Australia is the world's newest police state. Bans small breasts.

Sadly, we all know that this is going to encourage Harper to do something equally stupid. Plagiarism of Australia's right-wing nutters is his forte after all.

 

I don't get why Australian government is always so trigger happy on censorship. I don't get especially because Australians are among the least sexually prudish people on the planet, from my experience.

 

In OZ this whole debate kicked off, with a few small incedents, Photos of schoolgirls taken at their schoolsports day, turned up on an unsaviorey website-- backlash ban parents at school sports days taking photos, even of their daughter it had now to get an offical photo taker, A peodopile finished his long jail sentence--- he's been hounded through 2 states from house to house, the media publish his whereabouts then wait for the mobs to turn up, to start spitting on him,chase him with camera crews, showing a half crazed stuttering angry old man, the news leader' would you want this man living next door to YOU' every two months for two years An art show, respected artist , nude photos of his 11 year old niece, public out cry, the Police sieze the artwork. Like Isaid this is OZ, the anti censorship crowd get going within days, within days magzines papers even current afairs t.v. shows
(the same shows the chased the pedeopile) publish the photo's under "is this art or porno" the lawers are in it now, pro bono , the police, have to give back ths Artworks, the debate the takes a turn, From a group demanding a sex offenders register in the state where the peodopile was released from turned on the magor department stores One might say the BIG 3 in OZ. for using young girls to advertise young girls cloths in their catalogues, they were being objectified made to look sexy and the images were being colected by peodeopiles that could live next door to you, that debate got several weeks run in the papers,radio,tv, pops up every couple of months still, it now includes Mazines aimed at the teenage market, several years ago the federale Goverment , after several very nasty incidents, promissed a free internet filter to every family in OZ, on the day of its launch, a 15 year old simply hacked live on a national tv breakfast show, one our primeminister used to appear on every week before his election, he might have even annouced the free filter on this show.

So now the Goverments on its back foot from a free home download , its got to solve this "internet filter, child peodeopile, sexaul objectification, protection of minors Problem" while also Introducing its National Broadband rollout it promised last ellection, which has somehow linked these two issues.

None of these things are really connected, a whole lot of other things have happened as well . BUT this is OZ and it goes somewhat towards explaining how stuffed up the goverment is on this issue

 

Pedos should never be released.

There is no rehab.

They should hound him until he dies, never giving him a moment's peace. Actually, someone should kill him because he is a threat.

Moderator Action: Please don't advocate murder
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

I love petite boobies.

 

I'd say the person who kills him is a threat because it is vigilante justice.

There are more options for paedophiles than just a series of sessions with a psychologist. Castration and other methods of removing the sex drive can be effective.

 

Eeeeeewww.

 

I love all boobies. Big and Small.
This is a travesty.

 

Well more game developers are just not complying and censoring their games anymore for sale in Australia. Look at Rebellion Studios and the new Aliens vs. Predators; AvP was refused classification and Rebellion basically told the Australian Government to frak off even going as far to call them backwards and oppressive. Surprisingly they decided to give AvP classification later on.

http://kotaku.com/5418499/aliens-vs-predator-banned-in-yes-australia
http://kotaku.com/5418963/rebellion-refuses-to-sanitise-avp-for-australian-release
http://kotaku.com/5429337/aliens-vs-predator-unbanned-in-australia

 

It's the Office of Film and Literature Classification, a statutory agency of the Commonwealth, not technically the governing party of the day. The Labor or Liberal Party cabinets aren't the ones making all these decisions, it's this agency. Any bit of media sold or shown in Australia has to get by them first. The OFLC is not like the self-regulating MPAA in the USA, it's an actual statutory government office with powers to classify everything.

The problem which leads to this steady stream of stupid censorship decisions is a combination of the arcane legislation which is being interpreted and applied by the OFLC (probably not updated much since the time of black and white cinema, let alone VHS), and the fact that the OFLC is often stacked with pedantic conservative wowsers. It was a lot more liberal in the early 1990s when it was all appointees by the far less puritanical Labor governments of Hawke and Keating. I'm not sure if Rudd has actively kept Howard appointees or added more that are just as bad, I don't know how the board of the OFLC is chosen.

It should also be pointed out that the OFLC really doesn't have the resources or capacity to censor the internet. Theoretically they're responsible for it, but in practice they don't have the expertise or manpower to properly monitor even locally-hosted sites. They only presently classify websites that get referred to them by another body, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, which don't tend to be crazy. This policy in practice, if it exists, would in reality apply things like DVDs. Very rarely do they manage to take down websites, since most are hosted overseas.

The current government is attempting to implement an internet filter, mandatory for all ISPs, which would enforce the existing censorship legislation from other domains, onto websites. The problem is we have no idea how far ranging they want the filter to be, they say child porn and terrorism, but under the existing legislation applied to other media by the OFLC, they'll be able to block a lot more than that, including a lot of regular pornography, and even artistic stuff of a sexual nature (say, a wikipedia page about Lolita). It's not entirely clear if Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications, and the Digital Economy, actually understands the scope and implications of what it is they're trying to do.

 

Rule 34.

I say this ban does not go far enough, I would ban all women with small breasts. Not quite the thread I was expecting with the title.

I also do think it is stupid not having a R18+ for video games since so often many games are aimed at older people who are generally mature enough to know what they are doing while playing those games.

 

This is the current board responsible for all the classification decisions:

http://www.oflc.gov.au/www/cob/clas...lassificationBoard_ClassificationBoardMembers

It looks like a lot are still there from Howard's era, but Rudd's government has appointed about half of them.

 

I believe in natural breasts - banning small breasts kills that. Not nice.

 

I think we need a rewritten law that allows games to be classified as R18+ and make it in line with the ratings for movies. Many of the banned games are banned since they could not reach the MA15+ classification, but would have been classified as R18+. I am sure it should not be too hard amend the legislation for that.

Can we have a mod to add to the thread title, "in porn", since that is the issue at hand, not for everything, as it would imply right now.

 

Why do you think Ag made the title the way he did?

 

Well yes. Nobody but the South Australian AG disagrees that the weird videogames loophole needs to be closed.

I think the real debate we need to be having is about whether to abolish the OFLC or at least remove its legislative power to make RC the equivalent to a ban. It's bad enough when legitimate movies get given an X rating so they can't be shown in cinemas.

 

Well that clarifies the situation a lot for me. If one of the key problem is the legislation that the OFLC has to interpret is out of date, why not introduce new legislation? That would be in the government's power and pretty much define the actions of the OFLC. Same goes for who they appoint. Is there much public outrage at these extensive censorship moves? It must not be that much of an issue if both parties are happy with leaving the current legislation in place?

 

Its just a case of doing nothing is easy for both parties, The " Liberal Party' our counserative party, cater to the religouse right , The " Australian Labour Party" our socialist, reblulicain workers party are the ones in power who are playing around with introducing these's censorship laws, both parties have left/right factions.The Lefty socialists under Keating start open boaders free trade , privatise goverment owned bussiness, unregulated the bamks, Howard our U.S. deputy sheriff, reliogous right from the 50's BANS most guns. compusorilly buys them back

The labour party is in power, its major promise last election is to upgrade the broadband network (2-3 billion dollars,from memory) in partnership with private enterprise a small promise of afree down load to help parrents monitor/censor THEIR childrens internet use, and I think something like a lap top for every school kid in Australia, So on the face ot it, their's nothing to really get outraged about

It takes some one to take on the Classificaton board inthe 60's 70's itwas books Portnoys Complaint, We now seem to have 'Adult Book" shop on every highstreet, our federale Capitals main INDUSTRY after paper shuffling. dirty books and films, People used to get charged for swinmming topless, NOW simulated sex shows are found booths with $2.00 peek shows, Same with Film, banned films introduced R18+, unclassiffied films; film festivals show them celibities go, the get classified or thier's no one left even asking to see it These pushes don't come from bussniness thoe they don't want an r18+ rating They want the 15 year old market so the eddit their films.

With games there was a strong push and debate about r18+ (Thats why i shot myself in the foot yesterday boothfeet actually) There was no support for it from the Games them selves thoe they want the 15 + market

 

There's no outrage in any politically meaningful way. Elections swing largely on the opinions of outer-suburban home-owners in the major east coast cities. Most of those people don't really care so much about the fact that the occasional edgy avant garde foreign movie might not be allowed to be screened.

Also, as kosiosko said, the easier thing is to do nothing for both parties.

It'll probably get changed eventually, but I can't see it ever becoming a headline political issue. The legislation will get changed after some Senate inquiry makes recommendations to the Attorney General's office and the AG decides to act on it. That's how the videogame thing will get changed, when they get around to it. The inquiry on that is ongoing.

 

Michael Atkinson, SA's Attorney General is the major barrier to it, and high on the list of my most reviled politicians.

Chasing the votes of ignorant luddites with cries of 'we must protect the kiddies' is more effective than chasing the votes of cynical gamers like me with sensible censorship policies. Especially when having sensible censorship policies lead to cries from the other party about how you've got it in for the kiddies. Again, see Michael Atkinson, and also idiot parties like Family First, who actually managed to scam a senate seat last election.