Australians are famous for our love of the outdoors and with good reason,
we are blessed with unique landscapes as diverse as they are beautiful -
from the wilderness areas in Kakadu, Arnhem Land and the Daintree,
down to Broome in the West and the magnificent world famous Great Barrier Reef in the East.
And these bookend the red dirt of the 10 deserts that make up the great Australian desert.
It's actually the fourth largest desert in the world.
And then we go all the way down to the craggy summit of Cradle Mountain.
We have a harbour that's recognised globally, fabulous beaches and spectacular snowfields.
And so it's no wonder that our culture is geared around outdoor activity and that we encourage
our kids to get outside and enjoy the healthy lifestyle that's so freely available to them.
But this is why we believe outdoor advertising should be G RATED, I’m going to provide some
background and then explain how you can help us achieve this worthy goal.
My hometown is Brisbane, arguably the best city in Australia.
Uh But my role with ACL means that I spend quite a
lot of time in Canberra. And something I really love about being in Canberra,
particularly at this time of year, is that I get to experience the change of seasons.
In the autumn the leaves on the trees turn bright red, deep brown and a glowing yellow.
It is stunning and we don't see this in Brisbane. But there's something else refreshing about
Canberra and it's something that they don't have that Brisbane does and it's billboards.
If you drive down one of Canberra's wide boulevards, you'll see parks,
trees, distant mountains, but no billboards.
And this dates back to a 1937 federal government decision to ban them.
And it certainly adds to the city's appeal.
The lack of advertising allows an uninhibited appreciation of the natural surroundings
In other Australian cities the proliferation of outdoor advertising,
including larger than life Billboards, adds to the stress of life.
The continual bombardment of marketing negatively affects our sense of well-being.
And this is particularly the case when lazy advertisers fall back on a sex sells
narrative which is exploitative, offensive and harmful, especially for our children.
But despite complaints from parents and numerous parliamentary inquiries which recommend action,
rogue advertisers and billboard owners still refuse to abide by community standards.
You see our advertising industry is self regulated.
There is a code of conduct which is meant to be a guide as to what is and isn't appropriate.
But when an advertiser chooses to ignore this code,
there are no penalties, no fines, no restrictions. It's appalling.
There is no vetting of inappropriate advertising.
Rather the body responsible, which is the Ad Standards Bureau relies on members of the
public to make complaints through a clumsy process that is far from straightforward.
And increasingly, with no penalties for noncompliance,
even for repeat offenders, it can feel pointless to complain. To be clear,
an advertiser found to be in breach of the voluntary code is not impacted or
inconvenienced in any way - they can continue to run their ad campaign.
The only potential disruption is the media attention that offensive advertising regularly garners.
In fact, this happens so often you have to wonder if some advertisers deliberately
produce material they know will offend and attract controversy as the ensuing
media attention delivers welcome brand exposure. Rather than being penalised,
those who flout the rules can find they are rewarded with sought after free publicity.
There's no incentive to do the right thing.
There's a billboard in Western Australia right now that I'm going to use as an example,
but I could just as easily be talking about your State.
We have all seen them.
So in Perth, there's a sexually explicit billboard that has drawn complaints from shocked parents,
from feminists, from people of faith, even Members of Parliament.
But without legislative change, it is untouchable.
The response by government to billboards such as this is infuriatingly inconsistent
because there is no way that the imagery on the billboard would be acceptable in a workplace,
particularly in light of a recent report entitled ‘enough is enough’,
the focus of which was to remove all forms of sexual harassment in the workplace.
Imagery such as found on this billboard would not pass muster in a school staffroom,
in a bank, or at a mine site.
How can it be ok then, for images that would be deemed inappropriate in a workplace, quite rightly,
to confront you on a massive billboard as you walk out the door of your workplace.
And then again, as you pick up your kids from school? It's simply not good enough.
And the inconsistency continues. Recently, our nation's transport ministers
signed off on a joint plan to ban offensive advertising on camper vans
because - wait for it - they offend and fail to comply with community standards.
Now, this is great news of course, but it's illogical for a sexualised message to be suitable
for a billboard but not ok on a camper van, surely the same standard must apply. Enough is enough.
It's time to place responsibility for abiding by community expectations back onto the advertisers.
It's time they were made to place the protection of children over profit.
Responsible advertisers, and they are the majority, will not be affected.
And this is not just our opinion. Over the past decades,
child development experts and organisations, including the Australian Medical Association,
have presented research documenting the harms of sexualising Children through advertising.
Links to negative impacts on children's innocence and subsequent healthy development are well established.
There have been numerous calls for legislative change through government inquiries and reports,
but here we are, over a decade on, and we're still having the same conversations.
We can't continue to allow our public spaces to be hostile places for our Children.
They have every right to inhabit public spaces freely without being exposed
to pornographic imagery and sexualised promotional material.
You know, Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes a child in my name, welcomes me”, and our campaign,
‘Outdoor Advertising should be G Rated’, is designed to make the outdoors welcoming to children.
It makes perfect sense, and we've made it super easy for you to support the concept.
Just go to acl.org.au and follow the link.
People sometimes ask me how effective is a campaign such as this.
And I can tell you when tens of thousands of Australians raise their voice in this way,
Parliamentarians take notice. After all,
many of them are mums and dads as well and they are concerned by the same things we are.
They just need to hear from us.
As a society, we have ratings for movies and TV shows, even publications,
that give parents the ability to protect their children from images and concepts
they are not mature enough to be exposed to. How much more important is it then,
to protect children in the outdoors where there is no ‘off’ button.
So, thank you for joining your voice with thousands of other Australians
on behalf of our children.
Let's get this done.
God bless.