [certain sections]” with “public display of the publication constitutes an offence …”. So it is just tidying that one up to make sure, again, that that tool box is full and complete.

Moving on to clause 9, “Section 133 replaced …”, in the “Consequential amendments to the principal Act”, in Part 2, which talks in subsection (2) about “A person who commits an offence against subsection (1) is liable on conviction to a fine … (a) in the case of an individual, $3,000; or (b) in the case of a body corporate [company], $10,000.” So, again, it is drawing our attention to the fact that if there is a breach there needs to be consequences. While some people may see this as a limited scope in fines, I think it is still very much a deterrent when you are a person or a retailer selling publications or somebody who is teaching certain literature, exploring certain literature, and not complying with an interim order. It is important to have those offences there to maintain the balance between, of course, freedom of speech and the public good, to make sure that certain classes of people are, of course, protected if there is something that is seen as offensive within the publication.

So I think that Part 2 is, obviously, of course, needed. When you start amending a principal Act there are always consequential amendments that require tidying up, and with the bringing in of this new regime—a more flexible regime of interim orders—there are, of course, consequential amendments that are required to make sure that the offences provisions make sense and that the interim restriction provisions make sense.

The way that the officials have worked on the structure of this bill has been exceptional—interestingly, bringing the parts into a more logical order. I think at one stage there were several parts, so we could have been debating this for much, much longer. They have brought it about and tidied it up so there are only two parts and then, of course, the title. So we thank the officials, and I thank the work and the debate that the Justice and Electoral Committee had on this fine, technical but small, bill.

I just want to actually fire a couple of questions, if I may, to the member in the chair, Chris Bishop, particularly when it comes to clause 8. One of the things I am always concerned about when we have legislation is that there is always clarity for people when they are reading through the legislation. Even though I have been privy to the legislation right through its course through the Parliament so far, when I first picked up this amendment bill—because, obviously, it is a little bit truncated, in the way that it does not always spell out what was in the parent bill in the first place. We are talking here in terms of what it is that the inspector may seize. Subclause (2) says: “In section 107(3)(b), replace ‘poster is being publicly displayed in contravention of section 130 or section 133’ with ‘public display of the poster constitutes an offence under section 130, 133, or 133A’.” Now, the thing with posters is that, for most people, if they are looking at that, they may be somewhat confused as to whether or not the poster itself is the publication that is under review or, perhaps, is subject to censorship or whether, in fact, the poster is actually simply advertising the publication itself.

So it would be useful for me, I think, and hopefully for the House too, if the member in charge of the bill was able to briefly just enlighten us with some clarity around that, whether or not we are actually looking at a poster as advertising the publication or whether, in fact, the poster itself is the publication. I think what is really important is that if an interim restriction has been put in place, say, at an R18, if the initial classification was R13 and there are still posters out there advertising it as R13, then, clearly, it needs to be put straight. So I think, for my mind, that is something that I would certainly like to see clarified, because, as I say, when people pick up legislation, it is important that they can understand it quickly and easily. Hopefully, I have not landed him too much in it and he is able to enlighten us on that if he is able to take another call.

That said, under clause 9—and I touched on this briefly when we were talking about Part 1, but I do also want to talk about the fact that there do need to be consequences in place for this type of breach. When we have a piece of legislation like this that has been put in place to ensure public safety, so that people can be free from being exposed to—if you will forgive the pun—certain material that they do not want to be exposed to, there are actually some responsibilities for the individuals and/or bodies corporate who have been putting this stuff out there.

Clearly, by actually causing an infringement through Part 1 of the Act, there needs to be, obviously, clarity around what the range of fine is. And I think what I did say in Part 1, which I just want to clarify further, because I talked about those fines being those specific amounts—that it would be $3,000 for an individual or $10,000 for a body corporate. Of course, what I should have said, because, in fact, that is how it is written within the legislation, is that it is liable for a conviction to a fine not exceeding that. So, of course, like in any legislation or any laws that we have in this country, these are maximum fines, not necessarily the specific fine—in much the same way, I guess, with traffic offences, those are spelt out specifically, but this one, obviously, is an up-to amount.

I just wanted to get some clarification around those things. Again, Part 2, obviously, is the consequential amendments to the principal Act, and I think, obviously, that is just what we are dealing with. When you make some changes, there are going to be consequential amendments to the principal Act, and Part 2 covers those off very well.

I too will come back to the proposer of this bill, Chris Bishop, with a small question, but I just want to draw some attention to the clauses in Part 2, in particular to clause 9, which is a replacement of section 133 of the original Act. That deals with the fines that are imposed on people who are liable for a conviction under this proposed new bill. So for the case of an individual, a $3,000 fine is, in my opinion, extremely deterring for someone who may be in contravention of this bill, and, certainly, for a body corporate, $10,000 is a very appropriate sum. It is a very fair sum in protecting the public good.

One of the issues that has been taxing me with the restrictions on publications—and perhaps the proposer of the bill could enlighten me—is how the restrictions will be displayed on any particular publication, and how those restrictions will be monitored or policed. How do they come to the attention of the review board? So with that short contribution and that question, I have finished.

I thank my good colleagues for some very good questions in relation to Part 2 of this bill.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member might be misleading the House, but go on.

Ha, ha! Mr Naylor asked about clause 8 amending section 107 of the principal Act—in particular, the power of the inspector to seize publications—and he asked about subclauses (1) and (2) of that clause in the bill, in Part 2. This is an interesting section of the Act. The term “inspector” seems to have fallen out of favour a bit, but the Act still talks about the inspector in relation to films, videos, and publications. Section 107(2)(b)(ii) talks about publications generally, and it deals with the full ambit of publications, and the difference between clauses 8(1) and 8(2) is that clause 8(2), which refers to section 107(3)(b) of the principal Act, deals with film posters.

Again, it is a sort of curious—“oddity” is the wrong word—feature, I suppose you would say, of the principal Act that we have a specific section to do with film posters. And what it does, of course, is allows the inspector to seize posters that advertise publications—or film poster in relation to a film—that are in breach of an interim restriction order. So if there is an interim restriction order imposed, then publicising a film poster in relation to that film would be a breach. So section 107 is a consequential amendment based on the fact that we are amending the section of the Act to do with interim restrictions more generally. And then, of course, clause 8(1) in this bill deals with wider publications to do with the seizure of publications. So that deals with that.

Maureen Pugh’s question was in relation to serial publication orders. Again, this is something that is a curious part of the principal Act, and it is a section that is not widely used. Basically, without getting too into details, it is a section of the Act to do with repeated publications that have been found to be objectionable—that the classification office can then issue a serial publication order in relation to. Again, because of the changes we are making to do with interim restriction orders, there are consequential amendments to do with the serial publication orders that can be issued by the classification office, as well. They are not often used, to my limited knowledge, but it is a necessary amendment to that section of the Act because of the amendments we are making in Part 1 of the Act. I trust that that answers members’ questions.

Part 2 agreed to.

Clauses 1 to 3