Yeah,

I have big feelings about this.

I am very worried about it.

And I think if you look at Pauline Hanson's press club speech where she talked about abortion, where you talk about the bill that was in the South Australian Parliament just a couple of months ago, not even a couple of months ago, a few weeks ago, that was winding back abortion laws there.

It was introduced by a One Nation MP, or a former One Nation MP, You've got Cory Bernardi, now the leader of One Nation in South Australia.

He's the one who still believes that gay marriage leads to people marrying their budgies or dogs.

Pauline Hanson has voted against marriage equality.

No, no,

Mm-hmm.

So you know, when I- When I started and, um, s- you know, and was trying to change the driving laws, I managed to get a working group up and, uh, we had the police on there, we had the Department of Health on there.

Um, but the police, and we had the forensics teams on there, and e- every man and his dog on there.

Mm

... that, you know, that gives me great, um, hope for what we could be doing here.

But, you know, then you look at sort of German markets and, um, European markets where it's a not-for-profit co-op sort of style.

And look- It's, it's got its, it's got its barriers.

Yes.

Um, but the lack of courage from my fellow MPs to, to follow, to follow through and to respect the evidence that they had heard, and as a result change their minds.

So they refused to change their minds and they, they started saying, "We won't change our minds," and they didn't.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, for me, I probably had a more laissez-faire, uh, position on it, and I came back into a center of a more regulated approach.

So I was s- I was surprised and, and I guess dis- disappointed, um, by, by their reluctance for change and for them to just fall back on tired old arguments that had been fully disputed-

Yeah.

You know, if it was assisted dying, if it was abortion, if it was other issues that they consider a moral or ethical question, they bring in a conscience vote.

And I, I, you know, I, I remember you, we were doing some, trying to do some gambling reform, very modest gambling reform in Victoria, and I saw the Lab- my Labor colleagues looking at their feet as they voted against some very modest, um, reforms.

That's right.

Tim, uh, do, do you hold some optimism now that we're seeing the Senate really, um, refuse to, to engage with the bill as it stands? So we're seeing Greens and, and Liberals and, and obviously people like Senator Pocock, um, uh, taking, taking a real stance.

So I, I mean, the bill can't pass in its current form.

Is that giving you some optimism?

Mm.

So it's done by the Privileges Committee.

And, um, yeah, that, we, you know, we went in to give evidence at a Senate committee hearing, and they said, "Look, before you make your opening statement, we just wanna tell you that we've charged you with contempt to Parliament due to the letters you- you've written and this submission.

So is there anything you'd like to say-"

Yeah.

Uh, but that was because we said to politicians, "If you are such hypocrites that you are on an X-rated mailing list, and you are calling for the ban of X-rated films, well, we will name everyone on an X-rated mailing list."

In terms of the current government, is there any sign or any hope that decriminalisation or even regulation and control of cannabis is on the agenda or is it just off the agenda?

I think what has been terrific for this last three, coming on four years, is that legalised cannabis has had two members of parliament in Victoria, one in West Australia and one in New South Wales.

So in three parliaments there has been a legalised cannabis MP.

And in New South Wales and Victoria, they have held balance of power.

So this means that if the government wants to get something through that the opposition doesn't support, they need legalised cannabis' vote to get that legislation through.

So this has enabled some progress on conversations, but the government still refuses to make any real change.

And it's just incredibly frustrating.

So actually, what's the situation with regards to medical cannabis in Australia?

Now, tell us how people around John Howard saved the porn industry.

Look, this was...

John Howard went to an election, the 96th election, saying that if he was elected, he would ban X-rated films.

And this was a federal ban, so this would ban the importation of them and it would also ban the possession of them.

So it would have wiped out the industry.

Right.

So this was very desperate days.

Has porn actually got out of control now?

How is that, um, shaping politically at the moment behind the scenes? But another question, a bigger one, to both of you, has porn actually got out of control now?

Look, I'll take the first question first.

Um, yes, the, the government...

I mean, when we think back to those, those lovely days when they just thought they'd put a internet filter around Australia and that would stop the porn from coming in, you know, and they sort of described it as a shark net around the whole of Australia to stop the porn, um, they had very little understanding of how the internet worked and how technology works, and it seems that they still don't.

So they're still looking at, um, censoring or classifying material online, which, um, and, and, and in that prohibiting some material online, which is largely impossible.

Uh, they are also looking at trying to bring in, um, censorship for offline material and trying to bring that into... all under the, under one umbrel- umbrella of classification.

It is an impossible task.

Has it got out of control? Do you even, do even you two believe that it needs in some way to be tempered?