-
-
Watch Video
-
Related
New Zealand's Chief Censor says he never got used to the disturbing material he had to view in his role.
Bill Hastings is leaving the position he has held since 1999 to become district court judge in charge of the new immigration tribunal.
He told TVNZ's Q+A programme on Sunday morning that he'll never be able to get child abuse images out of his mind and it is the worst part of the job.
The former deputy leader of Victoria University's law school says the worst stuff comes from the courts and police and about 25-30% of the business is court work involving crime mostly sourced from the internet. He says it is often picked up from people's computers being investigated for other crimes.
And Hastings says there is no way of avoiding viewing the content because "the law requires us to watch the whole lot".
He says there have been many times he has left the office to walk around the harbour. "You never ever get used to it - it is disturbing."
Hastings says people have to toughen up to do the job in a similar way to ambulance or police officers but at another level "you become super-sensitised" and can see trouble coming even before it arrives. However he says offenders are getting better at hiding evidence.
He says most bans involve images of child abuse and 8-14% of anything that comes into the office falls into that category. He says this generally includes anything that promotes or supports things like exploitation of children for sexual purposes, extreme violence, torture and cruelty. The legislation requires the censor to consider artistic merit with respect to images when making decisions.
And offensiveness, ugliness and shock value has little to do with the job where he says the legal test is availability and whether the item is likely to be injurious to the public good.
Hastings says what's offensive or ugly doesn't necessarily stop it being legal and the Bill of Rights and freedom of expression laws actually exists to protect the public's ability to say something offensive.
But he says there are things he regards as evil and just when you think you've see the worst thing you could ever think of along comes the next worst thing.
Hastings says the internet has thrown up challenges for censors but their role is not enforcement or investigation and they sit as a quasi judicial body determining classification. He says the education and information function of the organisation has been beefed up to help people understand how and why something harms them.
"We are trying to arm people and inform people to become their own classification office."
Add a Comment:
Post new comment