Moves to control availability of some videotapes

Press, 17 December 1985, Page 21

Moves to control availability of some videotapes

Wellington The Government has moved to control the availability of videotapes considered violent or pornographic. The Video Recordings Bill makes it mandatory for all video recordings available for hire and sale to the public to be labelled. It also provides for the establishing of a Video Recordings Authority to classify all recordings in terms of levels of decency. The Minister of Internal Affairs, Dr Tapsell, moving the bill’s introduction, said the last few years had seen steadily increasing concern at the proliferation of violent and pornographic tapes. Some of these had been totally undesirable. He said there had been concern about the lack of standard and clear information for prospective hirers and purchasers about the contents of tapes. There was further concern about the ease with which children were able to watch recordings that most people would consider unsuitable for them in private homes.

Under the legislation, it would be an offence to sell, or hire out, any unlabelled or incorrectly labelled video recording. A person convicted of such an offence would be liable to a fine of $2OOO, a firm would be liable to a fine of $5OOO. “The labelling will indicate, by a simple rating system, the audience for which the recording is suitable,” said Dr Tapsell. “The label will also give a description of the contents similar to those which the Chief Censor gives to films available for public exhibition.”

The Minister said the video industry would be charged with the responsibilityfor the labelling.

The two main industry groups, the Video Association and the Video Retailers’ Association, had been consulted and were willing "to implement a labelling system, he said. “However, that system will not be unfettered — controls on how it is to be implemented are to be spelt out in regulations.” Dr Tapsell said the labelling process was simply for giving guidance and consumer information. It would not legally clasr siiy videos as indecent or not, he said. The question of indecency — now decided by the courts — would be dealt with by the Video Recordings Authority. “It will determine whether video recordings available for sale or hire to the public are indecent and. it will ascribe a classification to them,” he said. “The authority will follow a procedure similar to the Films Act, for films for public exhibition, and in the Indecent Publications Act, for books, magazines and sound recordings.” Dr Tapsell said the authority would have the power to classify a recording as not indecent, indecent, indecent if watched by children under a specified age, indecent unless its circulation was restricted, or indecent unless it was used for a particular purpose. The offence provisions would be similar to those in the Indecent Publications Act, he said. The bill also provided for the appointment of inspectors of video recordings outlets, who would be empowered to inspect premises offering video recordings for sale and hire.

Dr Tapsell said the legislation recognised the need for a rapid and consistent procedure for determining the decency or indecency of

video recordings. However, he said that the Government saw a clear responsibility on parents, and on adults generally, to* decide which recordings entered their homes and who watched them. “This bill will not absolve parents of this responsibility,” he said. “This freedom is balanced by the penalty provisions applicable to those who abuse it. At the same time, I wish to make it clear I have no intention of extending the State’s reach into the homes of the nation. “Indeed, I cannot see any way of monitoring the video recordings played in private, short of handcuffing an official to each video recorder.” While welcoming the bill, the Opposition spokesman on family affairs, Mr G. E. Lee (Nat., Hauraki), said it had culminated 12 months waiting and “inept bumbling” by the Government. Mr Lee, who introduced a Erivate member’s bill to ave videotapes classified, said it had taken the Government until the last day of the Parliamentary session to introduce its own legislation. It had taken the “public agitation” of bodies such as the Women’s Division of Federated Farmers, the Country Women’s Institute, the Guiding movement, the National Council of Women, and Women Against Pornography. He was, however, “quite impressed” with the bill’s provisions. Without the existence of classifications, the concern had been that people had been hiring or buying videotapes without being sure what they were getting. Mr Lee said young people had been seeing material they should not have seen — “explicit sex and explicit violence.”