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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-09-29 Daily Xml
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FILM CLASSIFICATION

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON (Croydon) (14:52): Can the Attorney-General—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: —and minister representing South Australia on the Council of Censorship Ministers tell the house why he has refused classification to the motion picture A Serbian Film?

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Urban Development, Planning and the City of Adelaide, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Food Marketing) (14:53): I thank the member for Croydon for his question, and I note in doing so that the member for Croydon, during his tenure in the office of attorney, spent considerable effort attending to the film aspect of his portfolio and did it very well. This is an example of something that I am sure the honourable member, when he was minister, would have done, as well.

In August I announced that the state government had refused classification of a film due for release in Adelaide. This film, titled A Serbian Film, contained numerous disturbing scenes of sexual violence and references to bestiality and paedophilia. I was first made aware of this film after a DVD store manager decided to refuse to stock the film in his store. He actually contacted my office and said words something along the lines of, 'Look, normally I'm into films that are a bit out there but even I found this film so revolting that you need to take a look at it.'

It was then referred to the South Australian Classification Council, which met to have a look at the film. The formal advice from the council was that the film should be refused classification because it has exploitative and offensive depictions of violence with a very high degree of impact; it contains exploitative and offensive depictions of sexual violence; and it contains offensive depictions involving a person who appears to be a child under 18 years of age.

After receiving that advice, and viewing (I am pleased to say on fast forward only) the film myself, I became strongly of the view that A Serbian Film should not be released at all in Australia. I asked the federal government to take urgent action to reconsider its classification of the film. In response to an application by the Minister for Justice (Hon. Brendan O'Connor), the commonwealth Classification Review Board reviewed the restrictions of the classification board to classify the film R18.

The review board was unanimous in its decision to classify the film RC (Refused Classification). The review board was of the opinion that A Serbian Film could not be accommodated within the R18 classification as the level of depictions of sexual violence, themes of incest and depictions of child sexual abuse in the film has an impact which, naturally, was extremely high and not justified by context.

Films classified RC cannot be sold, hired, or advertised in Australia. I am very pleased with this result, and I know that the public supports this decision. While banning a film is a step not to be taken lightly, this film—described by one reviewer as 'morally irredeemable'—clearly breached our community standards. In this particular instance, South Australia and our film classification council led the way to having this terrible film reclassified at a national level.

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