QUICK UPDATE

Hi <<First Name(s)>>

Thank you to the (literally) hundreds of you who emailed the Censor's office in the past 24 hours to voice the concerns of parents about offensive and inappropriate books being targeted at our children. The voice of families matter! 

If you had difficulty emailing or with the email links yesterday, the correct ones are below. If your email to either the Censor or to us 'bounced', could you please re-send it. We are collating all emails which will help give significant weight to our Appeal. 
 

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DO YOU WANT YOUR CHILDREN READING THIS MATERIAL?
READ AN EXCERPT Warning. Graphic sexual content will offend!
TAKE ACTION:
Tell the Censor what you think of the book 'Into the River'.
Email both info@classificationoffice.govt.nz; feedback@familyfirst.org.nz
(we've cc'ed ourselves in the email so we can monitor just how much opposition the Censor is receiving!)

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We were interviewed on Newstalk ZB about the issue last night - LISTEN HERE. The commentators believe that we should say nothing because talking about it just helps with the sales of the books. Wrong! The sales of the book 'tanked' after we got a restriction on it. So did the rentals from the library. That's why some groups have worked so hard to get it reclassified. So we'll apply to get the restriction back on it. But it's interesting how opponents reckon that if we shut up, the problem will just suddenly and miraculously go away. There's a Tui Billboard there!!

But this issue is bigger than one book. It's the worldview of the Censor that should concern us all and the avalanche of similar material that the Censor is exposing to our young people and families. It's also the fact that the Appeal Board of Review made a determination and the Censor has ignored it! We believe the Censor has acted illegally and it suggests they have a disturbing agenda here.

The NZ Herald is not exactly a bastion of conservatism and family values, but we would like to quote from their Editorial that they wrote on this issue when it first surfaced:

(T)hose who would like to bring a better influence to bear might despair. They should not give up..... Novelists should not let the crude depictions of New Zealand on air wash back into its literature, particularly when writing for the young. Teachers and school librarians do teenagers a disservice when they point them towards books that need to shock to capture their interest. Teenagers are not shocked by the subject matter, of course. They can see worse without going to much trouble. What might shock them is that teachers and librarians have put this stuff in front of them. Teenagers would never say so, but they do not want this sort of fare from their school any more than they would want it from their parents. It is not prudish or patronising to maintain a certain standard, it is re-assuring them that quality exists and people they respect can recognise it...The only warning that Dawe's material really needs is that reading it almost certainly will be a waste of time." 

Hee! Well said.

Thank you for speaking up. If the Censor can be so hostile towards families with decisions like this and get away with it, then we're in big trouble! 

Kind regards





Bob McCoskrie
National Director