Few male submissions to pornography body

Press, 18 February 1989, Page 32

Few male submissions to pornography body

PA Hamilton People making charges of imbalance about the Ministerial committee’s report into pornography have only themselves to blame, the National Council of Women’s president, Mrs Jocelyn Fish, says. Mrs Fish said she was amazed to hear the imbalance claim considering the extent to which the committee had gone to invite submissions and how few were received from men and from established men’s groups. “The remarks about imbalance can only be regarded as a self-inflicted injury,” she said. The N.C.W. was pleased with the general tenor of the report and supported its belief that too stringent censorship was counterproductive. However, present classification laws

needed to be revamped to make them more effective.

In particular the N.C.W. supported the report in its call in three areas.

• That one group of people classify all matter (filmed, print and video) in place of the three existing authorities — the Indecent Publications Tribunal, the film censors, and the Video Recordings Authority. • That public access to the classification process be improved and encouraged.

• The review of education and social principles and strategies needed to make the public mote aware of the influence of the news media and of the effects of sex stereotyping on both men and women.

The N.C.W. approved the recommendation that

there was potential for the Human Rights Commission Act to be expanded in relation to pornography-related complaints.

“Like the committee, N.C.W. believes pornography is not a victimless crime and that it influences the basic relations between men and women in our society by destroying both the potential for self-esteem of women and the chance for equity in relationships,” Mrs Fish said.

The N.C.W. was concerned that the Minister of Justice, Mr Palmer, although accepting the principles of the report appeared unwilling to give its implementation any urgency, “at a time when urgency seems the keynote of other government reforms,” she said.