Australian nutters watch by candlelight

Based on an article from News.com.au see full article

Australian TV advertisers have supported Channel 10's new program Californication despite religious groups yesterday calling for a boycott of the show.

Ten maintained that advertisers had not complained about explicit sexual, drug and moral references.

The Australian Christian Lobby’s managing director Jim Wallace had called for advertisers to be “held accountable” for their support of the show: There will be calls to boycott sponsors of the show. And I’ll be leading the calls. (If they are concerned about standards) they should not be sponsoring this show. He said that he had organised someone to record last night’s episode in order to identify all advertisers.

The show, starring David Duchovny as a sex-addicted novelist and father suffering a mid-life crisis, features nudity and the opening scene saw a nun performing a sex act during a dream sequence.

Catholic priest Father John Fongemie led a candlelight vigil with 40 parishioners outside Ten's Sydney studio during Monday's episode.

 
Video store investigation reveals that niche videos are effectively banned due to small customer base

From The Age see full article

A small Melbourne video store, Out Video, drew the attention of the federal Attorney-General's Department for selling and renting imported titles that have not been classified in Australia.

Bureaucrats may be doing their job, but by acting against a small niche video shop, they have inadvertently exposed critical flaws in our film classification laws.

Out Video markets films primarily directed at the gay and lesbian community. Many are produced overseas and never achieve general or selected release in Australia. And because of the prohibitively high cost of classification, they never get classified.

As a result of the Attorney-General's intervention, Out Video says nearly half their stock will have to be shelved permanently.

This highlights two major flaws in Australia's classification regime:

1. The regime has not adapted to a marketplace that allows media to be accessed through more than just domestic broadcasters and distributors. Consumers demand access to an increasingly wide selection of entertainment from overseas, and they can get it through the internet.

2. Our classification laws are not designed to accommodate small markets. Instead, the classification processes are optimised for large, general-release films. The system simply doesn't lend itself to small-run films, and the law unfairly harms businesses trying to service niche markets.

The targeting of Out Video by the A-G's Department should give it and the OFLC impetus to review the classification laws. With a vibrant and diverse international entertainment sector, these laws should not blanket-ban content. Such a policy makes a mockery of the liberal legal principle that all things should be legal unless there is a reason to make them illegal.

Many of the films these niche providers import have already been classified in the UK, US and Canada. So one possible solution is to recognise comparable classifications from other media-exporting countries.

But a preferable outcome would be the elimination of mandatory classification. If consumers demanded classification to guide their decisions, then distributors would have a commercial incentive to seek it.

 
Australian Police to black list crime related websites

From Crikey

The Australian Government continued down the slippery slope towards internet censorship yesterday by introducing bill to give the Australian Federal Police the power to nominate terrorism or crime related websites for filtering.

The internet industry code currently governing online content already provides for filtering of pornographic and offensive content. But this filtering is voluntary, not mandatory.

At the moment, internet service providers who want to be designated "family friendly" by the Internet Industry Association have to offer their customers one of a range of approved PC or server side commercial filters. And these filters are periodically updated according to an Australian Communications and Media Authority black list. Yesterday’s bill would merely allow the AFP to add terrorism or crime related sites to that black list. But why would aspiring terrorists and criminals willingly install a family friendly filter onto their PC?

 
Reality DVD banned by Australian censor

From Refused Classification
The uncut region 1 DVD is available via US Amazon

The Australian Classification Board have banned the reality documentary Banned from Television. This was also banned by the BBFC back in 1999

Review from Amazon US see full article

This fifty-four minute DVD contains twenty-five chapters with situations ranging from an undercover police video at a strip club to a shark attack on a student, from a collapsing tower at a Deep Purple concert in Chile to several scenes of police brutality in South America. The most gruesome scene involves a woman who, in a hurry to get wherever she needed to go, accidentally jogs into a speeding train. You can see from the video clip of the accident why she failed to stop in time, but it is still brutal to watch and highlights the reason your parents always told you to look both ways before crossing the street. When I read about this scene before purchasing the DVD, I knew exactly the footage I would see because one of those cable channels that always show various documentaries covered this train accident in a program some time ago. Of course, on cable the scene cut away right before impact. Here you see it from start to finish, and it is a powerful statement on how carelessness has the potential for tragic consequences.

 
Northern Territory reviewing porn law

From ABC see full article

The Northern Territory Government is reviewing its pornography laws to see whether tougher regulations are needed to stamp out illicit porn traders.

The announcement comes as new bans take effect today on all hard-core pornography in remote Aboriginal communities.

The Northern Territory has the most relaxed porn laws in Australia, without a licensing system to regulate the industry.

Attorney-General Syd Stirling says his department is studying the ACT's regulatory scheme with a view to taking a similar model to Cabinet.

   
Rife in the Australian Government

From the BBC see full article
See also Australian Government Report [pdf]

Australia is to ban alcohol and pornography in Aboriginal areas in the Northern Territory in a bid to curb child sex abuse. All Aboriginal children in the territory will be medically examined.

The new proposals follow a report last week which found evidence of abuse in each of the territory's 45 communities. Last week's landmark report identified a wide range of social issues that contribute to child sexual abuse. They included unemployment, poor health and nutrition, overcrowded housing, substance abuse and pornography.

Local police officers were accused of turning a blind eye to a "rampant informal sex trade" between Aboriginal girls aged 12 to 15 and non-Aboriginal local mineworkers, who paid the girls in alcohol, cash and other goods. Alcohol was used as a "bartering tool" by black and white men for sex with under-age girls, the report added.

Prime Minister John Howard said the federal government would take over the administration of Aboriginal communities for the next five years so that the new laws would be strictly enforced. For the last decade, Aboriginal communities have by and large been allowed to govern themselves.

Aboriginal leaders have expressed outrage at the new measures: It's another knee-jerk reaction from our government to a very serious issue, the director of the Crossroads Aboriginal Ministries in Sydney, Ray Minnicomb, told the BBC: To ban alcohol on Aboriginal communities, where that ban has already been in place for the last 20 or 30 years by the Aboriginal people themselves, is a bit silly. [Mr Howard] would have to ban that in the cities and towns where white people live with Aboriginal people in order to make it effective.

Under the new measures, the sale, possession, transportation and consumption of alcohol will be banned in indigenous communities for six months.

Hardcore pornography will also be made illegal and all publicly-funded computers will be searched for pornographic images.

Welfare payments would be contingent on children attending school and new rules would dictate how they are spent to ensure that young people are properly fed and clothed.

   
Eros Association is unimpressed by porn ban

From AVN see full article

The Eros Association, one of the adult industry's key lobby groups, has spoken out against a recent ban on pornography aimed at aboriginals in Australia's Northern Territory.

The move has been met with predictable support from Christian lobbyists. Aboriginal leaders argue that the decision is discriminatory.

Officials are now threatening to expand the ban to larger cities such as Canberra.

According to a recent report, the Eros Association said the pornography industry in the country is strictly controlled and regulated. Foundation spokesman Robbie Swan told ABC Australia that the real issue is the distribution of illegal pornography that does not comply with regulations. Swan said. And for the Prime Minister and the Christian Lobby to say that R-rated, X rated material from Canberra is the problem is just a monumental lie.

   
Everybody should be discriminated against equally

Based on an article from AVN see full article

Former Nationals leader John Anderson is calling for Prime Minister John Howard to extend restrictions on hardcore porn in Australia's Northern Territories to a nationwide ban.

Howard proposed the ban as an attempt to fight child sex abuse among the country's indigenous communities. The move has been met with support from Christian nutters, but Aboriginal leaders argue that the decision is discriminatory.

You can't restrict this to just Aboriginal children, Anderson told The Australian. The effects happen in non-indigenous communities as well as indigenous communities. I think what comes out of this is we are now conceding that there's a problem with this stuff, and frankly I think that all Governments ought to have a long hard look at it again.

According to the Nationals official website, Anderson is - surprise, surprise - a practicing Christian who is very conscious of the need for politicians to keep faith with the community.

Update: Rushed

8th August

The proposed aboriginal discrimination laws are being pushed through with minimal opportunity for debate

   
Anti porn bill is extreme, discriminatory and dishonest

Based on an article from AVN see full article

The bill presented to the Australian Parliament Tuesday would brand anybody caught with five or more pornographic items in the aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory a "trafficker," punishable by up to two years in prison.

Introduced to the Parliament by Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough, the draft laws would prohibit the delivery of pornographic materials into the area, and charge anybody possessing the forbidden five or more items with trafficking, regardless of whether they have any intent to profit from them.

Meanwhile, possession of less than five pornographic items could still earn perpetrators a fine of between $5500 and $11,000 under the new bill.

This ban applies no matter where material is being sent from, Brough said. We have to stop material at its source, by preventing mail order companies sending material into a community, as well as residents or visitors sending or taking material into a community.

   
Australia passes to deny freedom to Aborigines

Based on an article from Border Mail see full article

Repressive changes for Northern Territory Aborigines have been signed off by Federal Parliament, ushering in a new wave of intervention in indigenous communities.

The laws were passed on an unusual Friday sitting of the Senate after a marathon 27 hours of debate.

They include the controversial Commonwealth takeover of indigenous township leases, removal of the Aboriginal land permits system, quarantining of welfare payments for neglectful parents and bans on alcohol and pornography.

The measures were announced in June by Prime Minister John Howard in response to the Little Children are Sacred report, which exposed chronic sexual abuse in remote communities. But as the laws were passed, a co-author of the report told an Aboriginal health conference she felt betrayed and sidelined by the Government’s refusal to address the document’s 90-plus recommendations.

Pat Anderson branded the measures: just a further form of abuse. What we have is a prime minister and his ministers who don’t have a heart. Their approach isn’t going to nurture any kind of development — nothing.

Community Services Minister Nigel Scullion hailed the passage of the laws as an historic occasion, saying they would lift a “veil of silence” around indigenous suffering.

Senator Scullion admitted this week the Northern Territory legislation was discriminatory, but warned the measures could not go ahead if anti-discrimination laws applied.

While supporting the package, Labor tried to make the laws subject to the Racial Discrimination Act. They also tried to guarantee “just terms” compensation for Aboriginal people whose land would be seized.

   
New porn laws start 14th September

Based on an article from AVN see full article

The federal government will put its new pornography bans for Aboriginal communities into effect on Sept. 14. Australia is using print and radio ads to warn Northern Territorians of the upcoming bans.

The discriminatory ban, proposed by Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, is supposedly an attempt to fight child sex abuse among the country's indigenous communities. The move has been met with support from Christian lobbyists. Aboriginal leaders argue that the decision is discriminatory.

Under Prime Minister Howard's initiative — which was passed into federal parliament last month — hardcore pornography will be completely banned, and any computers that are publicly funded will be checked for pornography. The sale, possession and transportation of alcohol in the Northern Territory will also be banned, along with tighter restrictions on welfare payments. The bans will be enacted for six months, after which the policy would be reviewed.

According to The Age, people caught in possession of prohibited material will face fines ranging from $5,500 to $11,000. People caught in possession of five or more prohibited items will be automatically considered traffickers, even if they are not seeking financial gain out of supplying the material, and will face up to two years imprisonment.

In addition to the educational advertisements, a 24-hour information line has been established to provide advice and information on the new policy.

   
Australia votes against human rights for native peoples

From the BBC see full article

The United Nations General Assembly has adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples after 22 years of debate.

The document proposes protections for the human rights of native peoples, and for their land and resources. It passed despite opposition from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. They said it was incompatible with their own laws.

The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples calls on countries to give more control to tribal peoples over the land and resources they traditionally possessed, and to return confiscated territory, or pay compensation.

The General Assembly passed it, with 143 countries voting in favour and 11 abstaining. Four nations - Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States - each with large indigenous populations, voted against.

Australia said it could not allow tribes' customary law to be given precedence over national law.

There should only be one law for all Australians and we should not enshrine in law practices that are not acceptable in the modern world, said Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough.

[So why did Australia just implement a discriminatory law banning porn and alcohol for aborigines?]

   
Australia Post will not screen parcels for porn

From ABC see full article

Australia Post says it does not plan to screen parcels heading to remote Northern Territory communities for pornography, for privacy reasons.

The Federal Government has banned R- and X-rated material from proscribed areas in the Territory, including remote Indigenous communities and town camps.

The Territory Government says it wants to shut down the illegal postal trade in porn, and has sent a departmental official to Canberra to investigate whether a licensing system could help stop the trade.

   
No industry support

From Australian IT see full article

The results of Australia's only live commercial internet content filtering trial will never be known because the exercise, championed by the federal Government, was quietly abandoned.

The trial was expected to go ahead in Tasmania last year but the major internet filtering technology supplier for the project, Internet Sheriff, has revealed that it was abandoned because Australia's two largest ISPs, Telstra and Optus, refused to participate.

Internet Sheriff chief executive David Ramsay said the project was commercially risky without support from the two carriers: Without having them involved to supply the bandwidth at no cost it would have been quite expensive with no guarantee of any outcome for me. To go and spend upwards of $600,000, I needed some sort of idea what would have happened if this was successful and no one could really give us any assurance as to what the next steps may or may not have been.

The trial was expected to show if it was feasible for ISPs to take steps to stop pornographic and offensive internet content reaching their customers.

Tasmanian Liberal senator Guy Barnett, a strong champion of the trial, said he was disappointed it didn't go ahead.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan has, however, directed Australia's communications regulator, ACMA, to conduct a new ISP-level internet content filtering trial and report its findings to the Government by June next year. ACMA last week closed its tender, seeking experts to conduct the trials.

Update: Prime Minister Chips In

13th August

Australian Prime Minister John Howard called for a $190 million program to regulate access to content on the Internet in a speech to the Australian Christian Lobby that was webcast to more than 800 churches across Australia.

Howard's proposals include negotiating with ISPs to create filters that household coulds tailor to block content and an additional $43 million to the Australian Federal Police to increase efforts in finding and apprehending online predators, including increased patrols of chatrooms and services like Facebook and MySpace, as well as discussions with legal authorities and the Internet industry about getting information about predators that might be protected by current privacy laws.

   
ISP filtering trials continue

So if Australia sets up one size fits all filtering what age should it target. Is the net cleaned up so it is suitable for 8 year olds, 12 year olds or 15 year olds?

From ZDNet Australia see full article

The government has squashed speculation that its Internet content-filtering trial had been brought to an end prematurely.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan yesterday made that announcement, despite statements by the Family First senator Steve Fielding that the three-month trial, scheduled to have been carried out in Tasmania, had "been quietly scrapped".

Family First has been campaigning for mandatory filtering at ISP level to prevent children getting access to pornography online and announced on Tuesday the government had ditched the filtering trial after both Telstra and Optus would not participate.

Coonan said one privately funded trial had been cancelled, but the planned pilot managed by the ACMA (Australian Communications and Media Authority) will go ahead as planned. The tender for companies wishing to take part closed last week and three bids were received, according to the government.

Under the ACMA scheme, ISP-level filtering products will be tested on blocking "inappropriate and illegal content", whether such products would clog ISPs' networks and if such products have improved since the government last examined their capabilities in 2005-2006.

The federal government has already examined the potential ISP-level filtering three times; firstly in 1999, a CSIRO technical trial; in 2003-04 as part of the review of the Online Content Scheme; and in 2005 during a trial conducted by NetAlert, involving RMIT and ACMA.

Following the most recent trial, Coonan acknowledged problems with the concept saying: Each report has found significant problems with content filter products operating at the ISP-level ... The Australian trials have also found the effect on performance of the Internet by ISP filtering to be substantial and a lack of scalability of the filters to larger ISPs.

Coonan also announced this week that the government will reveal details on the AU$116.5 million NetAlert -- Protecting Australian Families Online initiative in the coming weeks, which will include an AU$18.3 million Internet safety education campaign and the provision of free online content filters to every Australian household and public library to help block unwanted content through the AU$93.3 million National Filter Scheme.

   
Free internet filters now available to Australians

From The Age see full article
See also Netalert.gov.au

The Australian Government's NetAlert website and telephone hotline, where families can download free internet filters and obtain net safety advice, has been launched.

The website, Netalert.gov.au, went online while the hotline (1800 880 176), has started taking calls

Two brands of filter have been offered, Optenet Web Filter and Safe Eyes, and they can be either downloaded directly from the NetAlert website or sent to the user in the mail.

Senator Coonan has said the filters would help protect children from both inappropriate web-based images and from email and chat room predators, while the hotline - accessible seven days a week between 8am and 10pm - would allow families to obtain free internet safety advice.

But she warned the filters, which could be customised to have different levels of protection for each individual user of the computer, would not be a substitute for "traditional parenting skills".

The free filters, which will cost taxpayers $84.8 million, are part of the Government's $189 million crackdown on online pornography and predators. The budget also includes an additional $43 million to double the number of online police tracking down internet predators and bolster the team of "internet safety officers" who visit schools.

In addition to the downloadable PC filters, Senator Coonan has said that, subject to feasibility studies, internet service providers would be forced to filter web content at the request of their users.

   
Youngster cracks Australian internet filter

From X Biz see full article

A 16-year-old student cracked the Australian government's new Internet porn filter in minutes, leaving the toolbar icon intact so the filter still appears to be functioning.

The student, Tom Wood, who spoke to Communications Minister Helen Coonan about cyber safety during a forum in May, said the Federal Government should have developed a better, Australian-made filter.

Wood said it took him just over 30 minutes to bypass the government's filter.

On Aug. 25, the government added a new Australian-designed filter, Integard, to its Internet safety website. Wood defeated it within 40 minutes.

Communications Minister Coonan said the government had anticipated children would try to get around the filters, and said that the supplier contract includes continuing updates: The vendor is investigating the matter as a priority.  It doesn't mean that the whole scheme is not worthwhile, because a lot of kids haven't cracked it.

Unfortunately, no single measure can protect children from online harm and ... traditional parenting skills have n