Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about a number of matters related to advertising, bumper stickers and T-shirts that I and a great many people in the community consider not only tasteless but also offensive. I will begin with the well-known snake oil salesman, the Advanced Medical Institute, AMI. I believe the boss is Jacov Vaisman. They are renowned for encouraging, and then taking advantage of, the insecurities of men with regard to sexual issues. While I would encourage men who are considering approaching these charlatans to look at AMI’s history before the courts and seek real medical advice, my issue with AMI is their advertising. These are the people who were responsible for the billboards in some cities which read ‘Longer lasting sex’. It was absolutely disgraceful and it was long overdue when they were told to take them down.

For those of us in Perth, we have had to endure radio advertising—and by that I mean that we have to listen, if we tune into commercial radio, to their advertisements that are explicit about sexual activity. Yet these advertisements are not run at night but run during the day. I went to a local radio station to complain after hearing one of these explicit advertisements run immediately before an advertisement to children offering free entry into the Perth Royal Show. That was during the school holidays in the middle of the day. I tabled a petition earlier this year regarding this disgraceful advertising. While the government’s response was not what I had hoped for, I believe that the Advertising Standards Bureau should get their act together and do their job so that parents like me and others around this country do not have to try to explain to our children what that last advertisement was about. The bureau is failing.

The next issue I would like to speak about is the rear window stickers put out by the firm DCMA. I have a number of photocopies of stickers that are for sale around the electorate of Cowan and no doubt around the rest of Perth and probably the rest of the country as well. Many of these stickers refer to sexual activity and use the f-word. They are without taste and really are disgusting. I understand that, as a publication, stickers would fall under the Commonwealth’s Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995 and complementary enforcement legislation, the Western Australian Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Enforcement Act 1996. As I said before, these stickers are disgraceful, they are obscene and they are offensive. They should certainly be dealt with as such under the act. If it is not felt that these stickers as I have described them fall under the act then there should be an amendment, and I will certainly be looking forward to trying to progress that in the future. I would say as well that, as with all things, this does come down to someone actually wanting to buy them. I cannot understand that. It does demonstrate a level of ignorance and disrespect for the community. I think very poorly of anyone who would want to be involved and want to buy and display these sorts of stickers, and I would advocate against anyone doing so.

Finally, I also want to raise the issue of T-shirts that are often called novelty T-shirts. Again, similar disgraceful images are displayed on them—for instance, stick figures which demonstrate sexual positions. And there is the use of the f-word and similar sorts of profanities and foul language. They are on sale in various places around Perth and no doubt around the rest of the country as well. Again, I would say about anyone who would wear and be seen in these T-shirts that it reflects very badly on their personality. But clearly, if the T-shirts are on display, some people must buy them, and that is a tragedy for this country. I will also be looking for ways in which something can be done about these T-shirts. I will name the brands of the T-shirts near the shopping centre that my electorate office is in. They are Gooses T-Shirts and the Great Southern Land clothing company. I think that they should certainly do the right thing and find some decent and entertaining things to be displayed on their T-shirts in future.