Book Description

"The Department of Internal Affairs has been closely involved in the administration of censorship policy in New Zealand since the Department first assumed responsiblitiy for film censorship in 1916. Internal Affairs has subsequently enforced the video censorship legislation passed in 1987. This publication examines the development of censorship legislation and practice in New zealand from early laws aimed at controlling the activities of "vagrants", to the setting up of a Ministerial Committee of Inquiry into Pornography which reported in February 1989. Events examined include Victorian concerns about misleading medical advertisements, moral panics about films after the First World War and about comic books in the 1950s, the censorship controversies of the early 1970s, and the introduction of a standardised system of video censorship in 1987 ..." -- Foreword.