FILMS AND PUBLICATIONS AMENDMENT BILL MINISTER’S SPEECH
(Unrevised Hansard 14 June 2007)

The SPEAKER: I now call the hon Minister of Housing. [Applause.] I’m sure she’ll explain what films are doing in Housing.

The MINISTER OF HOUSING (on behalf of the Minister of Home Affairs): Madam Deputy Speaker, please allow me to explain this quirk of history. I was responsible for the Films and Publications Bill. It now turns out that it was not quite what it should have been, and the Minister of Home Affairs has set it right. She has asked me to stand in for her, because for reasons beyond her control she is unable to be here. So, I’m about to set right what I did not do a few years ago when I should have done it.

Madam Deputy Speaker, hon members, almost all of us present here in the House today arrived here in a vehicle of some sort or another, whether we drove ourselves or were driven here. We arrived safely because almost all of the drivers in our country accept, almost all of the time, that we in South Africa drive on the left side of the road. They accept that we keep to the left, not for political reasons even though we might want to, but because this is, in fact, an old colonial rule that we have inherited: we accept that we keep to the left because that requirement forms part of the rules of the road laid down in the laws of our land.

And, although the law is uncompromising about which side of the road we drive on, it leaves a lot of leeway to the judgment of the individual as he or she regulates the speed, negotiates intersections or changes lanes. But whatever our professions, whatever our personal preferences in many aspects of life, all of us have accepted that traffic drives on the left side of the road, because there is a law in place for the good of all of us.

I make this point about the general acceptance of the rule that we have to drive on the left in order to illustrate that the state does indeed have a right and, in fact, a constitutional duty to regulate certain aspects of the life of the community in the interests of the safety and welfare of all of us.

If the approach were to take hold that some commentators and critics took during the consultative process on this Bill before it went through, it would be up to each motorist – alone and without guidance – to decide each time he or she gets into the car which side of the road to drive on. We can imagine the catastrophic results.

So, because we do not want a similar free-for-all with often tragic consequences for individuals in the arena of films and publications, this Bill sets out to put up road signs and to regulate what must be regulated in the interests of the community of the over 40 million people in this country.

We accept that this Bill is not about the integrity of life and limb of our citizens as they use the roads; that is true. But it is about ensuring the safety and the long-term welfare of some of our most vulnerable citizens, our children and our young people; and about the emotional safety – and, unfortunately, all too frequently by extension - the actual physical safety of our children and young people forced into involvement in pornography.

It is about saying that children and young people have a right to grow up in an environment which gives them the space and time to be children and adolescents – an environment in which they can play and learn, find their way safe from predators and protected from the excesses of industries which are generally understood to contribute to the brutalisation of attitudes and behaviour patterns, particularly towards women and girl-children.

So we are talking about the fundamental question of the kind of society we want to build. We are not talking about censorship here.
We are not talking about the heavy hand of the state. We are talking about that which we fought for: the right of the child. We are not talking about censorship because we fought against that. We have no intention whatsoever of bringing it back.

The Bill says very clearly that it is our duty as legislators and as government to give meaning and content to our constitutional order by spelling our where and under what circumstances we will protect our children and young people and the dignity of women. Indeed, it says very clearly that it is our right and our responsibility to build a society in which there is a constitutional precept to the right and dignity of the people that we have just indicated.

Allow me to remind members of the objects of the Act in this context, as spelt out in the Bill before us today. The objects say that the Act will “regulate the creation, production, possession and distribution of films, games and certain publications” in order to “provide consumer advice to enable adults to make informed viewing, reading and gaming choices, both for themselves and for the children in their care”; to “protect children from exposure to disturbing and harmful materials and from premature exposure to adult experiences”; and to “make the use of children in and the exposure of children to pornography punishable”.

I doubt that it would be possible to be much clearer on this matter than the Bill already is. It is very clear that it is the job of the Bill to make punishable the use of children for pornographic
clearly that its job is to ensure the provision of consumer advice purposes. I doubt whether anyone besides the most wayward libertarian would have a problem with that. The Bill says very to enable adults to make informed viewing, reading and gaming choices both for themselves and especially for the children in their care.

I doubt whether anyone could discover anything in that paragraph but an attempt to empower adults in their lives as caregivers of children. There is no heavy hand of an authoritarian state that I can perceive here, and the Act says that it aims to protect children from exposure to disturbing and harmful materials and from premature exposure to adult experiences.

Once again, Members of Parliament, we are talking about protecting the vulnerable, and about creating the space for children and young people to grow up in. Young people already have innumerable impressions, demands and stimuli crowding in on them every day through advertising, education, cellphones and the Internet.

We submit that it is in the interests of our society and of our very young people to pass legislation that provides the basis for the state to protect, inform and, where necessary, to intervene in the interests of the vulnerable.

I doubt that there is a single person in the House who is not aware of the uproar that has been created by sections of the media around this Bill. I doubt any of you could have missed it, even though you may have missed some of the other views expressed in the communities across the country as the consultation on this Bill was progressing. This is because we have had a one-sided interpretation of most of the sections by the media. This was, in some ways, a very sobering experience. It was a sobering experience because it told us that the media is indeed a part of our country, and not some fourth estate ordained by a higher order. It is a part of our country which is as passionate and often as partisan as any other group, whether they be government or opposition parliamentarians, or city or village dwellers.

So, there has at times been robust debate, typically passionate South African debate. We are grateful to all who contributed to it, because it is our culture of debate, our culture of addressing the issues seriously, which is at the heart of our democracy.

The media did, in fact, have some important points to make, and very early in the process of fashioning the Bill we told them that we had heard them. But we also told them that our respect for the parliamentary order which lies at the heart of our very hard-won democracy meant that we had insisted that the Bill make an orderly way through the processes of Parliament, which it has done. We insisted that the consultative processes, run so ably by the portfolio committee, take their course because that is how people in our country are able to express their views.

We were a little surprised at the volume coming from these sections that seemed to get a kick out of tilting at windmills. So, as we soberly have this debate and contemplate the Bill coming into law, we should not be led to believe that it was the hot air that got these windmills turning; they were turning already.

Last week during the Budget Vote of the Department of Home Affairs, it was made clear that Cabinet and the ANC leadership were firm believers in the freedom of the press and that we would defend these as an integral part of the democracy we fought for. But, at the same time, we make no apologies for saying that we must and we will expect more from those who daily work and exercise these freedoms we are discussing, because that is indeed a compromised position that we have arrived at today.

This compromise says: as much state regulation as necessary, together with as much self-regulation as possible. We have kept our side of the bargain. Now, it is up to the practitioners to keep theirs, whether they are active in the traditional print and electronic media, or whether theirs are the newer spaces involved in the Internet and in mobile telephony.

The point is simple: self-regulation involves a conscious and willing acceptance of an obligation to ensure - and, here, Members of Parliament, I quote from the Press Code of Professional Conduct – “accuracy, balance, fairness and decency”. We might add, in the spirit of the Constitution, that self-regulation involves the conscious and willing acceptance of an obligation to hold the principle of the individual’s right to dignity very, very high, particularly in a country like ours with its history of trampling on the dignity of individuals.

We are all familiar with the argument that the broadening of the media landscape has seen the advent of a type of tabloid journalism in our country, which makes certain types of reporting and the use of certain types of images inevitable. There is, in our view, nothing inevitable about pictures of naked women on the front pages of our newspapers. There is nothing inevitable about the salacious style of reporting under the guise of informing and mobilising communities who are too aware of the ills in their midst.

Anyone who argues that a society which requires of its media that it take these matters seriously is demanding censorship of some sort is simply out of touch with reality. And, let us remind ourselves, it is not the heavy-handed government of this Parliament which demands higher standards of care from the media on these issues; it is the people in their communities for whom it is a necessity that the media contribute, through serious self-regulation, to a de-escalation of violence, gangsterism and the abuse of women.

Yes, we have heard the arguments and seen the documents from the media houses, but the Bill before you is designed to streamline processes within the Films and Publications Board. Those processes streamlined by the Bill will contribute to the development of policies, for example the classification guidelines that reflect the changing views and morals of our society.

To those of you who have expressed concern that it will no longer be possible to appeal decisions to the High Court, the Bill provides for internal remedies for those who feel that their rights or interests have been infringed. Once these internal remedies have been exhausted, it is always open to the aggrieved party to take the decision of the Films and Publications Board on review.

So, Members of Parliament, colleagues, I am sure that over the coming months and years we will together, with all the industry segments affected by this legislation, find ways in which the compromises found with the active assistance of Parliament will become a viable reality, enriching our society and our constitutional reality. Madam Deputy Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of Home Affairs, I ask you to support this Bill. Thank you. [Applause.]

C/W: Mr H P CHAUKE
LB/
End of take