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…]

Censors protecting the “public good” from the morally toxic impact of the pornographers

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The Annual Report 2009/10 of the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) has just been released to the public. It highlights how censors have sought to protect the New Zealand public from the toxic, putrid and pernicious impact of, and exposure to – hard core pornography – such as the numerous DVDs imported from the United States by companies such as Auckland-based Eden Digital Ltd, directed by American-based businessman John Malcolm Carr.

The Herald of Sunday (“Ministry targets porn mogul” Steve Crow)  reported that $640,000 of sexually explicit porn DVDs  were transferred to John M Carr’s Eden Digital Ltd,  just prior to two of Steve Crow’s companies being put into liquidation. Titles cited by the reporter were both imported from the US where Carr resides. See:  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10674407 19 Sept. 2010.

So many DVDs that Eden Digital has imported and submitted for classification have been deemed “objectionable” (i.e. banned) – for degrading sexually explicit content – that the Society wonders why the police, in consultation with NZ Customs, have not laid charges against its director John M Carr for the importation of “objectionable” publications from the US. The OFLC considers the banning of such material “a reasonable limitation on the freedom expression” to “prevent injury to the public good”. [Read more…]

$420,000+ p.a. (estimate) to fund salaries of Censors Bill Hastings and Nicola McCully for 2009/10

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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 ? [Read more…]