SPCS

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.

Film and Video Labelling Body – censorship and charity

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The Film and Video Labelling body (“FVLB”), like the Society for Promotion of Community Standards Inc (“SPCS”), is constituted as an incorporated society under the Incorporated Societies Act 1908. Like the Society, which is a registered charity (registered with the Charities Commission on 17/12/2007 Reg. No. CC20268); it too is a registered charity (registered 28/01/2008 Reg. No. CC20715).

For many years the FVLB was headed by Mr William (Bill) Hood, with whom the SPCS had regular contact. He retired as FVLB committee member and executive secretary on 31/01/2011. Ms Sharon Rhodes has taken over his leadership role.

The gross income of the FVLB for “service provision” for the financial year ended 31/12/2010 was $1,504,338, according to financial records it registered with the Charities Commission (www.charities.govt.nz). From this income, $588,376 was absorbed in salaries and wages.

The FVLB employs five persons full time and two part-time  to achieve its “service provision” and the total hours worked by “all employees” per week is 262 hours (equivalent to 6.55 full time persons). Each full time equivalent employee receives on average an annual remuneration package of about $90,000 per annum.

The FVLB has been registered as a charity by the Commission on the basis that its purpose it to serve “some other public benefit” to society ( it does NOT qualify as a charity on the basis that it fulfils any one of more of the remaining three charitable purpose categories:  relief of poverty, advancement of education or adavancement of religion). (Note: The SPCS qualifies as a charity for its “advancement of public welfare” or “public well-being”, which are terms recognised in law). [Read more…]

Promotion of the “moral welfare” of children and young persons

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In 1952 the Minister of Child Welfare in the McLarty government of Western Australia, Arthur Watts, introduced amendments to the Child Welfare Act to widen the definition of “neglect” to include children “living under such conditions as to indicate that the mental, physical or moral welfare of the chid is likely to be in jeopardy” [emphasis added]. These amendments were enacted into law with strong support from Liberal Premier Sir Ross LcLarty’s government.

The concept of the “moral welfare” or “moral well-being” of children and young persons is well-documented in case law, as is the nature of activities that when promoted or supported (AND even when there is a tendency to promotion or support), are “likely to be injurious to the public good” or “likely to [put] in jeopardy” the “moral welfare” of  members of the public, including vulnerable children and young persons (see below).

It is the ever-present threat of “likely” harm and injury (mental, physical and moral) and their far-reaching negative inter-generational consequences, as well as the accepted Judaeo-Christian belief in human dignity (“Man made in the image of God” – often not acknowledged), that have undoubtedly undergirded successive governmental decisions (driven perhaps in part by quickened consciences and pragmatism) to enact child protection and censorship laws to safeguard our precious children and young persons from the dangers of exposure to child abuse, family violence, depiction of gratuitous violence and inappropriate sexual content in the media and exposure to morally corrupting hardcore pornography etc. [Read more…]

More than 1300 books banned by censor

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There are more than a thousand books that you will never be allowed to read unless you leave New Zealand.

Many are of a sexual nature, deal with violence, horror and crime and might have only been fully read by one person in New Zealand – and that person decided they shouldn’t be available to the rest of us.

A total of 1319 books are banned and a further 728 restricted in some way.

It was up to the Office of Film and Literature Classification and the Censorship Compliance Unit to assess books, films, DVDs and even T-shirts and determine whether they should be banned or restricted.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/books/5664782/More-than-1300-books-banned-by-censor

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To Train Up a Child – parenting book classified unrestricted

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A book teaching parents how to smack, thump and pull their children’s hair was the latest considered for censorship.

The Censorship Compliance Unit assessed the book, written by fundamentalist Christians Michael and Debi Pearl, and decided not to ban or restrict it. 

A spokesman for the Department of Internal Affairs, which the office and unit belong to, said while the book was contrary to section 59 of the Crimes Act, which stated a parent or guardian could not use any force on a child “for the purpose of correction”, that wasn’t sufficient reason to justify restricting or banning the 20-year-old book.

The complainant could, however, ask that the Office of Film and Literature Classification also investigate the book’s content.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/books/5664782/More-than-1300-books-banned-by-censor [Read more…]

LA Zombie – Herald on Sunday reporter seeks responses

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Here is the email received by the Society for Promotion of Community Standards Inc. (SPCS) from Herald on Sunday reporter Andre Hueber on Friday April 29, 2011 at 10.38 AM regarding LA Zombie, a film we were told was that was prevented from being screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival in July 2010. The Festival organisers had proposed to screen it, but the necessary ‘exemption’ for screening an unclassified film was not granted in that instance (pers. comm. Paul Tenison, Acting Applications Manager, Classification Branch, Australian Attorney General’s Department).

[Read more…]