After over 15 years being paid big bucks by the tax-payer to watch hardcore adult porn, the perversions of child sex offenders and rapists, and gratuitous violence, Chief Censor Bill Hastings and his deputy Nicola McCully – want a further 3 years in the “dirty job” watching more objectionable content, 80% of which is hardcore adult porn. What do these two censors have in common besides massive salaries ?
The position of Chief Censor of Film and Literature held currently by Bill Hastings, expires on 19 October 2009. He was appointed Deputy Chief Censor in December 1998, then became Acting Chief Censor and then Chief Censor on 18 October 1999. The Annual Report for 2008 (ending 30 June 2008) show that his annual gross salary for 2007/08 was between $210,000 and $220,000 while his deputy received between $160,000 and $170,000 (Combined $370,00 to $390,000). The Annual Report for 2007 (ending 30 June 2007) shows that McCully received between $180,000 and $190,000 and Hasting between $200,000 and $210,000 (Total combined remuneration of between $380,000 and $410,000). [See Sources listed below]. $420,000 (see headline) is obviously only an estimated (projected ) combined remunueration for both Censors for 2009/10, based on documented incremental increases.
The Minister of Internal Affairs. Hon. Nathan Guy, announced on 4 August 2009 that the Deputy Chief Censor of Film and Literature, Nicola J. McCully, had been reappointed to the role for a further three years commencing 1 August 2009. Her statutory position expired on 16 September 2008. The Deputy Chief Censor is appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the Minister of Internal Affairs.
“The reappointment of Ms McCully will retain her significant expertise in the area of censorship and will ensure the continued solid performance of the Office of Film and Literature Classification,” said Mr Guy.
Ms McCully was originally appointed as Deputy Chief Censor on 17th September 2002 on the recommendation of the former Minister of Internal Affairs, Hon. George Hawkins, with the concurrence of the Minister of Justice, Hon. Phil Goff, and the Minister of Womens Affairs, Hon. Laila Harre. The latest reappointment means she has been given a third three year term of office, one which expire on 2 August 2012.
Prior to Ms McCully’s appointment, she had worked in the Classification Office for eight years which included her role as Classification Unit Manager and Senior Classification Officer. She was also previously an examiner for the Video Recordings Authority in 1994. Prior to that the only employment experience she had was working for one year with special needs children as a teacher aide, a job she got without any teacher qualifications (e.g. Dip. Tchg.) or specialist training certificate.
The “dirty job” commanding a gross salary of about $200,000 she and Bill appear to enjoy so much is described in an article available published on line by Sex Shops in New Zealand On Line (see below):
In a typical working week, Nicola McCully might watch a couple of dozen people having sex. Sometimes they might be doing this in twos or threes; other times, there’ll be a roomful, going at it like rabbits. Sometimes they might be going at it with rabbits. And if it’s not sex, it’s violence. McCuly looks on as people are murdered, tortured and maimed. Soft human bodies are set on fire, exploded by bombs, cut up and eaten. McCully might crunch her way through a tangy apple as a young man is slowly and gleefully decapitated. Other times a cup of tea might wet the whistle during a gruelling group rape scene. A gingernut with that? Sure, why not? It’s all in a day’s work for McCully, as New Zealand’s deputy chief censor.
For the last 10 years or so, she has spent her working week viewing all manner of distressing and depraved things to decide whether we can watch them as well.
Censorship. It’s a dirty job, and somebody has to do it. But who? What could possibly drive someone to be a censor? Not the money, that’s for sure. The salary for an experienced classification officer is less than $60,000. So why would someone voluntarily sit in a darkened room for days, months, years of their life, watching acts of extreme cruelty, harrowing sexual violence and the more repulsive ends of the porn spectrum?
McCully began her censorship career in 1994. After working in special education in Christchurch, she applied for a job at the Video Recordings Authority, an organisation that was amalgamated into the Classification Office that same year. A compact, quick-witted woman with a habit of getting straight to the point, McCully’s career choice means she has seen things no-one should have to see. She acknowledges that some aspects of her job have taken their toll emotionally. Certainly, her ready laugh is at odds with her sad eyes.
“Some days this work really is the pits. You see some incredibly horrible things. If there’s a court case concerning the sexual exploitation of young children, we spend weeks dealing with images that are genuinely grotesque. We’ve had computer hard drives submitted to us containing entire libraries of child pornography, with thousands of images and movie files that have been indexed and arranged like photo albums.”
Fortunately, cases as grim as this are relatively rare. McCully estimates that about 80% of her team’s work is classifying the kind of sexually explicit DVDs that will end up in sex shops and the “adult” sections of video stores from North Cape to Bluff.
“Those tapes really are tedious,” she sighs. “You might have six hours of sex DVDs to classify, and you have to watch them from beginning to end. There’s no fast-forwarding, in case you miss a section where things are verbally or physically rough. The misogyny in these sex tapes is very depressing. There’s the underlying idea that women are only on this earth to satisfy men in whatever way those men want to be satisfied, no matter how painful or humiliating.”
Other Sources:
1. Nathan Guy’s Media Release: http://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/deputy+chief+censor+reappointed
2. Briefing for Incoming Minister Internal Affairs. Department of Internal Affairs June 2009, p. 58.
“An appointment process for the Deputy Chief Censor is underway and is in the final stages.”
3. Report of the Office of Film and Literature Classification for year ending 30 June 2008
Employee Remuneration p. 55. Also see Annual Report 2007, p. 70.
http://www.censorship.govt.nz/pdfword/Annual%20Report%202008.pdf
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