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related
Guide:

Censorship
and Free
Speech




related
Profiles:

Human
Rights

Australian
Constitution
& Cyberspace

Blasphemy

Sedition

     advocacy

This page offers a bird's-eye view of advocacy regarding censorship in Australia and New Zealand.

It covers -

• introduction - making sense of the advocacy landscape
• libertarians and technophiles - civil liberties groups
• moralists and consumers - religious and other organisations
• content production - publishers and creators of content
• carriage - broadcasters, telecommunication companies and ISPs

     introduction

Contet regulation is a matter on which every individual and organisation seems to have an opinion. For few, however, it is central to their existence - sufficiently central to engage in advocacy that is apparent to the casual observer.

In looking at contemporary Australian and New Zealand content regulation we can thus identify a handful of organisations whose representations to government (and through the media to the community) are significant, either because the body is recognised as having some authority (eg the Law Council and state/territory Law Societies), as representing major commercial interests (eg the CTVA and IIA) or is merely vehement (eg the FOL and EFA).

What one tired observer labelled the 'angries' have sometimes characterised disagreement about content regulation in almost manichaean terms as a contest between good and evil, intelligence versus stupidity, brave (and tech savvy) libertarians versus joyless luddite wowsers. That characterisation serves to rally adherents - recruitment and maintenance of support is always easier when the End is nigh - but is too simplistic. Some religious groups, for example, urge strong restrictions on blasphemy or diverse sexualities but oppose laws against vilification as undesirable censorship.

As noted elsewhere in considering advocacy within Australia and elsewhere it is desirable to be wary of some of the more reductionist dichotomies -

• left versus right
• secular versus religious
• technologists versus troglodytes

and the meme of the 'heroic band' fighting valiantly against the forces of darkness. As in any war, truth seems to be the first casualty.

How representative are the groups?

It is clear that the major industry groups speak for their membership, although their numbers may not be large. Not everyone, for example, can have their own television network. It is a commonplace that

• the noisiness of some crusaders is inverse proportion to their size or reasonableness
• actual numbers appear to be low (few appear to have more than 500 active members), with a strong emphasis on spokesperson/leadership figures
• claims of major community support are problematical (evident for example in reliance on form letters and discrepancies between the supposed views of the community and its behaviour in consuming adult content).

     libertarians and technophiles

Civil liberties groups span a spectrum from the establishment (or merely timid) NSW Council for Civil Liberties (CCL), Queensland Council for Civil Liberties (QCCL) and Liberty Victoria - formerly the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties (VCCL) - to the Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA), modelled on the US EFF. The Australian Council for Civil Liberties is an umbrella organisation for the three state councils, without the substance of the US ACLU and not to be mistaken for the far-right Australian Civil Liberties Union.

The EFA has gained media attention but arguably has yet to persuade government, industry or the wider community and continues to be marginal.

Its membership appears to overlap with the Internet Society's Australian chapter (ISOC-AU), a body with around 300 members that has increasingly been coopted by the federal government. ISOC-AU's membership overlaps with the Australian Computer Society (ACS), promoted as "the recognised association for Information & Communications Technology (ICT) professionals ... the public voice of the ICT profession". It has been more visible than other professional bodies such as the NSW Society for Computers & the Law (NSWSCL).

Watch on Censorship (WoC) is another Australian liberties group: "a community organisation with the goal of protecting and promoting the rights of adult Australians to freedom of speech and expression in all media".

     moralists and consumers

In Australia recent crusades have been driven by small evangelical bodies such as the Festival of Light (FOL) - an import from the UK that for many people has been as welcome as the rabbit or cane toad - fringe political parties such as the Christian Democrats and pronouncements from senior clerics such as Roman Catholic Archbishop Pell.

The extent of support is unclear: neither the FOL or CD have become mass movements to rival the Greens or poujadist groups such as the Shooters Party or One Nation and as Peter Chen notes in his 2000 thesis mainstream religious groups have been wary about supporting the FOL and affiliate the Community Standards Organisation (CSO). In considering internet regulation arguably the most impact has been that of the Lyons Forum (a faction within the Federal Coalition parties) and Tasmania's Senator Brian Harridine, attributable to his skill in leveraging a quirk of the federal electoral system.

Arguably bodies such as the Australia Institute (TAI) have had more impact, although their claims about the extent and impact of offensive content are often as problematical.

Young Media Australia (YMA) - aka the Australian Council on Children & the Media -

     content production

Australian Visual Software Distributors Association Ltd (AVSDA)
Representing the home entertainment film industry, AVSDA is a national trade association that represents distributors of home videos, DVDs and interactive software including computer games. AVSDA acts as a lobby group on issues such as censorship and copyright, and collates information on wholesale revenue from rental and retail sales.

The Eros Foundation represents the Australian adult goods and services industry. Its web site contains some statistics and a list of around four hundred members of the Foundation (mostly retail organisations).

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