Throw out your DVDs of Louis Malle's Pretty Baby with Brooke Shields, purge your DVDs of Lolita, Taxi Driver and even the just released Beautiful Kate. The NSW Government wants to erode the current defence of "scientific, medical, legal, artistic or other public benefit purpose" of the Crimes Act (s 91H(4) Crimes Act).

Great works of art have as their basis that young people are sexual, precocious, attractive and careless with their affections. Romeo and Juliet were 13. In a knee-jerk-off reaction to Bill Henson's case last year, the Attorney-General wants to illegalise possession of images or words that appear to sexualise persons "under 16 or who looks like a child under 16". Beware flat-chested women.

Fair enough. No one wants to defend real child pornography but if, like Henson's work, it serves a higher purpose, is shown in relative seclusion and is a thing of acclaimed beauty, then are we not burning books?

Child pornography is in the eye of the beholder. The favourite television show of the rock spiders at Long Bay is It's Academic. At 4pm every day, they roll their sleeves and get down to basics. Many have posters of Bindi Irwin in jungle greens. No amount of censorship takes away the desire, imagination and cunning of the deviant. They cut out newspaper advertisements for school uniforms, search the internet for photos involving kids toys and clothes. They would get off on a postage stamp if it had one of the young princes on it. Civility, of course, must be maintained.

However, the Government's proposals in the Report of the Child Pornography Working Party claim they want to bring the NSW statutes in line with the federal law. Under the Commonwealth Criminal Code, "the literary, artistic or educational merit [if any] of the material" is just a factor in deciding if material is child pornography. It allows for expert evidence to be given on the issue. The proposed state laws would take away the defence of artistic merit and replace it with visions that suggest such intent and pursuits can be taken into account in deciding if the material is child pornography.