PUBLICATIONS ACT REFORM URGED

Press, Volume C, Issue 29498, 27 April 1961, Page 8

PUBLICATIONS ACT REFORM URGED

A reform of the Indecent Publications Amendment Act, 1964, is one of the most important tasks before all those interested in freedom of reading in New Zealand, according to the annual report of the Canterbury Council for Civil Liberties. The report says the present state of affairs where adult reading is in effect censored on the basis of its suitability for adolescent girls in ludicrous and unworthy of a civilised community. "The Indecent Publications Act is another example of the serious consequences of ’rush legislation.’ ” Like the Police Offences Amendment Act, 1960, giving police wider powers of arrest, the 1954 Art was passed in the panic fight against ’juvenile delinquency’. When, at that time, our Council drew attention to the illiberal nature of this legislation which was passed in a hurry without allowing sufficient time for scrutiny, the Prime Minister of the day wired back to us:

Amendment Bin is not being rushed, but is receiving elose consideration of Pariiment in an endeavour to meet a difficult situation which is causing a great deal of concern. Pariiment is asked to pass the measure this session.” "Since this Bill was passed, a number of the provisions of this badly drafted Art have had to be repealed—mainly those dealing with the registration of certain books and booksellers —as they proved unworkable. However, the moat maladroit of the clauses in that Act is still in force and requires urgent amendment. “The Art requires the Court to take into consideration. when determining whether a book is to be prohibited or not. "the persons classes of persons or age groups” in whose bands the book may fall. This clause of the Act means that the Court must take into account that a book might fall into the hands of a simpleton, a person of depraved tastes, or a person of tender years. "If this provision is compared with the English law ik becomes clear how urgent

is the need for reform here. An English judge charging the jury as to the English law said in 1954: The charge is that the tendency of the book is to corrupt and deprave. Then you say: Well, corrupt and deprave whom? To which the answer is "Those whose minds are open to such Immoral influences and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall." “What exactly does that mean? Are we to take our literary standards as being the level of something that is suitable for the decently brought up young female and aged about 14? Or do we go even further back than that and are we to be reduced to the sort of books that one reads as a child in the nursery?

“The answer to that is: of course not A mass of literature, great literature, from many angles is whoUy unsuitable for reading by the adolescent, but that does not mean that a publisher is is guilty of a criminal offence of making these works available to the genera] publie." "It is important to emphasise that the last words apply to Britain—they do not apply to New Zealand. As the law now stands any book considered by the customs department to have a tendency to 'corrupt and deprave’ a !2-y ear-old school girl may be confiscated and may suffer the fate of literary works like ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover.’ "Lolita,’ or 'Mandingo.' which New Zealanders are presumably not allowed to read.”