Office of Film and Literature Classification (New Zealand) - Classification Law

Classification Law

The OFLC classifies material based on whether it is likely to be "harmful" or "injurious to the public good". Specifically (from the FVPC Act): "a publication is objectionable if it describes, depicts, expresses, or otherwise deals with matters such as sex, horror, crime, cruelty, or violence in such a manner that the availability of the publication is likely to be injurious to the public good." In 2000, the Court of Appeal of New Zealand decided in Living Word Distributors Limited v Human Rights Action Group (Wellington) NZCA 179 (a case involving two videos produced by Jeremiah Films) that the collocation of the words "sex, horror, crime, cruelty or violence" tends to point to activity rather than to the expression of opinion or attitude. On this interpretation, the OFLC had jurisdiction to restrict or ban publications describing or depicting sexual activities, but not those describing only an attitude or opinion about sex. The same interpretation required publications to describe or depict horror activities, criminal activities, cruel activities and violent activities, rather than just an opinion or attitude about those things, for the OFLC to be able to classify them.

The Court of Appeal explicitly ruled that the phrase "matters such as sex" is strongly indicative of sexual activities and does not include sexual orientation. This made it more difficult for the OFLC to restrict or ban, for example, publications that simply exploited the nudity of children or that portrayed classes of people as inherently inferior but that did not show any of the specified types of activity, notwithstanding the fact the FVPC Act directs the censors to give "particular weight" to these things when deciding whether or not to restrict or ban a publication. It also made it difficult for the OFLC to restrict publications simply containing offensive language or to ban videos of persons taken without their knowledge or consent, such as "upskirt" videos, on the ground of invasion of privacy, again because neither type of publication shows any of the specified types of activity. In 2005, Parliament amended the FVPC Act, and commenced amendment of the Crimes Act, to restore the OFLC's jurisdiction over all of these matters except for publications that simply portray classes of people as inherently inferior.

Under the FVPC Act, material that promotes, supports, or tends to promote or support the following is, by its nature, deemed objectionable (banned):

• The sexual exploitation of children
• coercion
• extreme violence, torture, and/or cruelty
• Bestiality
• Necrophilia
• Urophilia
• Coprophilia

The Censorship Compliance Unit of the Department of Internal Affairs is responsible for the enforcement of the FVPC Act.