Civil libertarians say the proposal to ban adult movie content from transmission in the Northern Territory is discriminatory.

The Commonwealth has announced it will introduce legislation to ban the broadcast of R-rated material to some Indigenous communities.

But the pay television service, Austar, says that would mean the Adults Only channel and the World Movies Channel would have to be suspended in all areas of the Territory, including Darwin.

President for the Council for Civil Liberties, Terry O'Gorman, says to prevent only some Australians from watching adult material is absurd.

He says that to apply conditions to some Australians and not others is discriminatory.

"Civil liberties are to be applied equally, not selectively," he said.

"The fact is that there is no evidence that anyone can produce that allowing adults to access pornography, particularly in the medium of television, has a causal connection to child sexual abuse.

"Professor Paul Wilson of the criminology section of Bond University has written about this extensively over the years and is probably Australia's leading authority on the proposition that there is no evidence to say adults watching adult pornography leads to adults committing child paedophilia acts," he said.

Attorney-General support

Northern Territory Attorney-General Syd Stirling says he supports the ban.

Mr Stirling says the Federal Attorney-General told him that only the Adult Channel would be banned in specific areas.

"I don't understand why they would maintain they're not able to distinguish between the two – one's a movie channel, the other's a soft porn channel," he said.

Mr Stirling says Austar needs to prove that it is technically not possible to restrict adult content to specific areas in the Northern Territory.

Austar says it would mean a Territory wide suspension of all channels that show R-rated material.

But Mr Stirling says that is not what the Federal Attorney-General has told him.

"[He] expressed explicit support for what he was trying to do by way of prescribed communities, by way of post code location," he said.

"[I was] assured that it could be done as specific as that.

"If there's an issue with that, that needs to be taken back to Canberra by the operators themselves."

This whole Indigenous Intervention thing is the most incredibly racist thing I have ever heard of in my life.