Wicked Campervans

Family First NZ launched a campaign two weeks ago whingeing at Wicked Campersfor supposedly offensive advertisements and messages on their vehicles.

Family First NZ  welcomed comments by National MP Dr Shane Reti in Parliament when he said:

New Zealanders from all over the country are writing to Associate Minister for Tourism, the Hon Paula Bennett, and to me complaining about the filthy signage on Australian campervan firm Wicked Campers. The Minister and I have spoken and to Wicked Campers I say this: Your offensive signage is unacceptable. Your disgusting degrading of women and children is unacceptable. Your signage is an affront to public decency and no parent including me should have to explain it to their children. High-quality tourism is what this Government and what New Zealanders are investing in. So Wicked Campers-respect New Zealand's advertising standards or go home, because New Zealanders deserve better than your garbage.

Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ spouted:

Many families have been offended by the offensive signs on Wicked Campers that travel around NZ but have felt powerless to stop them. This campaign will focus on complaints being made to the local Council that the signage breaches the signage bylaws in that area.

The Advertising Standards Authority has made 13 rulings against Wicked Campers, and has expressed disappointment at its refusal to respect the principles of self-regulation. Police expressed concerns about a Wicked rental van that depicts Snow White smoking a crack pipe and tells people to enjoy the class A drug.

We would argue that any public advertising should be G-rated and suitable for children to view. It is vital that families continue to speak up rather than accept offensive material and the sexualisation of girls and women in the media and on billboards and vehicles.

New Zealand police have asked New Zealand censors to consider the unpolitically correct advertising slogans painted on rental vans from the company Wicked Campervans.

Chief Censor Andrew Jack said:

I can confirm that we have received a submission in respect of some of the Wicked campervans from the police, and we'll be working through the classification process and testing those publications against the criteria in the Films, Videos, and Publications Act to determine whether or not they need to be age restricted or might be objectionable.

This is the first time a publication, in respect of Wicked Campers, has been submitted to us.

We have to make sure that if something is going to be restricted or banned, you have to try to take into account the fact that people do have a right to freedom of expression, and it is a big deal to ban or restrict something.

Jack said the censorship process would take about a month.

Associate Minister of Tourism Paula Bennett told Morning Report she would not rule out legislating against the company, but would rather the Chief Censor dealt with the problem. She whinged:

I'm pretty determined to find an avenue to close these slogans down.