Expelled – No Intelligence Allowed: Paramount Theatre, Wellington.

SPCS commends film commencing 8.30 p.m. Thursday 17 December 2009, Paramount Theatre, Courtney Place, Wellington.

The new American  movie Expelled – No Intelligence Allowed, directed by Nathan Frankowshi and hosted by Ben Stein, currently on its theatrical release in NZ, highlights a fundamental problem that is inherent in the NZ Science curriculum. In the section titled “Making sense of the Living world” careful analysis reveals that Neo Darwinist Theory  (i.e. Molecules-to-Man Evolution via natural selection) is the sole basis allowed for all scientific investigation. The other leading origins theory – Intelligent Design – doesn’t get a mention. Therefore students are being prevented from engaging in the controversial and exciting debate on the competing ideas about the origins of life. What they are receiving in their life sciences education amounts to a large dose of philosophical indoctrination into scientific naturalism – read atheism. God has indeed been “expelled” or censored out of the NZ  Science curriculum. Will our National Anthem of “God Defend New Zealand” be next to be ‘expelled’ from our ‘enlightened’ secular culture?

For more information on the film see: www.expelledthemovie.com

$420,000+ p.a. (estimate) to fund salaries of Censors Bill Hastings and Nicola McCully for 2009/10

After over 15 years being paid big bucks by the tax-payer to watch hardcore adult porn, the perversions of child sex offenders and rapists, and gratuitous violence, Chief Censor Bill Hastings and his deputy Nicola McCully – want a further 3 years in the “dirty job” watching more objectionable content, 80% of which is hardcore adult porn. What do these two censors have in common besides massive salaries ? Read more

Announcing Society’s 2009 Members’ AGM

The Society’s 2009 (Members Only) AGM will be held on Monday night from 6.45 pm to 7.20 pm 8th June 2009 at Connolly Hall, Guilford Tce, Thorndon. The Public Address commencing at 7.30 pm, following the AGM, will be given by John Terris, former Mayor of Lower Hutt, former Labour Party MP for Western Hutt, Former Acting Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives and President of Media Matters. All members of the public are warmly invited to attend this lecture, the discussion that follows and the supper. The Lecture Topic is: “New Zealand’d Media Landscape – It’s like the Wild and Woolly West. (Our value-averse little country is fast becoming the Sleaze Capital of the Universe).” Read more

Bill Hastings used tax-payer funding to induce 14-year olds to watch rape

Chief Censor Bill Hastings, who receives a tax-payer funded salary package of between between $210,000 and $220,000, used tax-payers money to induce a number of children as young as 14 years of age, to watch films featuring rape and graphic violence, all in the name of research study. He and Dominic Sheehan, chief executive of the Broadcasting Standards Authority, commissioned market researcher Colmar Brunton to assess the perceptions of 100 individuals of the harm from watching 13 violent clips from films, DVDs etc. Children were paid $60 each for participating. (Dominion Post 4/12/08). It is a serious offence under the Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act 1993 for any person to screen a restricted publication to any underage person.

Mother backs Bill Hastings paying her 14-year old son to watch rape

Mother backs TV Research Dominion Post 6/11/08 by Greer McDonald

The mother of a 14-year old who viewed footage of rape and domestic violence for research has defended the study and says children see worse on news broadcasts.

Dawn Bunker, of Wanganui, said she gave consent for her son to take part in the research and believed he didn’t see anything that wasn’t age-appropriate”.

“I feel it was well worthwhile and done professionally, and at no time felt he could not cope with what he was shown. As he himself put it – ‘You see worse on the TV news, Mum.’”

Mrs Bunker was offended by comments from Bob McCoskrie, of lobby group Family First, who said this week that the fact that parents had consented to their children taking part “says something about the parents”.

Mrs Bunker, a mother of three, said parents had to be censors in their own homes. “Some of the things you see on the news, I’ve kicked my kids out of the room – I’m censoring my children myself, I know what they can handle.”

She said chief censor Bill Hastings was doing a good job.

However, a community lobby group has called for he resignations of Mr Hastings and Dominic Sheehan, chief executive of the Broadcasting Standards Authority, for whose agencies the research was conducted.

John Mills, president of the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards, said Mr Hastings showed appalling judgment. “the society is outraged Mr Hastings has defended his breaking of the law by claiming that, because the younger participants gained parental permission before they they took part in the research, then that was okay.”

Society calls for Chief Censor and CEO of BSA to be replaced

Media Release 5 December 2008

The Society is calling on the new government to dismiss Chief Censor, Bill Hastings and the Chief Executive of the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA), Dominic Sheehan, for their role in commissioning a market researcher, Colmar Brunton, to pay “children as young as 14 [to be] subjected to footage of rape, sadism and domestic violence as part of research directed by [these] two broadcasting watchdogs”, as reported in the Dominion Post (4/12/08).  Hastings in a feeble and misguided attempt to justify his appalling judgment, when confronted by the Dominion Post, admitted that the teens had indeed viewed attempted rape and graphic violence, but that much of it “went over their head” as they practiced “a type of self-censor”.

Society President John Mills responds “Yeah right Bill!” and asks: So if children are so skilled at self-censorship and are so oblivious of objectionable content and so unaffected by it, then why are you paid from the public purse over $220,000 per year to censor such material and demand that no adult allow it to be screened to kids, when these same kids can self-censor effectively – so you claim? 

In a self-congratulatory farcical ‘analysis’, Hastings told the Dominion Post that he believed the research on child viewing of rape etc. had proved that parents paid attention to film classifications and were “trusting us [the Office of Film and Literature Classification and the BSA] to make a sound call.”

Society President John Mills responds again “Yeah right Bill!” and asks: How can it be a “sound call” for the Chief Censor and CEO of the BSA to offer monetary inducements to children as young as 14 and their parents, in order to get the former to watch rape and graphic violence content and thereby break the law? (The kids were paid $60 to watch material and have their attitudes to it assessed, when screening it to them is illegal). Furthermore, most parents who care about their children would never put them within an arm’s reach of a censor who subjects them to such objectionable content under the pretence of research.

Those under 18 were shown scenes of attempted rape, graphic assaults and domestic violence in the movies Sin City (R18) and 8 Mile (R13), as well as television show Heroes. Violent scenes from episodes of R16-rated Mafia Show “The Sopranos”, the Adults Only TV Programme “Crime Scene Investigation” and the R18 Brad Pitt film “Fight Club” were also shown to the 14 year olds.

The Society is outraged that Mr Hastings has defended his breaking of the law by claiming that because “the younger participants gained parental permission before they took part in the research, then that was OK. However, he is duty-bound to uphold the law – the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 – that defines it to be an offence to show any portion of a restricted publication to an underage person.

The Ministers of Internal Affairs and Broadcasting should insist that the warrants to hold statutory office be immediately withdrawn from Bill Hastings and Dominic Sheehan and they be replaced with persons who uphold the highest standards of integrity in their respective roles as censorship watchdogs.

Reference:

Dominion Post Report

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4781424a1860.html

Gay Rights Political Platform and its Pyrrhic Victory in attempted ‘Hate Speech’ Put Down

On 15th January 1998 Craig Young, a gay-rights activist, had his news report entitled “Hate Propaganda Victory” published on-line by QNA – Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News. He boasted about a “victory” that “marks the culmination of a long-term political strategy” on the part of “lesbian and gay” activists like Wellington gay man Calum Bennachie (formerly known as Calum Sawyers). However, it proved to be a pyrrhic victory – well and truly negated and consigned to the trash can of history.

Why? Because in August 2000 the full bench of the Court of Appeal (five members), effectively overturned (in a unanimous decision) what Young was claiming as a “victory” – a decision of the Film and Literature Board of Review (the Board) that had banned two Christian videos that dealt with the insidious nature of the gay-rights political movement and the tragedy of the growing AIDS world-wide epidemic. That ban by the nine-member Board – now widely recognised by the legal community and the informed general public as a direct attack on free speech – driven by the liberal PC-gay-rights agenda – was put together by former law lecturer Bill Hastings, in his role as Deputy President of the Board (he later became Chief Censor, a position he now holds).

Calum Bennachie, representing an aggrieved gay-rights group Human Rights Action Group (HRAG), had earlier successfully applied to the Board to have the two Christian videos banned. In March 2000, gay activists as well as Mr Hastings, were delighted when the High Court upheld the Board’s banning order, following an unsuccessful appeal to the Court by the videos’ distributor – Hamilton-based Living Word Distributors.

Craig Young. who continues to write for a gay website, wrote in 1998:

“After a substantial period of time and diligent work, a long standing Wellington lesbian and gay community initiate finally paid off in late December 1997, when the Office of Film and Literature Classification [sic] ruled that two US Christian Right homophobic hate videos, “Gay Rights/Special Rights” and AIDS: What You Haven’t Been Told” were objectionable, and therefore should be prohibited.”

Young, got his facts wrong. It was the OFLC that classified both videos R18 in 1997 and then, following an appeal by HRAG against the OFLC decision, made to the Board, they were classified (by the Board) as “objectionable” (i.e. banned) in 1998.

Craig Young continued his boasting in 1998:

“The victory [the Board's banning order] marks the culmination of a long-term political strategy, which began with the passage of the Human Rights Act-inclusive clause into the Films, [Videos and] Publications Act 1993, and followed by a test case before the then-Indecent Publications Tribunal over Paul Cameron’s “Exposing the AIDS Scandal” in 1994. As a consequence of that precedent, the Wellington-based Human Rights Action Group [HRAG] brought a case before the Office of Film and Literature Classification over the aforementioned two US hate videos.

“HRAG hopes to have other US hate propaganda videos, such as the notorious “Gay Agenda” prohibited, following OFLC submissions from community organisations. At this point, a fortnight after the decision, no NZ Christian Right organisation has commented on their most significant defeat to date.”

Two years later……

As the Dominion reported on Thursday 31 August 2000 under the headline “Court quashes ban on anti-homosexual films”…..

“The Court of Appeal has issued a landmark decision defending free expression and the ‘free flow of information and ideas’ from censorship. The court has quashed a High Court ban of two fundamentalist, anti-homosexuality videos, saying the Film and Literature Board of Review and the High Court had misdirected themselves….in law as to the impact of the Bill of Rights in this case. A majority decision, delivered by Court of Appeal president Sir Ivor Richardson, in response to an appeal by Christian organisation Living Word Distributors, refers the issue to the board for reassessment.”

To the chagrin of gay activists who had boasted “victory”, and the biter disappointment of Bill Hastings, the Board of Review reclassified both videos as “unrestricted”. Any child, pre-teen, teen, young person or adult can now watch the videos and learn of the real agenda behind the extremist gay activist movement as it has presented itself in North America.

References: http://www.christian-apologetics.org/html/Reports_on_Court.htm

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0509/S00077.htm

Suicide toll surpasses road deaths – Approval by Board of pro-suicide book slammed by Society.

In the light of the release of new coroners’ figures on suicide rates, the Society is slamming a unanimous decision by the 8-member Film and Literature Board of Review to support the public availability of a sick book that provides step-by-step methods of how to commit suicide and assist others to do so. The book – The Peaceful Pill Handbook – now classified R18 by the Board, is authored by an elderly Australian zealot, obsessed with seeking notoriety for himself – via his his culture of death propaganda message and his exploitation of weak and vulnerable people who he convinces to fly to Mexico to obtain an illegal suicide drug he promotes in his book and at his fee-paying seminars.

The Dominion Post (25-26/10/08) reports:

“More people [in New Zealand] took their own lives than died in road crashes in the past year, new coroners’ figures show. In the year to the end of June, 511 suicides were reported to coroners – 1.4 self-inflicted deaths a day…. Chief coroner Judge Neil MacLean said … Raw data about suicides was ‘rather shocking’… [As a comparison] There were 422 road deaths last year.” (See link to full report below).

The Society wants New Zealanders to know the names of the Board members who, by their decision, have released a publication into circulation that advocates for and promotes suicide. The members involved in the decision were: Claudia Elliott (President), Dr Jo Baddeley (Deputy President), Judy Callingham, Judith Fyfe, Dr Ian Lambie, Mark Andersen, Andrea Haines, and Ani Waaka (All were recommended for appointment by the Labour-led government Minister of Internal Affairs). The Board upheld the R18 classification issued earlier by the Chief Censor’s Office.

Reference:

Dominion Post 25-26 October 2008

Suicide toll surpasses road deaths

by Lane Nichols

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4738796a20475.html

Employment Relations Authority suggestion on role of Chief Censor’s Office is laughable says employer lobby group.

The Society points out that the recent judgment (8 October) by Employment Court Judge Coral Shaw, overturning the July 2007 ruling by the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) that awarded $9,000 for hurt feelings to an employee, Jessica Wood, for unjust dismissal by her employer for her breach of company policy involving emails; highlights the bizarre nature of that flawed ERA decision. ERA member Dennis Asher who wrote it, was quite wrong to have suggested that an employer has to secure a classification decision from the Chief Censor’s Office confirming that an email is “objectionable”, before dismissing an employee for disseminating offensive and sexually explicit content in breach of company email policy.

Read more

Media Release by Arthur D Riley & Co Ltd

13 October 2008

The General Manager of Arthur D Riley & Co Ltd, Garth Mickell, says a level of common sense has been applied in the decision by the Employment Court which has found that his company was justified in dismissing an employee.

The case, which was originally an appeal against a decision from the Employment Relations Authority, involved the dismissal of an employee for forwarding offensive images by e-mail to internal and external recipients.

Ms Wood forwarded an email containing pictures of naked people, having twice previously been warned about similar behaviour.

Mr Mickell says his company has only applied the terms of employment and policies that Ms Wood had signed, and she had been warned about on more than one occasion.

“It has been a long and costly process, but we could not let the ERA ruling stand as is, due to the ongoing impact it may have on employment disputes. Each and every employment environment is different and this ruling allows this to be taken into account.”  Read more

Landmark Court Decision on Misuse of Internet in Workplace. Dismissal by Company of Employee Upheld.

Media Release 11 October 2008

The Society is delighted that the Employment Court in Wellington has recently issued a robust landmark decision that defends the rights of employers to enforce any company rules they have prohibiting their employees from accessing, downloading, uploading, saving, requesting, transmitting, storing or purposely viewing sexual, pornographic, obscene, racist, profane or other offensive and inappropriate material, using the workplace internet or intranet. The Court’s decision overturns a determination of the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) issued last year that was extensively covered in the media and featured in July 2007 on John Campbell’s TV3 Nightline programme.

“Employers have always had a right to dismiss employees who breach company policies relating to conduct in the workplace,” says Society Executive Director David Lane. “However, this Court decision, Arthur D Riley & Co Limited v Jessica Sharon Wood (WC 18/08; WRC 25/07) issued by Judge CM Shaw on 8 October 2008, underlines in case law, for the first time I am aware of, the rights of employers to tie their company policies to their own community/workplace standards in relation to objectonable/pornographic or offensive content, without relying on the liberal and flaky definition of what constitutes offensive and obscene content issued regularly by the Chief Censor’s Office – the so-called enlightened  ‘objective view’. Of course companies must set out fair and reasonable procedures that allow an employer to effectively deal with breaches of conduct in the use of the internet, clearly define inappropriate content and notify and warn employees of the consequences of all misconduct.”

Employment Court Judge Coral M Shaw has overturned an earlier determination that was issued by the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) that upheld a wrongful dismissal claim by a Wellington woman Miss Jessica Sharon Wood against her employer Arthur D Riley & Co Lts (ADR). The substantial financial compensation awarded her by the ERA, made against ADR, has now been negated by the Employment Court which has ruled that all of it (paid in full by ADR into the Court, pending appeal result) – 75% of her lost wages from 18 September 2006 to January 2007 and $9,000 damages for humiliation – must be returned with interest to the plaintiff (ADR). The Court has reversed the decision of the ERA by now reserving costs in favour of the plaintiff, which has 28 days from the date of the Court’s decision, 8 October, to submit its claims against Miss Wood.

The Society Director David Lane praises Mr Garth Mickell, Director of a private electricity and water metering business, Arthur D Riley & Co Ltd (ADR), the plaintiff, for challenging the appallingly incompetent and flawed decision issued last year by Mr Denis Asher of the ERA.

In an email dated 10 October Mickell wrote to the Society:

“First thank you for your support, and advise. Attached for your reference is the employment court determination. We are thankful that commonsense has prevailed, and there is now the ability of places of work to be able to determine their level of  morality and ethics, without influence from central government.”

To reiterate: employers now have a right, recognised by the Employment Court, to enforce company policy relating to what they consider constitutes objectionable/pornographic or offensive content without having to get an “objective” determination from the Chief Censor’s Office. Employers can also determine what constitutes “serious misconduct” relating to such material without having to have the liberal Chief Censor’s Office effectively negate the fair and reasonable community standards they seek to uphold in the workplace.

Read more

Film “End of the Spear” R16 rating downgraded to R13 following Society’s successful appeal

Press Release 4 July 2008

The film “End of the Spear” has had its classification downgraded from R16 to R13 following a successful appeal by the Society against the classification decision issued by the Chief Censor’s Office. The Society contended in its written and oral submisssion to the Board that the nature of the depiction of violence in the film – medium level violence – could not possibly justify an R16 classification. The nine member Film and Literature Board of Review agreed and in a unanimous decision, issued to the Society on Wednesday this week, took the view that 13, 14 and 15 year old children would not be harmed by exposure to the violence which formed only a small part of a compelling Christian message of forgiveness and redemption that is told based on the “true story” of the missionary outreach in the 1950s, to the violent South American Waodani Indian tribe. A revised censor’s note from the Board, alerts viewers to the medium level violence involving tribal warfare that some might find “disturbing”.

This is the second successful appeal by the Society in recent years involving a major Christian film that has led to its classification rating – issued by the Chief Censor’s Office – being downgraded by the Board. The Society made both oral and written submissions to the Board to overturn the R16 classification of Mel Gibson’s blockbuster film “The Passion”, and this led it to being reclassified R15. The applicant in this case was the film’s distributor and the Society opted to take a role as an interested party.

The Society has as one of its six objectives: the promotion of freedom of expression, within the boundaries of good law that safeguards the public good from injury.

Praise for Censor’s Ban on “Cradle of Filth” T-shirt

SPCS Press Release 1 July 2008

John Mills, President of the Society for Promotion of Community Standards Inc, (SPCS) has hailed as “bold, morally courageous and legally sound”, the classification decision issued to him today by the Chief Censor’s Office, that permanently bans a T-shirt he argued was “grossly objectionable due to its obscene content” and “completely vilifies the central figure of Christianity”. The Censor’s Office agreed with Mr Mills, an elder at the Kapiti Christian Centre, that the T-shirt, worn and flaunted in a large public gathering on the Kapiti Coast and a part-image (censored) of which was published in the Kapiti Observer newspaper, should be classified “objectionable”.

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Lindsay Perigo’s speech that ‘launched’ Dr Death’s book

Peaceful Pill Book ‘Launched’ in NZ. Perigo labels those responsible for seeking to restrict or ban The Peaceful Pill Handbook as motivated by “religious bigotry” and only fit for the trash-can of human history.

Dr Philip Nitschke’s Peaceful Pill Handbook was launched in Auckland on Sunday 13th February 2007. The next day an application from Dr Nitschke seeking leave of the Chief Censor, Bill Hastings, to have the book classified was received by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC). On the 15th February 2007, Hastings, granted leave. The OFLC classified the book “objectionable” in a decision dated 7 June 2007 (OFLC No. 700240), signed by Hastings.

The book ‘launch’ featured a speech by Lindsay Perigo, available from Not PC (MP3, 5.5 MB, 24 min), in which he vigorously defended freedom of speech. He labelled politicians and priests -  history’s greatest enemies of free speech and discussed the views of some of those we remember as advocates of free speech, including Voltaire. In a bewildering flourish of rhetoric he claimed that priests and politicians operate under the arrogant presumption that they own “your life” or “their god owns your life” – all priests label everything one might enjoy doing as evil and bad and find pleasure when we suffer miserably. He labelled all those who argued that The Peaceful Pill Handbook should be banned as motivated by “religious bigotry”. He closed by claiming that the world could only become truly civilised when the guts of the last politician is strangled by the guts of the last priest. He received thunderous and applause from the tiny ensemble of aged individuals who attended the ‘launch’.

Read more

Application for Leave re Grand Theft Auto IV (unedited version)

The Society has sought leave under s. 47(2)(e) of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 (“the Act”), to apply to the Film and Literature Board of Review (“the Board”) for a review of the classification of the highly controversial console game Grand Theft Auto IV (unedited US version) [also known as or GTA 4]. As noted in our application for leave dated 27 May 2008, the unedited game was classified R18 by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (“the OFLC”) on the 21^st May 2008.

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Grand Theft Auto IV: Who is the NZ distributor profiting from this offensive “Crime-Promoting Game”?

Grand Theft Auto IV (also known as GTA 4) – a computer game formatted for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 – was launched on April 29, 2008 and sold nearly 2.9 million copies in the United States in its first five days.1 The game – made by Two’s Rockstar studio – with first-week worldwide sales forecast of up to $US400 million, was submitted to the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) on the 4^th of February 2008 by the Film and Video Labelling Body Inc (FVLB).

The computer game’s distributor, the applicant to the FVLB, recorded on the application form, its identity as “TAKE 2 INTERACTIVE”. All other details relating to the company were deleted from the form by the Chief Censor, Bill Hastings, when he provided the application form to the Society, in response to its Official Information Request (OIR). The applicant’s contact person, return street address for the publication and contact telephone number, were all deleted.

The Society Investigates……..

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Society’s Submission to the Ministry of Culture and Heritage

Submission Re: Consultation Paper: “Broadcasting and New Digital Media: Future of Content Regulation”

Ministry of Culture & Heritage January 2008

Society’s responses to Ministry Questions submitted 11 April 2008

Q 1 What concerns are appropriate to be addressed through content regulation.

These concerns should include all content that could be considered “objectionable” and/or “injurious to the public good” …. all the matters covered under Sections 3(1), 3(2), 3(3), 3(3)(A) and 3(3)(B) of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act (1993), which was amended in 2005. Concern should also include all matters related to issues of fairness, accuracy, balance and personal privacy, as well as others currently dealt with in Section 4(1) of the Broadcasting Act (1989). Consideration also needs to be given to the current set of principles established by the Press Council as well as matters dealt with in s. 21 of the Human Rights Act 1993 relating to the treatment of classes of persons.

Read more

Chief Censor’s Office Report on Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA 4)

Read more

BSA Report on Children’s Television Viewing: Cause for Alarm

Media Release: 8 May 2008

The Society is not surprised that over half the sample (56%) of more than 600 adult “primary caregivers” of children aged between six and 13, who were interviewed as part of a report into children’s television viewing habits; were unable to identify 8.30 p.m. as the time after which programmes that are NOT suitable for children are shown on television The report containing this statistic entitled Seen and Heard, dated 6 May 2008, was commissioned by the BSA – the Broadcasting Standards Authority.

In response, the Families Commission issued a media release, calling for the 8.30 p.m. “watershed time” – to be more widely publicised by broadcasters. But is this an adequate response if the Commission is truly concerned about certain so-called “adult-only” material – pornography, sexual violence, graphic violence, blasphemy and obscenity – being viewed, or potentially viewed, by tens of thousands of our country’s children and young persons every night of the year from 8.30 p.m. onwards? Society president John Mills says the Society says “it is a totally inadequate response” and notes “we have written to the Chief Commissioner, Dr Rajen Prasad, pointing this out and called for more effective solutions from him to the problem of children and young persons being exposed to unsuitable, morally corrosive and corrupting television content.”

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Submission to Secretary re film “End of the Spear”

Urgent Attention
Secretary of Internal Affairs
and copy for Mr Owen Davie
Secretary, Film & Lierature Board of Review

Additional Comments Relevant to Society’s Proposed Lower Classification of the DVD End of the Spear and Formal Application for Leave.

5 February 2008

Further to the information submitted earlier by fax by the Society to the Secretary of Internal Affairs re the Application for Leave, please add the following:

It has come the attention of the Society today that the Film and Video Labelling Body has now approved a new classification of the film End of the Spear (originally classified on 20/12/07 as R16 by the FVLB by [incorrectly] cross-classifying it with the American DVD version) following a submission for a revised classification from the film’s distributor Life Resources Ltd. Read more

Submission to Board Re film “End of the Spear”

Attention: Film & Literature Board of Review (FLBR)

Re: End of the Spear (DVD 113 min 30 sec in length. Classified R16 By Chief Censor’s Office – the Office of Film and Literature Classification [OFLC]).)

The Society contends that the DVD feature End of the Spear, which is virtually identical to the 35 mm cinema version of the film that is currently screening in a number of New Zealand cinemas, should be classified by the Board as an unrestricted publication with a rating “M – Recommended for mature audiences 16 years of age and over.” It should carry a censor’s descriptive note such as: “Contains medium level violence including depictions of tribal warefare”. Read more

Morals body seeks lower [End of the Spear] film rating

KELLY ANDREW – The Dominion Post Saturday, 05 April 2008
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominionpost/4464953a6479.html

A morals group is calling for a film’s rating to be lowered from R16 so that younger audiences can experience its Christian message.

End of the Spear tells the true story of a group of Christian missionaries speared to death by an Ecuadorian tribe in 1956. The wives and children of the murdered men moved in with the tribe to teach them about God. Read more

Three New Appointments to the Film and Literature Board of Review

Press Release 14/12/07 Hon. Rick Barker

http://www.beehive.govt.nz/ViewDocument.aspx?DocumentID=31670

Dr Josephine Baddeley, Judy Callingham and Louise Carroll have been appointed to the Film and Literature Board of Review, Internal Affairs Minister, Rick Barker announced today. [They replace three Board members whose terms of office expired on 31 March 2007: Peter Cartwright, Dr Lalita Rajasingham and Stephen Stelhin]

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Documentary A Revealing Expose of the Adult Entertainment: on-line streaming video preview

Check out streaming video preview: http://www.1726entertainment.com/

A revealing documentary about the effects of porn on consumers. “An Accomplished Film” Sundance Film Festival.

“Is porn really addictive? Are children being sexually exploited?  Who should teach sex education? How much of responsibility should the porn industry take to provide treatment for potentially addicted customers? Is porn a healthy sexual arousal tool for consenting adults? Should porn be used to treat sexual dysfunction? The film explores possible answers to these hard questions, providing an unexpected conclusion.” J.A. Reisman.

SYNOPSIS by Dr Judith A Reisman 

A fresh social and political look at the $57 billion-a-year Adult Entertainment Industry and its affects on 3 subjects who agree to view porn 1 hour a day for 30 days.

Shady strip club owners, angry strippers, crass porn stars, top-of-their-game experts and 3 unknowing subjects hammer out an uncomfortable look into the soul of the porn biz.  Director, Lance Tracy, IMDB (Best Director, NY International Film & Video Festival, 5-Telly winner) maturely balances humor, shocking honesty, science and entertainment.

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Dr. Craig Anderson: Violent Video Games and Aggression

Dr. Craig Anderson from the University of Iowa is one of the most frequently cited and published researchers in the field of video game violence. Anderson’s work has been used in a variety of venues from scholarly publications to State Supreme Court arguments. Anderson research was used in the Illinois video game legislation defense where he was described as, “The nation’s pre-eminent researcher on the effect of exposure to violent video games.” Anderson’s work has been published in a multiple books, from Children in the Digital Age: Influences of Electronic Media on Development (2002) to his own Violent Video Games Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research and Public Policy (2006).

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Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents Theory, Research, and Public Policy (Oxford University Press, 2006)

by Craig A. Anderson, Douglas A. Gentile and Katherine E. Buckley

Description
Violent video games are successfully marketed to and easily obtained by children and adolescents. Even the U.S. government distributes one such game, America’s Army, through both the internet and its recruiting offices. Is there any scientific evidence to support the claims that violent games contribute to aggressive and violent behavior?

Anderson, Gentile, and Buckley first present an overview of empirical research on the effects of violent video games, and then add to this literature three new studies that fill the most important gaps. They update the traditional General Aggression Model to focus on both developmental processes and how media-violence exposure can increase the likelihood of aggressive and violent behavior in both short- and long-term contexts. Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents also reviews the history of these games’ explosive growth, and explores the public policy options for controlling their distribution. Anderson et al. describe the reaction of the games industry to scientific findings that exposure to violent video games and other forms of media violence constitutes a significant risk factor for later aggressive and violent behavior. They argue that society should begin a more productive debate about whether to reduce the high rates of exposure to media violence, and delineate the public policy options that are likely be most effective.

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Chief Censor’s Annual Report on Hardcore Porn ‘Control’ Cause for Alarm

Report 15/11/07

The latest Annual Report of the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) tabled in Parliament yesterday, raises serious issues about its use of tax-payer funds ($3,458,777 held at 30 June 2007) and its lack of disclosure regarding its classification processes, particularly in relation to its clearance of well over 1,000 degrading and gratuitous hard-core pornographic DVD and video publications for “adult entertainment” (R18). Chief Censor Bill Hastings, his deputy, Ms Nicola McCully, and their team of over about 17 censors regularly view and pass this putrid and toxic moral filth for adult viewing. Hastings receives a salary package of between $200,000 and $210,000 and his deputy receives between $180,000 and $190,000 and both have been in the porn watching censor business for over a decade. Both are “openly gay”, hold statutory positions, and are executive members of the OFLC – a Crown entity that receives Crown revenue of $1,960,000 each year. Read more

HIV infections in gay ‘bareback’ porn shoots

Media Release 29/10/07

The Society has highlighted criticisms of the Chief Censor’s Office by Steve Crow, the leading distributor of straight porn in New Zealand, regarding its “double standards” in the classification of hardcore gay porn compared to straight porn [1]. Why, asks Crow, has Chief Censor Bill Hastings, an “openly gay man,” gone so soft on gay porn – particularly so-called ‘bareback porn’ – that has been linked with the rise in HIV infection and STIs among the promiscuous homosexual community? The Society, a staunch opponent of Crow’s porn business, believes his concerns do deserve serious investigation by the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon. Rick Barker. Crow states that “perhaps this ["double-standards"] is a direct reflection of the personal attitudes of the Chief and Deputy Chief Censor [Ms Nicola McCully], both of whom are gay.” [2]

The proliferation of bareback DVDs and videos available for viewing in steamy gay bathhouses, saunas, cruise clubs and sordid S&M clubs, is of serious concern to health experts such as New Zealand AIDS Foundation’s National Campaign Co-ordinator Douglas Jenkin. He says ready access by promiscuous homosexuals to these publications – featuring high risk (condomless-bareback) explicit sex acts – is one of the many factors cited as a reason behind recent increases in HIV infection and the return of the STIs (e.g. syphilis, gonorrhoea) among the homosexual community. [3] Bill Hastings claims he shares these concerns but has done nothing.

According to a recent report [4] in UK magazine Boyz, three young male performers aged 18, 21 and 26, were infected with HIV whilst they were making a British bareback gay porn film. Read more

AIDS/HIV crisis linked to “unsafe” gay porn: Censors attacked for “double standards”

 

Press Release 26/10/07

 

A fierce debate is raging in the homosexual community over the impact of “unsafe sex” DVDs and videos on gay men’s sexual practices (sodomy), and the appropriate censorship of this ‘bareback porn’ material [featuring condomless anal sex] that some gay researchers cite as one of the factors helping to fuel the pandemic of HIV/AIDS (as well as STIs such as syphyllis) that has been ravaging the promiscuous homosexual communities. “The debate over its morality and dangers is heating up … over bareback porn both within the American porn industry and without,” says Douglas Jenkin of the NZ Aids Foundation’s Gay Men’s Health Unit [1]. “Today there is little outcry amongst gay and bisexual men protesting its existence [i.e. risky bareback porn], “and it’s easily dismissed [by gay users] as “fantasy” or “a choice”, says Jenkin [2].

Chief Censor, Bill Hastings, an “openly gay man,” has been accused by New Zealand’s leading pornographer Steve Crow of “double standards” when it comes to classifying this hardcore gay porn compared to straight (heterosexual porn). Hastings and his lesbian deputy, says Crow, because they are both homosexuals, are soft on gay hardcore as compared to the straight variety which he promotes for a living [3].

Hastings has called on the gay community to send their opinions to his office on the influence that explicit “bareback” sex DVDs, gay and straight, have on viewers and society; about what they think the Classification Office should do about them within existing law; and on whether and how they think the law should be changed [4]. The Society is concerned at suggestions that the censorship laws are not being even-handedly applied to hardcore publications by Mr Hasting’s Office because of the “sexual orientation” of its two statutory office holders. Read more

Minister Hon. Rick Barker Fails to Replace Lame-Duck Board Censors

Media Release 24/10/07

The Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon. Rick Barker, has failed to replace three members of the nine-member Film and Literature Board of Review (“the Board”), whose positions expired on 31 March 2007, almost seven months ago. The Society, which has raised numerous concerns with the Minister and his predecessor, the Hon. George Hawkins, over their respective failures to comply with their statutory duties regarding Board appointments; says that these three lame- duck members – Peter Cartwright, Dr Lalita Rajasingham and Stephen Stehlin – have played no active role in Board proceedings since 27 April 2007. However, it points out that the Board is required by law to have NINE fully-functioning members (not just six), each fully capable of participating in all review processes, who reflect the breadth of cultural, ethical and standards-based concerns found in New Zealand Society in the area of censorship (safeguarding the “public good”) [1].

The Board has continued this year to convene hearings, deliberate on critical reviews and issue decisions, but has done so since the end of April without any input from the three lame-duck members concerned. While it is true that the Board can operate with full authority and carry out its functions in law as a quorum of five [2], the non-participation of three members due to their positions having expired, is not sanctioned in law, says the Society. The quorum provision is only there for pragmatic reasons – to overcome genuine unavailability (sickness, family commitments, work conflicts etc) of members. It is not a provision put in place to assist a tardy Minister, unable or refusing to carry out his statutory duties. Read more

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