Am I allowed to watch the home movies that my dad made in the 1940s of me and my brother when we were fully naked kiddies? Should I be embarrassed or should I thank my dad for having shot these wonderful children's memory? Am I being told he was a pervert? Bollocks.

from Crikey ….. Art Monthly has an audited circulation of 5000 copies. The girl was photographed by her mother. The mother has no regrets, neither does her daughter. So far, so much storm in a teacup you'd think. But there is something disturbing in the vigour with which the Prime Minister attacks the issue of this so-called child exploitation. As The Australian reports this morning:  

The Rudd Government will ask the Australia Council to develop a set of protocols to cover the representation of children in art, after a taxpayer-funded magazine put a picture of a nude six-year-old girl on its cover to protest at the Bill Henson dispute.  

The review, which would consult members of the arts sector and the general community, was confirmed by a government spokesman yesterday, as politicians led by Kevin Rudd heaped condemnation on this month's Art Monthly Australia magazine.  

It seems that when it comes to, let's see, saving the planet, we can prevaricate and quibble, but when it comes to cracking down on the apparent exploitation of a child by her mother in a magazine no-one reads, we can turn on a dime.  

A few points of our own: No child was harmed in the production of that image and nudity does not equate to sexualisation. That said, the repression of art and expression by representatives of the "general community" risks crushing precious liberties to the twisted views of zealots. If only our prime minister wasn't one of them.

from Crikey .....

Banning naked kids would make the law an ass 

Greg Barns writes: 

The law is sometimes a useful means of regulating activity, but in the area of art it has no place.  

That is why calls from morality campaigners and knee-jerk legislators to ban the use of naked children in art are fundamentally flawed. 

Over the weekend, the ever shrill Hetty Johnston, a morals campaigner, suggested that legislation be introduced nationally "that removes artistic merit from the child pornography laws". This legislation should control "what artists can do in relation to the use of children in art." 

No doubt Ms Johnston’s call will appeal to populist politicians like Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson who are working themselves into a considerable lather over the decision by Art Monthly to place on its front cover a lovely photograph of a young naked child who is clearly not striking a sexual pose. 

But to legislate to criminalise the conduct of Art Monthly, or any artist, publication, gallery or even website would make the law what it is clearly not mean to be -- an ass. 

Let us illustrate the absurdity of Johnston’s hare-brained idea this way. 

A blockbuster exhibition from a European collection is about to tour Australia’s major capital cities. This exhibition includes Caravaggio’s Amor Vincit Omnia and Cranach’s Venus -- both famous 16th century works portraying naked teenagers. Under the Hetty Johnston law, these extraordinary works of art could not be shown in Australia. They would be classed as child pornography and gallery directors would be prosecuted for hanging them on their walls.  

Johnston’s proposed law would require state and territory police forces to employ a morality squad. Their role would be to run around art galleries, search websites, and even private homes with warrants to remove paintings, photographs, sculptures and films which depicted n-ked children. The law would make paedophiles and child porn fetishists out of innocent people and institutions. Judges and magistrates would be placed in the invidious position of having to enforce a law that was patently unjust. 

And our courts would have to grapple with absurd definition issues like what does n-ked mean? Does it mean completely unclothed, or partly unclothed? If a child is fully dressed will we have experts telling us that because the child is pouting then this amounts to child pornography?

What if the face of the child cannot be seen? Does this make a difference to a prosecution? The list of twists, turns and legal machinations is endless and ultimately so ridiculously complex as to render the law unworkable. 

And it would not only be artists who would be affected. Film-makers would be in the gun as well. Laws that ban completely the showing of children naked would make criminal a perfectly innocent scene of children ripping off their clothes on a hot summer's day and jumping into the local river -- a practice that generations of Australian children have gained countless hours of pleasure from. 

Johnston’s proposal is also grossly demeaning to children.

She, along with the hot and bothered Rudd and Nelson, think that if a child is portrayed in art then it must be for a sexual purpose. How said that they have such a warped view.

The father of the young girl who posed naked on the cover of an art magazine has welcomed the Classification Board's decision to approve the image as appropriate for publication. 

The board reviewed the entire July edition ofArt Monthly magazine, which featured a naked image of six-year-old Olympia Nelson on the cover, taken by her mother Pollixeni Papapetrou in 2003. 

The board gave it an Unrestricted: M rating, which means it is suitable for publication, though discretion is advised for people under the age of 15. 

It just goes to show that politicians haven't a clues about what Australians think.  

They think they know.  

That is why it is such a shock for them at election time.

from Crikey ….. 

Forget Henson, a bigger menace plagues the playground 

Greg Barns writes: 

Politicians really are the most appalling of opportunists, and over the weekend they excelled themselves. Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Malcolm Turnbull, John Brumby and the federal Minister for Sport, Kate Ellis, all spent their weekend beating up on one of Australia’s finest artists, photographer Bill Henson. 

Mr. Henson was allowed to visit a Melbourne primary school by that school’s principal because he was looking for possible subjects for his work. Outrageous, sick, undermining of the innocence of children, a full inquiry will be held, the principal of the school will be burnt at the stake of public opinion etc, was the reaction of our political leaders. 

Leaving aside the fact that underpinning their collective outrage is a defamatory assertion by those politicians who joined the weekend’s bully pulpit that somehow Mr. Henson should not be allowed near children, there is also an extraordinary level of hypocrisy about the attacks. 

Every day of the week our political leaders allow children to be abused at schools right around Australia, because they sanction the sophisticated and relentless efforts of fast food and soft drink companies to market to children through the education system and sport. 

We have an obesity epidemic in this country, due in large measure the presence of too much fast food and drink in the diets of children. 

Only last month one of those who was crucifying Bill Henson over the weekend, John Brumby, refused to rule out the idea that McDonald's should be allowed to sponsor educational programs in Victorian schools. On September 2 AAP reported that fast food chains "like McDonald's will not be excluded from forming partnerships with Victorian schools, but the decision will be left to school authorities, Premier John Brumby says." 

And what does Julia Gillard think of the sponsorship by Coca Cola Amatil of the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation’s Remote School Project in the Northern Territory which "provides accredited literacy course work in English to classroom teachers and in First Language to teachers' aides in Central Australia"? 

Kate Ellis' disgust at Henson’s school foray was based on her wanting children to remain as innocent for as long as possible. Why then does she think it’s okay for McDonald's to sponsor a soccer in schools program throughout New South Wales, or for Cricket Australia to take money from KFC? 

And do Ms Ellis, Ms Gillard, Mr Brumby think it’s okay for Krispy Crème doughnuts to facilitate junior sporting clubs and schools fundraisers by selling their fat and sugar laden product? 

Bill Henson’s fleeting presence at a school in Melbourne provokes a torrent of abuse from politicians, but these very same people are content to allow the children they say they care about to be exposed to companies that will ruin their short and long term health. How’s that for sickening hypocrisy.

from Crikey ….. 

Forget Henson, politicians are partial to playground trawling too 

Greg Barns writes: 

Are we missing something here? Victorian Education Minister Bronwyn Pike, pandering like her Premier to the hysteria that surrounds the visit by artist Bill Henson to a Melbourne school, yesterday told the media that in her view, "the most important thing here is consent. I don't think that people should be approaching schools so that children can be used for their own personal gain,” she observed.  

How then does Ms Pike justify her practice, and that of her colleagues in parliaments right across Australia, eagerly rushing off to schools, particularly at election time, so they can be photographed with unsuspecting kids who can’t vote? If that is not for personal gain – i.e. to garner votes and improve the image of the politician and government in question – then the sun does not rise each and every day of the year. 

Ms Pike herself, on her website, has such a photograph. There she is beaming with a group of school kids from Flemington Primary School in March 2008.  

And if you type in Bronwyn’s name on Google Images you are confronted with a portfolio of shots of the Minister smiling with kids at the museum, at the Royal Children’s Hospital and at schools.  

Why? Because all politicians just love using kids as props for their own political ends. Politicians and kids go together in the same way as ants and sugar or bees and the honey pot. There is not one election campaign in this country at the state or federal level that does not involve a photo opportunity for political leaders and kids.  

And it’s worse than that, because one generally finds politicians with primary or pre-school age kids. Teenagers are rarely used as props. Politicians get into the sandpit with toddlers or the classroom to read kids stories or gaze vacantly at the school work of a 6-year-old, but rarely do they hang out in the schoolyard with Year 10 students. Presumably, the Year 10 students are not as malleable.  

And do politicians get the consent of students before entering the classroom, schoolyard or sandpit? Do they write to the kids asking them if it would be ok to use them for the proposes of a nice soft election photo or TV footage? Or do they simply barge in, stay half an hour, hop back in the ministerial car, and race off to their next vote buying gig? The latter is nearer the truth.  

Now that Bronwyn Pike says consent is important, we should expect her to be consistent. Next time her minders tell her it’s a good idea to get the Minister into a classroom, we should expect that each child in that classroom is fully informed and consents to Ms Pike being present and disrupting their learning day, and doesn’t mind their photo appearing on that evening’s news bulletins, or worse still, in an election brochure for Ms Pike.