Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts for her thanks and, in return, thank her by saying that it was a very good inquiry to be on and that she and the rest of the committee conducted themselves in a fine manner on a difficult but important inquiry into the sexualisation of children in the media. It was initiated by parents who approached me and, no doubt, others about this issue. They said: ‘We are concerned about our children. We think they are being prematurely drawn into a sexualisation which is inappropriate for their age, and we feel that we cannot counter a very broad and pervasive sexualisation which is happening in advertising and in the media.’ So I am pleased that the Senate saw fit to agree to the environment committee taking up this inquiry.

The inquiry was difficult because no-one on the committee—and I expect it would be the same in this place—wanted to bring down the heavy hand of censorship on advertisers or on the media. That would be both difficult and unpopular. Yet we did recognise that there was a problem in terms of what was not understood to be the community standard. We have some processes in place, but there seemed to be doubt as to how we measure what is acceptable and what is not. If it is the case that parents are buying unacceptable material for their children, how do you deal with that? This was quite a challenge to us and, in the middle of the inquiry, we had the Bill Henson photographic exhibition, questions about underage models being dressed up as adults and the public debate that surrounded those issues. I think that made this inquiry very timely and very useful.

Parental responsibility is a difficult area. We can say that it is up to the parents to determine whether to expose their children to material, but parents may not know that some of this material can be damaging to their children. We heard from psychologists who said that, although they do not have research studies that they can point to, there is evidence of children coming into the care of psychologists at an earlier and earlier age with symptoms of anxiety and eating disorders and the like, which they attribute, at least in part, to the sexualisation process that is going on. While the committee recommended that a longitudinal study of children be undertaken to find out exactly what harm is being done, I think we need to recognise that that research is extremely difficult to do. You cannot deliberately expose children to material which may be harmful to them just to understand whether it was harmful. So there are some ethical constraints as well.

I am pleased that the debate and our inquiry did generate some rethinking. The Australian Standards Board put out a protocol about the sexualisation of children—in fact, they did that before we had our hearing. As is so often the case, the public debate and the Senate inquiry process play a role in involving these organisations, which do not wish the heavy hand of the law to come down on them and which prefer to have protocols that are optional and to have their own systems in place. I think that was a signal that this was likely.

I strongly support the idea that we should have a children’s television station. I think the ABC is the best one to do that. I would like to see the government find some money to fund it. If the commercial stations can put on children’s TV and not have advertising then that would be terrific too.

Returning to parents and their responsibility, it is not always possible for parents to shield their children from magazines that are very readily available in shops and in other retail establishments. There are also huge billboards, which many people find offensive and difficult to deal with when their children see them. At the end of the day, I think it is parents who need assistance here—hence, the recommendation that there should be some sort of classification, for instance, on magazines so that parents would be warned whether or not a magazine was suitable for children and whether parental guidance was required.

Many of the other recommendations are very sound too. It is wise for the Senate—not ‘us’ as in me but the Senate—to come back and see whether the recommendations have had an effect, whether this inquiry has made a difference and whether the new code of practice for children has made a difference. I strongly support the recommendation, and I acknowledge Senator Kemp for making this contribution.

The committee discovered that the complaints process in place for the Australian Advertising Standards Board was inadequate: complaints had to be in writing in order to be counted and to be heard and listened to. That is not acceptable in this day and age. People ought to be able to make a phone call, send an email or send a note that might not be on the right form, because parents often do not have the time to be writing letters and may not have the facilities to do that. The various ways of making a complaint should be legitimate rather than there being red tape or constraints on what does or does not qualify.

We thought it was very important that outdoor advertisements should be vetted, because you cannot choose whether or not you see them. This is where community standards are important, and they need to be identified. Vetting of outdoor advertising is a very good move. It is what happens with television ads. It is nothing new in the advertising industry and so this recommendation should not pose a significant problem.

I thank those people who contributed to the inquiry through submissions and by appearing at our two hearings. Their contributions were most interesting and very useful to us in our deliberations. I again thank the Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts for its efforts on this issue, and I hope that the committee’s recommendations are adopted.