As is my habit in the car, I tend to listen to ABC NewsRadio, as this is often the only chance I get to absorb news media during any given day. Travelling home from work this evening, I stopped to listen to some live senate discussion about film and literature classification. Normally I turn off when parliament is being broadcast – (normally bores me to tears) – but I left it on when I heard the subject of the discussion.
It was in regards to the 1970’s film Salo, which was banned in this country at the time of its first release. In 1993, the then Keating Labor government overturned the ban, before the Howard Liberal government once again banned it in 1998.
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Recently the Rudd Labor government again overturned the ruling, and has made it available for DVD release only, despite the fact that it is often described to contain “scenes of torture and degradation, sexual violence and nudity”.
Does not our dear friend Senator Stephen Conroy often say that films containing “scenes of torture and degradation, sexual violence and nudity”, are not available on DVD – (or on television, or in cinemas, yada yada yada…yawn)?
Does it seem that Conroy has it all wrong again – with the very government he is a part of allowing such a movie to be released on DVD?
Does the left hand of this government even have any idea what the right hand is doing?