2. Communications and media services available to Australians should broadly reflect community standards, while recognising a diversity of views, cultures and ideas in the community

I'm generally in agreement with what most of the other commentators have said regarding the phrase 'community standards'. Unless government is really prepared to draw up a list describing exactly what features or qualities a 'reasonable adult' must or must not posses, and exactly how many like-minded 'reasonable adults' are required before they can determine what 'community standards' are, then this is an awfully wishy-washy principle. As it stands, it seems intended to allow for some abuse by those with power to inject their own personal morality into classification decisions. I would suggest a slight re-phrasing of the statement: "Communications and media services available to Australians should broadly reflect the diversity of community standards, recognising the plurality of views, cultures and ideas in the community." The idea, I think, that needs to be got across is that there isn't a single, quantifiable set of parameters that would be universally agreed upon, throughout Australia, as THE 'community standards'. All Australians must therefore come to terms with the simple fact that there will always be material that they find offensive, even abhorrent, but others do not. In the absence of a universally agreed upon ethical or aesthetics framework, deciding who is 'right' can only be based on the grounds of provable harm, such as a crime having taken place in the production of the content. Classification should be about helping people avoid this offence. It should not be about eliminating material that could potentially offend some set of people, and these principles should avoid giving any group the scope for that kind of power. In some ways, what this principle is trying to say is vacuous. What else can the communications and media services available to Australians represent other than the broad community standards of Australians? Do we mean foreign content? In which case the real question is why so little Australian content is made, and what can be done to improve that. Or is this really saying that there is a chance there will be a large amount of content available that won't be experienced because Australians, by and large, don't want to experience it? Media experienced in Australia is done so almost entirely by the individual choices made by Australians. Therefore any media experienced in Australia is a reflection of some segment of the community's interests. The Chilling Effect, in the long term, has a much greater impact on what is publicly available than the Classification Scheme, as the Henson Case of 2008 made abundantly clear. The Classification Scheme, as of 2008, clearly decided that Henson's photographs were acceptable for a wide Australian audience, yet the public outcry has meant that far fewer artists are prepared to explore this aspect of the human experience. The people who produce content do so because they have something to say, or they have a profit motive. They may have thought through their points, or they may not have. They may be criminal and malicious in their intentions, or they may be well meaning. What becomes popular does so because of the decisions of millions of Australians choosing to experience that content. If there is concern about what each of those individual choices mean for the longer term viability of Australian society, then the correct place to address that is by making people understand why those decisions could be potentially harmful. It is not to eliminate the ability to make those decisions entirely. So, what this principle seems to really be about is there being an escape hatch in the Classification Scheme somewhere, that allows those with the power to make such decisions to say 'this particular content is not consistent with the Australia I want, and therefore no Australians should be able to experience it'. That is a point I must absolutely disagree with.

Community standards are naturally self-regulating. If a particular piece of content falls outside of the standards of a particular community, then that community will naturally avoid that content; likewise, if it particularly appeals to that community, they will embrace it. Any paternalistic attempt by Governments to pre-empt this natural process sends the message that, not only are community members not to be trusted to look after themselves and each other, but that all communities have the same sets of standards. The truth is, Australia is not one single community. It is a collective of diverse peoples and cultures, and there is no one set of content guidelines that can accurately or justifiably be shoehorned into place. If you allow the diversity to flourish, then communities will naturally flock to - and emerge around - whatever genres or movements rise and flow. There's nothing wrong with providing advice as to the nature of content to assist that natural flow, but for Governments to forcefully dictate that "Community Standards shall be as Thus" is at best useless (because the public will just roll their eyes and carry on regardless) and at worst creates commercial disadvantage, stigmatises legitimate forms of content and entertainment, and fans the flames of the next wave of Moral Panics.

The 'community standards' test is just a broader application of the 'reasonable adult' test, with all the problems inherent to the application of the reasonable adult test in media classification, plus several, additional problems. I’ll look at the biggest four here. At its most basic level, ‘community standards’ is an arbitrary and entirely subjective measure. What are community standards, exactly? How do you measure them? Who determines what they are? Which community is considered to be the most ‘broadly representative’? Bear in mind when considering these questions that, while our current classification & censorship framework are intended to be in keeping with ‘community standards’, Australian politicians are extremely reluctant to conduct research into what those standards actually are. On the rare occasion that they do do the homework, it’s typically ignored in favour of whatever conservative lobby group or senator has the most influence at that point in time. This brings me to the second problem with the ‘community standards’ test. ‘Community standards’ is a loaded phrase. Having read through hundreds of submissions to this review to date, this phrase, with regards to media, has been used almost exclusively by those calling for greater media censorship. This is not an accident; appeals to ‘community standards’ are increasingly a way of appealing to ‘family values’ on the sly, where the family values desired are those of evangelic, typically conservative, religious sects. This highlights another problem, namely that, being an effectively conservative value, the ‘community standards’ test has historically discriminated and continues to discriminate against minority groups. ‘Community standards’ can often be little more than the tyranny of the majority; it was not so long ago, after all, the ‘community standards’ included abhorrence of homosexuality, and, indeed, this is a phrase often brought up in efforts by some organisations and community members to deny GLBT Australians equal rights. Finally, this test endangers an unresolvable tension between different community groups and individuals, particularly when the issue is seen as controversial. If community A and community B disagree on what ‘broad community standards’ are, who wins? Who is more broadly representative? What if they are of equal size and volume? Salo, as I mentioned in my own submission, highlights this problem. The film violates one set of community standards, but is considered acceptable by another.

"Community standards" seem to be protecting the interests of religious minority groups (who, in my opinion, have too much influence on the whole classification process). Their influence should be minimised as much as possible.

The concept of "community standards" has me concerned here and has for a very long time. We use terms such as this along with labels such as "reasonable adult". Who defines community standards? It is ludicrous to think that we can categorise or define such a subjective concept. In the capacity of classification there should BE no "community standard" or "standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults." as it is impossible to define without offending someone. What the hell is a reasonable adult? My sense of community standard could be completely polar to my neighbours however the same as a person on the other side of the country. Influences such as religion, upbringing, wealth and health impact on a person's perception making it unique. It is time classification removed itself from trying to put labels to groups of people (no matter how big or small) and focus on the fact we now live in the digital age, without playing political nanny and hand holding those who may take offense to something. If independant bodies such as Religious groups, multicultural organisations and other parties wish to add their own recommendations to a product or to a website they have set up recommending or warning people with shared ideals, then this can be done at their own expense.