Family First MLC Dennis Hood spoke with @1395FiveAA last night about Free TV's request to show more sex and violence before the watershed - TRANSCRIPT follows:
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Dennis Hood, Family First (5AA 20.09-20.15) Request by Free TV to show more sex and violence before the watershed
(Makin: … Upper House MP pollie Dennis Hood is on line one … are you like me and flabbergasted by this request by the Free to air channels?)
… it really did surprise me … Family First is dead set against it … I really feel strongly about this … the thing is, it’s not just a matter of opinion the studies that have been done in this area have been done now for a couple of decades and they’re absolutely authoritative … we’re talking about very high level data which says without any doubt whatsoever that if you expose children to violence and to sex they start sex earlier and they become immune to the impact of violence … there’s no parent that wants that, it’s just a really, really bad idea and I can assure you we’ll be fighting it tooth and nail.
(Makin: …well 8.30 is being used by parents I believe these days to send their young children to bed, they’re calling it the default time, and that’s a good thing. I mean when Fat Cat used to say goodnight to the kids it was 7.30pm for goodness sake … now it’s 8.30 … they should throw this out.)
… no doubt at all, if you think about it when you and I were growing up what was on TV was The Brady Bunch and The Six Million Dollar Man, nowadays it’s very, very common for high level swearing … whatever word imaginable is on the TV these days after 8.30 … and sex is commonplace … so be it, adults have got the ability to determine if they want to watch that or not but kids haven’t. The data is absolutely clear, the younger you expose children to this sort of activity the more immune they become to violence and the more interested they become in sex themselves. There was a study actually done in America between six and eighteen year olds by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and their findings were absolutely definitive … and it showed categorically that kids as young as six can be impacted by violence and sex on television … the free to air stations may claim that the internet’s available now so the landscape’s changed but the fact is most kids spend more time watching TV than they do anything else and the internet has a wonderful thing called filtering which parents … I’m sure most parents don’t even know that their modern TVs are capable of putting the locks on and the like, it’s just too complex for people … we’re really, really strongly against it, this is a core issue for us.
(Makin: …why do you think the TV stations … free to air stations are doing this because I would have thought their brain would’ve said right … the mums and dads, the viewing audience … they want to keep their audiences … they want to keep their audiences happy, why would they throw this one out there?)
… obviously it’s a business decision … they’re seeking to increase their revenue I presume … the sorts of shows we’re talking about do rate pretty well by and large but they rate pretty well for two reasons … they’re on later at night which is when adults … have got their kids in bed … and they’ve got time to watch TV … that’s the main reason. The second reason is that there are obviously more adults in the viewing audience than kids … that’s why they rate better as well. But it’s a revenue grab essentially from the TV stations; I don’t blame them … they’re businesses and they exist to make money … but there has to be a line in the sand; our kids have to be sacrosanct. I mean … the data on all this stuff is absolutely clear and definitive; there’s no dispute that … if you expose children to sex and violence on television they will become more violent and more sexually active. That is a categoric fact. So if we go down this path that’s what’s happening … you can think of the music videos on televisions these days … I’ll be called old fashioned or whatever by some people for what I’m about to say but I think they go too far in kids hours frankly.
(Makin: I think some of them are soft porn.)
Exactly right … I’ve been criticised for saying things like that but I really do too … and if you think about the target audience for those sorts of things they’re just literally young kids … what’s the rush to expose children to growing up and being sexualised or being … exposed to violence? … let them be kids for goodness sake, let’s let them grow up in their own good time and … the world would just be a better place. Call me clichéd but I really believe that.
(Makin: … Dennis Hood from Family First, thank you.)