Latest shift in govt policy

[Sue Bushell]

Jan Whitaker wrote:

: Latest shift in govt policy
>
> I saw a report on ACA last night about the disbanding of the Advertising
> Council.  The report said that 
> 
> 1)  the Ad Cncl is being eliminated [I'm fairly certain on that point]
> 2)  the Advertising Code of Practice has been abolished
> 3)  the only recourse a citizen will have to complain is through the
civil
> courts
> 4)  to issue a complaint will incur a cost to the complainant [I thought
> it was $3000 but that maybe the charge for the copyright contention case
> of the lady who had her book stolen by a Horse Equipment company in
> Sydney]
>
According to the 7.30 Report, the proposal for self-regulation has come
from the Advertising industry itself. The logic behind disbanding the Cncl
is that it has not been doing a very good job of regulating complaints. The
logic behind the $3000 charge was to discourage competing advertising
agencies from lodging complaints about their rivals!
 
> My point is that there seems to be an inconsistency in policy depending
on
> format of the information.  If it's TV, radio or print, the advertising
> industry doesn't have to comply with any decency laws any more and hence
> we see the nude body bill-boards, the very HEAVY sexual messages for sun
> glasses of all things!, and a total lack of accountability for truth in
> advertising except for what appears to be good for selling product and
not
> for the consumer. 
> 
The 7.30 report also wondered whether it was a coincidence that the numbers
of "cheeky" ads on television and billboards has risen ever since it became
clear the Cncl was to close.

> At the same time the same government officials are pushing for a complex
> and terribly difficult to enforce webpage rating scheme, what started out
> to be a culpability concept for ISPs about content on their servers that
> has been acquired by their subscribers VOLUNTARILY [not publicly as is
the
> case with the mass media], and other equally silly  things.
> 
>
Does one dare speculate that perhaps if ISPs had the same amount of
influence with Government as the advertising industry does, things might be
very different?

Sue Bushell
sbushell@ozemail.com.au
Tel 06 254 2629

"How can I know what I think, 'til I see what I write?"