Talk:Censorship in Australia

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During the great Sydney Film Festival debate on Ken Park of 2003, I heard on Radio National (I think) that Denmark has no censorship guidelines. I haven't been able to verify this (apart from noting the broad sale of pornographic material in unlikely places) but that would make the opening sentence incorrect! Anyone know this to be true??? I suspect they still must have some form of classification, and I find it odd they wouldn't restrict the sale of material that shows acts that would be illegal, such as paedophilea...

The article is mistaken in assuming that censorship has uniformly lessened in Australia. Censorship has actually increased significantly since the 1970's and many programs that would have been shown on broadcast television now could not be shown. It might be worth pointing out that of the five movies mentioned as being banned, at least two (Baise Moi and I Spit on Your Grave) were previously not banned - censorship is increasing.

Please provide _evidence_ for censorship "increasing significantly". Your say-so isn't enough, I'm afraid. The publicity surrounding the tiny number of "refused classification" calls that OFLC has made recently has certainly been high, and the number of works on which they have been asked to rule has certainly increased, but to say that censorship has "increased" since the 70s is just, IMO, completely insupportable. I'll be the first to congratulate you if the figures say otherwise. --Shannonr 14:33, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

It's a bit before my time, but I know Australia used to have another classification level — I think it was called AO? And I think it was instead of R? — which meant "restricted to over 21". It'd be good to see some info about that in the article. — Danc 11:59, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

IIRC, AO was simply the old version of M, although it actually encompassed both M and MA. MA was introduced as a separate classification sometime in the Keating era. At any rate, it's really more of a change of name than a radically different scheme. Lacrimosus 23:48, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Lacrimosus is right. I don't know what rating movies received that would now be rated R (I was only a kiddy when the system changed), but AO was roughly equivalent to M now. Ambivalenthysteria 13:47, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
If I recall correctly, AO (Adults Only) was a rating specific to television broadcasts. At that time there was also a 'C' rating for children's programming, and PG was PGR (Parental Guidance Recommended). Sometime in the late 80s/early 90s (?) the classification system for TV was adjusted to closer match the film guidelines. La hapalo 04:28, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
(on reflection, it's possible that AO was a historical film classification level; if so it was well before my time) La hapalo 04:28, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There was also an AO-Mod (Modified for TV). And a Spy V Spy song too, A.O. Mod. TV. Ver. or something like that. --Paul 30 June 2005 09:47 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] OFLC redirect

Just a note on the edit I made (bolding Office of Film and Literature Classification): Strictly speaking, Office of Film and Literature Classification doesn't redirect here. It is a disambig, between Office of Film and Literature Classification (Australia) (which DOES redirect here) and its NZ counterpart. I have seen Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification linked from other sites so I will create that as a redirect to here as well. -- Chuq 02:26, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Cutting

Under little Johnny Howard censorship is skyrocketing. Australia is getting highly censored versions of films which is in many ways more evil than completely banning a film as people are generally ignorant to the fact that what they are seeing has been censored. I saw Kill Bill at a cinema in Japan, a country notorious for their censorship, and there were atleast three parts taken out of the Australian version. Also, I recently bought the Australian version of Commando on DVD and found that massive chunks had been taken out from the version released on VHS some 20 odd years ago. It's only getting worse.

The differences between the Japanese version of Kill Bill and the US/International cut are actually more to do with the American rating system, and the fact that Japanese audiences (in the director's opinion) would be more receptive to violence. Although I don't have any proof (or knowledge of the film), I think it's likely that similar issues affected the Commando DVD release (I don't think many companies would bother to re-author a DVD for the Australian market, either to cut things out for us, or put them back in) La hapalo 04:40, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Many companies do edit their films for australian audiences, as do computer game manufacturers.
Kill Bill's "black-and-white edited bit for everywhere except Japan" has been _extensively_ documented elsewhere and has _nothing whatsoever_ to do with John Howard or Australian censorship. Please take your poorly researched political slander elsewhere, thanks. If you can provide any evidence _whatsoever_ to support the assertion that the OFLC has been politically influenced to ban either "more" or "more types" of works under John Howard, then that would be truly newsworthy and of interest to far more people than the Wikipedia audience. If you have _any_ such evidence I encourage you to come forward with it immediately. I rather suspect, however, that all your info on this subject is as well researched as your Kill Bill assertion. I would love to be proved wrong.--Shannonr 14:33, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Needs work

I tried to fix up the page but it still needs work, it incorrectly stated that the OFLC was responsible for Television, and had a horrible mishmash of OFLC ratings up against TV timezones and television shows against OFLC guidelines.

[edit] Bleeped words?

Does anyone know if there is an official reference to which words are "bleeped" on television? Or otherwise know which words are currently bleeped? -- Barrylb 15:05, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I believe after 9 anything goes, and before that you can't say fuck or cunt, though midday movies have those in them so I don't know. There's a TAC ad that says shit and is shown at times when, according to this article, PG rated shows are not allowed to be shown. Planetstasiak 12:32, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

> There are certain times that certain ratings can be shown - read the code of practice for more detail.

[edit] Choice of examples

The examples of the M rating are all american pg-13 movies, but the M rating extends into the lower end of R and even 1 NC-17 movie (Henry and June). This means that the examples are potentially misleading as to the breadth of the M rating.

[edit] Radio?

Should we have a section for radio censorship? Like when the skyhooks were banned etc etc or should it be part of the music sectionJeffklib 09:30, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Victoria to create "R" rating for games?

I seem to recall that Steve Bracks made a comment a while back saying 'if the federal government doesn't introduce R rating for games, we will'. Has anyone got any details on this, or what happened? I'm checking Google now, but not finding much - but I remember it did happen... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DWZ (talk • contribs) 11:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Music Artwork

I've added two links to this section refering to satire now being legally protected. I'll also move that paragraph out of the Music section and into the Politics section. That seems a more appropriate place for it.Draffa 23:26, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citing Galore!

Right, I've sited the crap out of this article over the last week. Someone else can take the ball and run with it. Draffa 18:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm now removing the 'citations missing' infobox. Draffa 18:50, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Television classifications

Television stations seem to have adopted the OFLC colour classifications. Should the OFLC logos replace the current ones in the article? MrTwig 08:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Fine then lol. I'll try and do it myself. MrTwig 02:32, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History

Is the history section ever going to be completed? I remember coming on this page about 4 or 5 years ago and those same points were there with a note to the effect of "to be completed". If no one is going to turn those points into a couple of paragraphs - and I'm certainly not - then it should either be deleted or replaced with some actual encyclopedic content that can be cited. That would make an otherwise good article great. --58.105.156.48 (talk) 04:28, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What does AV15+ stand for?

What does AV15+ stand for?

AV15+ stands for "Adult Violence" - Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice - 2 July 2004 (see page 26) - Zzblog (talk) 06:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC)