Boobs on Bikes meet protesters 

The controversial Boobs on Bikes parade has gone off without incident on Auckland's Queen Street despite a march by about 60 protesters.

Thousands of spectators lined the city's main street to watch the parade of topless women, which went head despite the city council's opposition.

But parade organiser could still face prosecution by the council.

Members of the public joined groups including the Human Rights Foundation and Auckland's Women's centre, carrying banners with slogans such as "porn fuels rape".

Denise Ritchie, the protest organiser, says it was about raising awareness.

"We hope to raise awareness amongst the very people that need to see our message. Maybe some of these men have never drawn a link between hardcore pornography and sexual violence," says Ritchie.

The protest group walked silently along the street, protesting not about bare breasts, but against the free advertising they say the parade gives to Steve Crow and his hard-core pornography empire.

Auckland City Councillor Cathy Casey had threatened to lie in the path of the parade with a group of other morality protestors to stop it but her protest didn't eventuate.

Pornographer Steve Crow has said he would take a private prosecution against Casey under her own bylaw if she lay down to stop the parade, because she doesn't have a permit.

Crow is also calling for a judicial review into the Auckland City Council's use of by-laws, after the failure of its court action for an injunction to stop the parade under a special by-law.

The council had claimed the event breaches a by-law banning offensive public events, but a judge turned down the application saying it was unclear in what it deemed "offensive".

Crow's lawyer said under the Bill of Rights, women should be allowed to expose their breasts in the same way men take their tops off.

But lawyers for the council said there are justified limits under the bill. They said the parade is not about freedom of expression but a commercial exercise for an R18 expo.

Following the court decision, lobby group Family First NZ is calling on a law change so that topless public parades are deemed offensive and indecent, and thereby illegal.

"The current law is far too liberal and vague and needs to be amended," says Family First NZ'sBob McCoskrie, Family First NZ's.

"It is time that the rights of families to not be exposed to offensive material are put before the rights of the pornography industry to promote themselves."

The Newmarket Business Association's opposition to the parade is economic rather than moral.

Newmarket Business Association General manager Cameron Brewer says the lunchtime parade will cost Queen Street retailers.

"CBD business association Heart of the City recently spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on its 'big little city' marketing campaign. However the only advertising Queen Street is getting at the moment is around a tacky parade ... Potentially it's so damaging it could almost be viewed as a form of economic sabotage inflicted by one man for his gain only," says Brewer.

Council lawyers are now checking to see whether they can prosecute Crow for holding the parade without a permit.

But the porn baron is not worried about the threats to stop such parades in the future.

"I have no doubt that they will and that's good 'cause I'll just get it back when I take them to the High Court and get their bylaw overturned and get my costs back," says Crow.

The fact that the anti-pornography group was given a permit to protest also rained on his parade.

"They got their permit to capitalise on our crowd but we were denied the permit. It's really amusing ... great democracy," says Crow.

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