User:Natlinsdell/sandbox

Censorship into the 1980's

In the lead up to the 1980's Queensland fell subject to many forms of censorship. Things had escalated from the prosecutions and book burnings under the introduction of the Literature Board of Review to the state wide ban on protests and street marches in 1977. Despite the banning of marches in Queensland, numbers involved with the QCCL and similar protest groups continued to rise. Although the State Government felt that it was doing the right thing for Queenslanders, the QCCL argued that 'It is precisely these 'mobs [protesters]' who got Australia out of the war in Vietnam; who stopped relations with South Africa sport; and are now joining with and broadening the trade union opposition to Fraser's uranium policy.' Since the formation of the QCCL tens of thousands of people got involved in rallies, pickets, and abortive and secret marches for civil liberties in nearly all of Queenslands major cities. This led to over 2000 people being arrested and some 4500 charges being given by police, despite the innumerable amount of protest applications, all but one were denied. This all changed with the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On the 5th of August, 1979, four anti uranium protest applications were approved, however the Brisbane anti uranium protest application was denied. By 1980' there were significant indications that the march ban had been lifted.

Throughout the late 1970's, more and more publications were banned reaching almost a hundred per year. In 1974 the Queensland Literature Board said that 'The prohibition of this material has nothing to do with the freedom of the individual to read... The pedlar, however, of all this whether he emerges from the lavatory of some gilded lair, must be restrained from using the magnificent services of printing, publication and distribution to present to all of us (and there is none of us immune to these depravities), the degradation of humans taking their sex as animals.' In 1978 the Full Court of Queensland convicted Forum magazine for its use of offensive language and the  claims to dispel public ignorance in sexual matters. Strangely enough the very next year when the Australian versions of Penthouse and Playboy hit the stands, the Board did not instantly ban them. It wasn't until 1982 that Australian Playboy was banned. By this stage Queenslanders had begun to question the legitimacy of the board, even going so far as to call it an embarrassment to the state.