Facts & Figures

• Article 19 of the 1966 United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states that: ‘Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression’. Australia is a signatory to this treaty and, in order to incorporate treaties and conventions into Australian law, governments must pass a specific Act of Parliament. Although some parts of the treaty have been implemented into law ... no government has implemented the free speech provisions and therefore they are not enforceable by Australian courts.

• The Australian Constitution does not have any express provision relating to freedom of speech. In theory, therefore, the Commonwealth Parliament may restrict or censor speech through censorship legislation or other laws, as long as they are otherwise within constitutional power.

• Proposals for legislating for freedom of speech have been made mainly in the context of legislating for a Bill of Rights. Since 1973 at the Commonwealth level there have been attempts to legislate for a Bill of Rights which would incorporate provisions of the ICCPR, including Article 19, into Australian law.

• Speech that is free is that which is not restricted by laws of limited scope such as, for example, defamation, libel, sedition, obscenity, commercial confidentiality or privacy laws.

• There are several limitations upon freedom of speech and movement, namely, the requirements of local government by-laws, and the “incidental” offences of obstruction of the highway, conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace, the use of insulting, defamatory, blasphemous or seditious words, and obstruction of a policeman in the execution of his duty. Laws limiting freedom of speech and movement are in a chaotic state.

• Advice for parents _ even though you have taken care in choosing appropriate computer and video games for your child, there are a number of ways that you can continue to exert a positive influence: make sensible rules about playing computer games; keep the computer in a public place; monitor what your children are playing; discuss what they are playing elsewhere; keep communication open; keep an eye on your child’s overall health and wellbeing.

• At the heart of Australia’s system of censorship lies an enormous disparity between the treatment of art-house films and books, and the treatment of X-rated videos and adult magazines. This has partly been created through opportunity. The government has been able to tighten guidelines on X-rated videos and adult magazines because few people have been willing to publicly argue against them.

• [Television] network censors say coarse language is deemed acceptable when it’s not abusive, aggressive or frequent. It is OK when the f-word pertains to sex but not as a term of abuse. Censorship rules are tougher for television than cinema, and stricter on commercial networks than the ABC and SBS.

• Many argue it is futile for Australia or any other country to pass laws against race hate on the internet, since it takes less than 24 hours to set up a mirror site in the US or a less restrictive country. It is problematic but not impossible to prosecute someone for material published in another jurisdiction.

• Australian children on average watch 2 hours and 30 minutes of TV per day. In terms of advertising this means that Australian children watching commercial TV are likely to see: 30 commercials per hour; 75 commercials per day, and 23,000 commercials per year.

• The types of violence that affect children depends on their age, but children of all ages are at risk of learning to be aggressive when they see: ‘heroes’ winning by being violent; violence being presented in a humorous way; violence not causing pain; violence inflicted on children, adults and animals.

• The first survey of Australian teenagers’ exposure to pornography shows that 84 per cent of boys and 60 per cent of girls aged 16 and 17 have stumbled on sex sites on the internet. As well, two in five boys _ 38 per cent _ admit to having deliberately searched the internet for pornography. Only 2 per cent of the girls say they have sought out sex sites.

• About 5 per cent of the Australian teenage boys admitted to having watched internet porn or X-rated videos every week; 20 per cent every two or three months.

• Nearly 90 per cent of the boys said that watching the pornography was widespread among male peers, and girls had a similar perception of the boys’ interest. But less than 10 per cent of the girls believed it was common among girls their age. Boys had an inflated view of the girls’ level of interest.

• An even higher proportion of young people polled had watched X-rated videos _ 73 per cent of the boys and 11 per cent of the girls; and a fifth of the boys claimed to watch them at least once a month.