Australia Censorship News

Love is a 2015 France / Belgium drama by Gaspar Noé.
Starring Gaspar Noé, Aomi Muyock and Klara Kristin.

UK: 2D and 3D versions were passed 18 uncut by the BBFC for strong real sex, very strong language.

Australia: The film has just been passed R18+ uncut for scenes of actual sexual activity, graphic nudity and sexual themes. Australian R18+ is equivalent to the UK 18 rating.

Australia has an X18+ rating for hardcore porn but only Canberra and Northern Territories allow the sale in local sex shops. A silly situation that has just been highlighted by Victorian Sex Party MP, Fiona Patten. She said she was:

pleasantly surprised by the rating. Traditionally any form of explicit sex has been shunted to the X category. This is quite a grown-up decision for Australia.

Yet, she says, it doesn't take away from the fact that in Victoria:

it's still illegal to show or sell tickets to Debbie Does Dallas , an X-rated film. We still ban the sale, distribution of sexually-explicit films.

Did it help that Love premiered at Cannes? Patten answered:

I hate to say it, but there is an element of cultural snobbery in this.

There is a provision for taking artistic merit into consideration in censorship decisions, she says, but there are those who would argue that Debbie Does Dallas has artistic and historical merit .

The Australian Sex Party is back in the federal political contest, two month's after the party's registration was cancelled.

Back in May, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) determined the party should be deregistered because it was not meeting the membership requirements of 500 members to maintain registration.

The leader of the party, and elected member of the Victorian Parliament, Fiona Patten said the AEC decision provoked an angry response.

There was outrage amongst many of our members.

But deregistration appears to have worked in the party's favour. Patten explained:

What was interesting was the number of people who joined the party during this process. Even people who weren't members, but may have been voters for our party, were outraged by this process and by the prospect that we wouldn't be allowed to contest the next election. So they joined.

Patten says there are about 6,000 members of the party across the country, and a candidate will contest the next election in all states and territories.

It looks like Australia have censored a Magic Mike XXL poster.

The original cinema poster features its stars showing off their bare chested torsos.

But Australian distributors have photoshopped the image and covered up the muscles with white t-shirts and vests.

The Mirror reports that the bus shelter posters have been printed on special paper which makes it look like the lads are wearing tops during the day, but at night their naked torsos are revealed.

An Adelaide bookshop owner has been gently raided by police for selling copies of the cult novel, American Psycho that were not plastic-wrapped.

The novel, by American author Bret Easton Ellis, has been classified R18 by book censors since its release in 1991, requiring it to be sold in plastic and only to those aged over 18.

It is a satirical book depicting a psychotic high-flying Wall Street worker in an era of greedy America and includes a number of very violent and graphically shocking passages.

Imprints Booksellers co-owner Jason Lake said previous editions had always been plastic-wrapped but the most recent edition was a Picador Classic with an introduction by famous Scottish author, Irvine Welsh, and it did not come plastic-wrapped. He said:

We just assumed the classification has been lifted.

It's the only book on our shelf that we ever have with a plastic wrapper.

Lake said the police were very gentle when they arrived and asked that the book be removed from the shelf. He said the raid occurred because somebody complained to police after reading in a weekend newspaper column that the book was being sold by bookshops without plastic wrapping.

Documents released under freedom of information laws reveal that Australia's Classification Board found there was no reason to restrict sales of ZOO Weekly's Saint Mary Mac and Her Holy Rack edition in 2010.

The lads' mag caused 'outrage' with photographs of a model on all fours with the caption: She's begging for it ... so she can give it to the poor!

Mary MacKillop is a historical figure, born in 1842, who eventually became Australia's first and only Roman Catholic saint. The Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney labelled the publication as:

Disgusting, an insult to her legacy and demeaning to all Australian women.

Although Government censors found the picture spread was in bad taste and could be offensive to some, it did not warrant ZOO to be deemed a submittable publication , which would restrict its sales to people aged 18 or over.

Classification Board director Donald McDonald found the classifiable elements of sex, nudity and themes did not have a high impact. He wrote that censors' role was based on community standards and the principle adults should be able to read, hear and see what they want -- with appropriate exceptions.

In the past four months, the Australian Classifications Board has labelled 220 video games, making it illegal to sell, advertise or exhibit them in the country.

Australian newspapers have been downplaying the censorship saying that it doesn't sound so bad when one realises that the amount of bans is related to the large quantities of back catologue apps being processed via a new rapid decision program, perhaps up to 150,000 of them.

In fact that the 220 games are properly banned under censorial rules for what's allowed in adults only R18+ games. There was a lot of political opposition to allowing an adults rating at all and the final compromises rules ban games for content that would be perfectly legal in most western countries. For instance more or less anything to do with the depiction of drugs is banned from Australian games.

Examples of banned games on the list include:

• AK47 Simulator
• Torture the Murderer 2
• Measure Bra Size Prank
• Islam Today
• Douchebag Beach Club
• Pass the Grass
• Time for Cocaine
• Wrecking Miley
• Police Bus for Criminals
• 2015 Athletic Fruits Girls
• Fun Swimming Pool Love Kiss

There are also several instances of the same game developer submitting multiple, obviously identical games (for example Weed Time submitted as Smoke a Bong FREE, Smoke a Bong, Smoke a Joint, Smoke a Joint FREE and Nose Dose ).

So it seems there are still serious discussions to be had around Australia's game censorship system, including the fact that Australia is much stricter than other countries when it comes to representations of sexual content and drugs, something that has resulted in the blocking of a handful of high quality, well-respected games that adult players in other countries enjoy.