ITV has been fined 3,000 Australian dollars (£1,672) after contestants on its show, I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, killed and ate a rat.

The fine, for animal cruelty, was issued by the RSPCA in Australia, where the show was filmed last year.

The animal was killed for a TV show, that's not appropriate, said RSPCA chief inspector David Oshannessy.

A spokesman for ITV said: ITV has apologised for the mistake which led to this incident. He continued: The production was unaware that killing a rat could be an offence, criminal or otherwise in New South Wales, and accepts that further inquiries should have been made.

Australia's largest videogame retailer has joined the movement to add an R18+ rating category for interactive entertainment.

EBGames is promoting its pro R18+ stance in all 350 of its Australian storefronts, where it will display signage and offer shoppers the ability to sign a petition. The retailer is also promoting the cause on its website and linking to an online petition for those in favour of adding the adult rating category.

Kotaku reports that EBGames did its due diligence in advance of publically supporting the issue; the company polled its customers on the issue and found that 84% were in favour of the addition of an R18+ rating category.

EB Managing Director Steve Wilson said: With the release of the Government's discussion paper, we knew as a company that we needed to act on this issue as it continues to cripple our industry and cost local jobs. We did however want to be sure that our customers were as passionate about the matter as we are. This is not a call for violent video games, but rather a call for a better classification system that brings Australia in line with the rest of the world and other Australian entertainment industries, such as films.

South Australian laws censoring anonymous political comment on the internet have sparked national and international outrage, with readers comparing the draconian laws to those in Nazi Germany and China.

More than 600 people have posted comments on the AdelaideNow website - most vehemently against the Rann Government's legislation which will force internet bloggers and anyone publishing a comment on next month's state election to supply their real name and postcode.

A poll reveals more than 90% of readers are against the laws, which carry a maximum fine of $5,000 for media organisations who do not hand over such information to the Electoral Commissioner.

In an extraordinary response to the story, readers have compared the law to those used in Nazi Germany, China, George Orwell's 1984 and North Korea. The state Liberal Party - which supported the law - also drew fire from readers.

Attorney-General Michael Atkinson said the law would not impinge on free speech and claimed that he expected The Advertiser and AdelaideNow to publish false stories about me, invent things about me to punish me.

In a press conference, Atkinson said the law was all about honesty. He conceded it would be difficult to police but the most egregious and outrageous breaches of the new laws would be identified.

The new law, which came into force on January 6, requires internet bloggers, and anyone making a comment on next month's state election, to publish their real name and postcode when commenting on the poll.

The law will affect anyone posting a comment on an election story on The Advertiser's AdelaideNow website, as well as other news sites such as The Punch, the ABC's The Drum and Fairfax newspapers' National Times site. It also appears to apply to election comment made on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

The law, which was pushed through last year as part of a raft of amendments to the Electoral Act and supported by the Liberal Party, also requires media organisations to keep a person's real name and full address on file for six months, and they face fines of $5000 if they do not hand over this information to the Electoral Commissioner.

Update: Anonymous Blogging Back On

3rd February 2010. Based on article from arstechnica.com

The cries of the outraged citizenry have had an effect. While defending the new rules as recently as yesterday, Michael Atkinson has suddenly backed off from them. He sent a statement to AdelaideNow, one remarkable for its candor.

From the feedback we've received through AdelaideNow, the blogging generation believes that the law supported by all MPs and all political parties is unduly restrictive. I have listened. I will immediately after the election move to repeal the law retrospectively... It may be humiliating for me, but that's politics in a democracy and I'll take my lumps.

South Australia's Premier, Mike Rann, knows his way around the tweet-o-sphere, and he backed up Atkinson's comments with his own Twitter commentary.

For many young people, and even the not so young, internet is their parliament of ideas and information, said one. Then, immediately after: AG has listened. So no debate will be stifled. No political censorship of blogs or on-line comments whether named or anon.

Last week the Australian Classification Board (ACB) confirmed to Somebody Think Of The Children that a person's overall appearance is used by the Board to determine whether someone appears to look under the age of 18 in a film or publication.

However, the Director of the Australian Classification Board, Donald McDonald, refused to answer repeated questions from this blog about the specifics of breast size in deciding on a person's apparent age. Asked whether breast size was considered by the Board when determining age, McDonald said he had no further comment to make.

Colin Jacobs, Vice Chair of Electronic Frontiers Australia, said the Classification Board has a duty to be transparent with the public about what is being censored and why.

A process as subjective as determining the apparent age of a model is really a very problematic basis for a classification guideline, and this demonstrates it perfectly, he said. We don't blame the Board for enforcing the law, but we do blame them if they aren't forthcoming on how or why they're enforcing it in this case. The only reason censorship is compatible with democracy is that it's transparent.

The campaign to add an R18+ videogame rating category in Australia has gained an additional but predictable enemy, the Australian Christian Lobby.

The group's policy website features a section on the game ratings debate, in which the idea that an adult videogame rating category is needed Down Under is sharply rebuked:

The potential for violent and sexually explicit interactive games to cause harm has only increased in recent years as these games have become even more sophisticated, graphic and interactive. It is also naive to think that R18+ games could be restricted to adult users. If these games are allowed to go on sale in Australia they will inevitably find their way into the hands of younger players through older siblings or friends.

If any changes are to be made to the classification system it should only be to resolve to tighten up the MA15+ rating to ensure that games aren't wrongly getting through in this category.

The group encourages website visitors to attempt to stop the introduction of an R18+ category by writing a submission to the government in advance of the February 28th deadline for responses to the Discussion Paper.

The Australian Censor Board has started to ban depictions of small-breasted women in adult publications and films.

This is in response to a campaign led by Kids Free 2 B Kids and promoted by Barnaby Joyce and Guy Barnett in Senate Estimates late last year.

Mainstream companies such as Larry Flint's Hustler produce some of the publications that have been banned. These companies are regulated by the FBI to ensure that only adult performers are featured in their publications.

Fiona Patten of the Australian Sex Party said: We are starting to see depictions of women in their late 20s being banned because they have an A cup size, she said. It may be an unintended consequence of the Senator's actions but they are largely responsible for the sharp increase in breast size in Australian adult magazines of late.

Patten explained that Australian culture was being dumbed down in the sexual department and that political leaders were actively propagating an increasingly narrow window of acceptable sexual acts and cultures. She said that all new appointees to the Classification Board and the Classification Review Board should undergo a short course in the latest scientific developments around sexuality and some sort of biology course to bring them up to date with the broad range of acceptable adult sexuality and body types.

Update: Australian Censors Respond

30th January 2010. Based on article from somebodythinkofthechildren.com

The misleadingly named Australian Classification Board (ACB) has responded to accusations by The Australian Sex Party that material with depictions of women with small breasts has been banned. A spokesperson for the ACB told somebodythinkofthechildren.com that publications which contain offensive depictions or descriptions of persons who are, or appear to be, persons under the age of 18 (whether they are engaged in sexual activity or not) must be banned.

They said the Board classifies publications on a case by case basis, in accordance with the Guidelines for the Classification of Publications, the Code and the Classification Act and that the Publications Guidelines do not specify breast size.

Australian government censors are directing Customs officials to confiscate depictions of the female orgasm when it is accompanied with an ejaculation.

The Classification Board is also starting to classify films that feature female ejaculation as Refused Classification rather than X. Films that show both male and female ejaculation have routinely been given an X rating since 1983.

The new ruling follows a boom in the numbers of adult films featuring female ejaculation since the pioneering research of Professor Emeritus Beverly Whipple was published in her book The G Spot. Recent articles in the New Scientist and on Norman Swan's Health Report on ABC radio have raised public awareness of this largely hitherto unknown aspects of female orgasm.

The films are being banned (Refused Classification) on one of two grounds:

1. That the depictions are a form of urination which is banned under the label of golden showers in the Classification Guidelines or
2. Female ejaculation is an abhorrent depiction

Australian Sex Party convenor, Fiona Patten, said that the decision showed a lack of intellectual rigour and a lack of understanding of female sexuality on the part of Australia's censorship authorities. She said it appeared that some members on the Board did not believe the science around female orgasm.

Female ejaculation has now been described in scientific literature as being as real as male ejaculation and women's ejaculate is as different from urine, as men's is, she said. All women ejaculate at orgasm, in the same way that all men do. In some women, the amount is very small and not distinguishable from normal vaginal lubrication however some women can and do ejaculate large quantities of fluid and under great pressure.

Ms Patten said that some depictions of female orgasm could be faked and possibly showed an expulsion of water from the vagina, however there was nothing in the Guidelines to suggest banning depictions of douching – only urination.

These changes to what is now a Refused Classification depiction also affect the amount of material that will be black listed by Senator Conroy's proposed Internet filter. There are over one million sites featuring female ejaculation and for Australia to be banning depictions and discussion of this important issue, takes us back into the Victorian era where they didn't even believe that women could have orgasms, she said.

Hundreds of websites have joined an Australia Day internet blackout to protest against the Government's web censorship agenda, but even the internet industry body believes it will do little to lessen the Government's resolve.

The Greens, Democrats and ISP iiNet are among the organisations that pledged to fade their websites to black today and provide visitors with information about the Government's censorship plans. The blackout is expected to last until Friday.

The blackout was the brainchild of web activist Jeff Waugh and is being supported by online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA).

Some of the websites taking part in the blackout are listed on internetblackout.com.au. The list includes a diverse selection of mostly smaller websites, ranging from personal web pages to media sites such as newmatilda.com and overclockers.com.au.

But Peter Coroneos, chief executive of the Internet Industry Association, said it would take 200,000 people protesting in the streets in every major capital city for the Government to pay attention. Coroneos last week met senior bureaucrats from the Department of Broadband, who stressed to him that the Government was pushing ahead with plans to implement its internet filter legislation in the autumn session of Parliament.

I think the Government's fairly intent on their course of action to legislate filtering - I think that's almost beyond doubt, he said.

Boys exposed to porn are more likely to indulge in casual sex and less likely to form successful relationships when they grow older, according to research carried out in a dozen countries.

The report, Harms of Pornography Exposure Among Children and Young People, also found that young boys who see pornography are more inclined to believe there is nothing wrong with pinning down or sexually harassing a girl.

Michael Flood, who carried out the study at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, said: There is compelling evidence from around the world that pornography has negative effects on individuals and communities.

We know it is shaping sexual knowledge. Some people may think that is good. But porn is a very poor sex educator because it shows sex in unrealistic ways and fails to address intimacy, love, connection or romance. Often it is quite callous and hostile in its depictions of women. It doesn't mean that every young person is going out to rape somebody but it does increase the likelihood that will happen.

Research in the UK suggests that 60% of boys under 16 have been exposed to pornography, accidentally or deliberately. The average age at which they first saw porn has dropped from 15 to 11 in less than a decade. The average amount of time they watch porn on the internet is 90 minutes a week.

Such is the international spread of porn through the internet that youngsters in Asian and African countries see blonde white women on screen and then regard tourists with the same attributes as sex objects, Flood says.

However, Thaddeus Birchard, a psychotherapist who runs a sex addiction practice in London, said: We are entering a period of moral panic and this is part of it. Children are not receiving sex education at home. Sexually explicit material on the net can even help educate them.

T-shirt slogans supposedly condoning rape and featuring semi-naked and gagged women have 'outraged' Australian nutters.

An Australian website, run out of Los Angeles, allows designers to sell T-shirts with slogans such as It's not rape if you yell surprise, Rape, murder, arson … I like rape, and I want rape.

Menswear company Roger David has also been embroiled in the furore through two of its T-shirt labels. One T-shirt, by Los Angeles-based company Blood Is the New Black, shows a woman who appears gagged and roughed up. The other, by US brand Chaser LA, has two semi-naked women with a strip across their eyes. The image used by Chaser LA was largely copied from the 1974 Country Life album cover by British rock band Roxy Music.

The graphic T-shirts have angered women's groups, while a Facebook group called Roger David: NOT ok to promote violence against women! has more than 800 members.

Women's advocate and co-founder of the anti-exploitation group Collective Shout, Melinda Tankard Reist, says the T-shirts must be outlawed: [They are] mocking the serious crime of rape, she said. I don't think there has been any consideration of the message it sends sexual assault survivors.

They're taking messages you would normally find in pornography or the sex industry and mainstreaming them in what was once considered conservative menswear stores.  Is this how Roger David likes its women? Is this how it thinks women should be portrayed?

Chrystina Woody, a spokeswoman for Blood Is the New Black, suggested the T-shirts, as art, would spark debate. Art is meant to inspire and educate, and the meaning and interpretation is left in the hands of the viewer, she said via email.

Australian Labor MP Amanda Rishworth is urging music videos portraying women as 'sex objects' be censored and should be individually rated or banned from children's viewing hours.

She warned that without tough intervention the nation could be left with a generation of women with low self-esteem and body-image issues.

The call received support from the professor of Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University, Clive Hamilton, who described the imagery in some music videos as almost pornographic.

Ms Rishworth, a psychologist, will introduce a private member's motion in Federal Parliament calling for further debate on the objectification of girls in mainstream media: There is no silver bullet - the industry does need to consider content and what ratings they are giving it. She said a rating of PG or M could give parents a guide to what was appropriate for their children.

This is not about being a prude...BUT...about providing good role models, Ms Rishworth said. It's more than just sex, it's about the role women play in them. She said scantily clothed women in the clips were gyrating around men and giving suggestive looks. Many just looked like props for men, she said.

Prof Hamilton said there was nothing wrong with some censorship to protect the innocence of young girls: It's been clear for some years that the wall between music videos and pornography is becoming thinner.

A Senate report on sexualisation of children in the contemporary media made several recommendations in 2008, including urging broadcasters to review their classification of music videos with regard to sexual imagery.

Thousands of elderly Australians who want the basic human right to have control over how they will die will suffer if the Rudd Government's proposed internet filtering law is passed later this year, says leading euthanasia advocate Dr Philip Nitschke.

Dr Nitschke said Communication Minister Stephen Conroy's controversial mandatory ISP filtering plan supposedly aimed at protecting Australians from online material such as child pornography and anorexia guides would also prevent elderly people, including those suffering from terminal illnesses, from locating vital information on painless end-of-life solutions.

Nitschke's online version of his banned book on painless suicide methods is available through his website, Exit International. The Peaceful Pill eHandbook discusses the exit bag and lethal drug options.

A spokesperson for Senator Conroy said Exit International would not be blocked if the ISP filter goes ahead. However, any material on the site providing step-by-step instruction on how to commit suicide would be banned by the National Classification Board.

Google has taken down links to a website that supposedly promotes racist views of indigenous Australians.

Aboriginal man Steve Hodder-Watt recently discovered the US-based site by searching Aboriginal and Encyclopedia in the search engine.

He tried to modify the entry on Encyclopedia Dramatica, a satirical and extremely racist version of Wikipedia, but was blocked from doing so.

Hodder-Watt then undertook legal action, that resulted in Google acknowledging its legal responsibility to remove the offensive site.

His lawyer, George Newhouse, said the site was one of the most offensive sorts of racial vilification you could possibly find. It portrays indigenous Australians in the most unsavoury light possible, and you wouldn't want a child stumbling across it, he told ABC Radio.

Newhouse said Google agreed to take the link down after he filed an official complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission. Newhouse believes the site would be filtered under the Federal Government's mandatory filter: Sites that promote racial vilification would actually fall within that description and therefore would be filtered.

Australians are right now being asked to voice their opinion on whether an R18+ rating for video games should be introduced, with the Australian Federal Attorney General seeking public submissions into the issue. But while the consultation process won't conclude until February 28, 2010, one high-profile figure in the games debate has already decided that the majority of respondents will be in favour of an R18+: vocal anti-R18+ campaigner Michael Atkinson.

He said: I don't think the discussion paper presents a fair and balanced view of the issue without pictures of the games that would be rated R18+, Atkinson said. I think the majority of the population are unfamiliar with these games and without images, they won't be able to imagine them in their mind's eye. They'll have no idea how violent or sexually depraved they are, and what kind of torture, drug use, and blood spatter they include.

I also believe that very few people outside the gaming community will have a say in this public consultation, which will mean an overwhelming response in support of R18+.

...Read full article

Many dismissed them as a passing fad. But thanks to a wide policy platform that includes gay rights and a charismatic leader, The Australian Sex Party has shown they are a political force to be reckoned with, writes Garrett Bithell.

When was the last time we heard a politician talk positively about sex, without giggling like a little schoolboy from the front bench? When was the last time we heard a politician talk seriously and empathetically about human rights, without that dialogue being conflated by religious dogma?

In November of 2008, The Australian Sex Party was formed as a response to the increasing wowserism dominating our political landscape, and the unprecedented power of the religious right. Armed with pimped-up vans, a feisty and charismatic leader, and We're Serious About Sex as their slogan, the party launched at Melbourne Sexpo.

The South Australian government is now enforcing a law that requires all R-rated films for sale or hire to be segregated from all other movies of a lower rating. Not only that, but advertising R-rated films will also be illegal.

Essentially, this law is going to affect two types of businesses: places that sell or hire DVDs and Blu-ray films (everywhere from Target to Blockbuster), and cinemas.

The first change in the law, which says that you can't display R-rated movies alongside movies of other ratings, requires a dedicated area for all R-rated content, which needs to be clearly marked with this statement (in font at least 15mm high):

R 18+ FILMS AREA—THE PUBLIC ARE WARNED THAT MATERIAL DISPLAYED IN THIS AREA MAY CAUSE OFFENCE.

In addition to that, the item's surface area (such as a DVD cover) must not be more than 300 square centimetres (which is bigger than a DVD cover).

The other alternative given is to remove any covers or displays, other than the name of the movie (in font no larger than 1cm high) and the rating. No description, no funny quotes from Margaret Pomeranz, nothing.

The second part of the new laws restricts the ability to advertise R18+ rated films. Businesses (including cinemas) can no longer show trailers for R-rated films or display promotional material such as posters, pamphlets or other printed material. Although this probably won't be too big a problem (very few theatrical releases have been classified R18+ in recent years – most make it as MA15+) for most businesses.

Australian painters and photographers will no longer be able to rely on a defence of artistic merit defence under an overhaul of child pornography laws.

Nearly two years after police raided Melbourne artist Bill Henson's contentious exhibition, the Government will legislate to force artists to account for their works.

A working party set up by the Government in the wake of the May, 2008, controversy over Henson's child exhibits has recommended the artistic-merit defence be struck out.

The group, comprising Department of Public Prosecutions, police and Legal Aid representatives, was instructed to draw a clear line between pornography and art.

The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that New South Wales Attorney-General John Hatzistergos strongly supports the move, and the Government is expected to legislate when parliament resumes next month.

Henson triggered one of the most intense debates in the art world when he featured an image of a naked 12-year-old girl on the invitation to an exhibition of his work at Sydney's Roslyn Oxley Gallery. Police shut down the exhibition and seized 32 of Henson's pictures, but Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery, QC, declined to prosecute Henson.

Hatzistergos said the proposed laws would cover the production, distribution and possession of child pornography: The fact that it is art cannot be used as a defence. The report recommends that once such material has been found to be unlawfully pornographic, whether or not it is intended to be art is irrelevant, he said.

The working party, headed by District Court judge Peter Berman, also examined the use of photographs depicting nudity in a news context. Hatzistergos said the new laws would ensure the rights of photographers to publish pictures - such as the iconic Vietnam war photograph of a nine-year-old girl running naked on a street after being burned by napalm - would not be infringed.

The Government will seek feedback from victims' groups, the artistic community and media before putting the recommendations to Cabinet.

The working party has also recommended the law be changed so jury members, prosecutors and court staff are able to view only a sample of images during the trial process.