Summary Offences (Tattooing,Body Piercing And Body Modification) – Amendment Bill
06/07/2011
The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (12:52): I wish to briefly place on the record my position on this bill. I feel that its passage has been a good example of how our parliamentary procedures can work effectively. When I saw the first draft of this bill in January I was quite offended by it. Among other useless and heavy-handed measures it proposed to totally outlaw body piercings for people under the age of 18, unless they wanted a nose, eyebrow, ear or bellybutton piercing.
In the past I have had a nose piercing, and why this particular piercing should be seen as more acceptable or be more legal than the lip piercing, which I also had at another stage in my life, is totally beyond any reasonable person’s logic. Exactly what it was that the government thought distinguished the ear, nose, eyebrow and naval piercings from something like elaborate piercing or a beauty-spot piercing, I am not sure, but this was the arbitrary rule our government had decided to punish South Australia’s youth with.
The government had also seen fit to include a provision outlawing any pre-payment for a tattoo, piercing or body modification procedure. This measure would have effectively meant that tattoo artists would need to go through the design and research stages of preparing a tattoo without receiving any payment. This is simply an insult to the profession and discounts the true artistic merit that many professional tattooists bring to their craft.
Perhaps even more offensive would have been the other option that a tattooist would, in fact, be forced to forgo the designing stage and therefore have to ‘wing it’, so to speak, as they made a permanent marking on somebody’s skin. This is not what I would call a preferential situation for customers, to say the least. Thankfully, this bill went through a full consultation procedure and those rather archaic and overbearing procedures were withdrawn.
The bill we are now considering today is, in many senses, a much more moderate document which has clear emphasis on safety and good practice. It is an amazing improvement on the original, which felt to me more like an attempt to paternalistically and condescendingly prevent members of the public, young and old, from altering their own bodies. I strongly believe that what people do with their bodies is their business, not the government’s, and it is only on points of public health and safety that we should intervene.
I would like to thank both the Hon. Ms Franks and the Hon. Mr Wade for the effort that has gone into their amendments.
