40.4 What's the situation in Australia?
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This article is from the Sex Movies FAQ, by director@gti.net (The Director) with numerous contributions by others.
40.4 What's the situation in Australia?
John Roda (fiend@nwamiga.apana.org.au), the thunder from down
under, tells me about some interesting rules they have in
Australia...
X-Rated videos are not illegal in Australia as they seem to be
in the U.K. There are, however some odd laws relating to them.
In all states and territories, they are perfectly legal to
own, so long as they have been classified by the Office of
Film and Literature. I would imagine we have basically the
same restrictions as the U.S. Nothing involving animals or
children, no bondage with sex and no shit. The first two would
be definitely illegal (and well so, IMHO), but the others may
be due to our market being a macrocosm of the American one.
Now, as to the odd parts, they are illegal to sell
commercially in all Australian states. They are legal to sell
in the two territories, the Australian Capital Territory
(ACT), and the Northern Territory (NT).
For those with an interest in localities, the ACT is located
within New South Wales, halfway between Melbourne and Sydney,
The NT is the top middle bit, with Ayers Rock and Alice
Springs in it (no, not the actress).
Now, as we have free trade between states and territories
here, this means that there is a thriving mail-order business
from the two territories. The other thing we have of course,
is a thriving not-quite-under-the-table business in videos at
the Adult bookshops.
Most Melbourne (city) bookshops have a selection of videos,
and most of those that do, have a bloody lot of them. Some
shops are more subtle than others, and I won't go into anymore
detail about them. I would assume it to be much the same in
Sydney, and perhaps more under-the-table in other cities. The
Vice squad know about this, and occasionally do raids, but
more often seem to just leave it be.
There are also various swap-clubs and such, but I don't have
any personal experience with them so I can't really comment.
For addresses of some of these mail order shops, refer to Part 9.
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