AUSTRALIA YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED
OP/ED by jon of http://elexismonroe.thumblogger.com/
This was the heart felt reaction of Immie, an Abby Winters model,after hearing that the company was going to move from Melbourne to Amsterdam following a lost court battle.
Abby Winters offices were raided by the police in June 2009 because of allegations that Garion Hall’s company were using under aged models and making films that contravened Victoria’s
classification laws.
The legal battle began in December 2009. Garion Hall was charged with 2 counts of child pornography, 54 counts of making objectionable films and 2 counts of possessing objectionable films. This was eventually narrowed down to producing objectionable films and 2 counts
of child pornography.
The latter 2 counts were dropped at the trial probably due to a deal because of lack of evidence. Garion Hall’s legal team decided to plead guilty to the other count because they considered it a gray area that would take a lot of time and money to fight.
The Australian state of Victoria has ruled that it’s illegal to profit from making porn there. An objectionable film is one that would be classified as X18 Plus or so explicit as to be refused a
classification. Objectionable being defined as,’something that is offensive to a reasonable adult.’
Garion Hall’s trial was supposed to be the test case on ‘making objectionable films.’ Neither the Magistrate nor the Australian Classification Board agreed to watch one his films.
The Magistrate took into account Garion Hall’s promise to relocate to where making such films was legal. His company, G Media, was fined AUS $6,000.
Garion Hall had also decided to move because of the increasingly restrictive legislation. His company was included on Australia’s firewall’s list of prohibited sites in 2009. National internet
filtering will probably be introduced in 2011.
Abby Winters won an AVN Award in 2008 for the Best Amateur Series
with Intimate Moments. The site contains 400,000 explicit images and about 4,300 videos. Since it was founded in 2000 the company has recruited about 1,236 models mainly from Melbourne. The site is reckoned to have 30,000 subscribers and gains $10 million dollars annually.
Garion Hall has promised fans on the site’s blog that the coreteam is going with him to Amsterdam. They hope to shut up shop in Australia by the end of this month.
In 2005 Viv Thomas decided to relocate to Portugal because of problems with English legislation. He works though mainly with European models. Abby Winters has made its name with amateur Australian girls and fans fear that the quality of their favourite site is going to drop drastically.
aw shit…. this was the best porn site. period. Hopefully they would be able re-locate to NZ or Cali…
Sadly, US models aren’t as cheerful as the Australian Abbygirls….
I just re-read that they are thinking about moving to Amsterdam. HUGE mistake! If anything, AW should move to Cali!
Man, this freaking sucks. I wish Abby Winters would re-locate here to the States. No offense, but girls in Europorn have no personality.
I mean, taxes are lower here. What the hell!
Folks, I’m not kidding this seriously was the best porn site around and they have the ability to make big bucks a la BangBros if they re-locate to the States!
Honestly, what’s with the outrage (“AUSTRALIA YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED” — in capitals too!)?
This guy chose to set up shop in Australian state with some of the most restrictive laws on porn production in the country. He could simply have set up elsewhere in Australia and not had half the trouble he did. So it’s his own stupid fault for choosing to set up where he did. If the state of Victoria outlaws porn production but the Australian Capital Territory doesn’t then the sensible thing for a pornographer to do would surely be to operate out of Canberra and not Melbourne. But, no, this guy chooses to make porn films in a state where making porn films for profit is illegal. And then people have the gall to be “outraged” when the law catches up with him for something he knew or ought to have known was illegal in Victoria. Honestly!
Not all Australian states are as restrictive as Victoria when it comes to making pornographic films, but he was still stupid enough to set up shop there and not somewhere else. Now whether making porn films *should* be illegal in Victoria or not I leave for the people of Victoria to decide (I’m from a different state of Australia). I’m not concerned with that question here. What I do want to comment in is whether his films fall foul of the law in Victoria as it currently stands. As an Australian and a lawyer I do take issue with some of the things in this regard mentioned in your report.
First, you report that “Garion Hall’s legal team decided to plead guilty to the other count because they considered it a gray area that would take a lot of time and money to fight.” This seems more spin than reality. While I am not privy to what his legal team actually thought, if they were any good at what they do for a living they would surely come to the conclusion that this is not a grey area of the law in Victoria but is actually pretty black and white. Hall was charged with an offence under section 24(1) of the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games (Enforcement) Act 1995 which states:
“A person must not, for the purpose of gain, make or produce an objectionable film”.
The term objectionable film is then defined in section 3 of that act as a film that:
“(a) describes, depicts, expresses or otherwise deals with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in a manner that is likely to cause offence to a reasonable adult; or
…
(d) is classified RC or X 18+ or would, if classified, be classified RC or X 18+ or has been, or would be, refused approval, as the case requires.”
While there may be some room for debate as to whether Hall’s films satisfy the definition of objectionable in (a) (i.e. whether they would cause offence to a reasonable adult), there is little doubt that they are objectionable under the definition given in (d). As long as the prosecution can prove (d) there is no need to get into arguments about (a).
Under Australia’s film classification system porn films involving non-simulated sex get an X 18+ classification (or are sometimes refused classifcation — that’s what RC refers to — if they are particularly abhorrent such as involving child pornography or bestiality or excessively violent sex etc). There is little doubt that Abby Winters films would attract an X 18+ classification in Australia if submitted to the board for release in Australia. X rated films are perfectly legal to *own* throughout Australia (including in Victoria) but some states (Victoria included) place restrictions on the ability to *sell* and/or *produce* such films.
I would suggest that the reason that Hall pleaded guilty was because his films clearly satisfied the definition of objectionable in (d) and claims about his case being a test case under (a) are simply irrelevant.
Finally, I should comment on the remark that neither the magistrate nor the Classification Board agreed to watch one of his films. Well, dah. He pleaded guilty so there was no need for them to do this. If he’d pleaded not guilty they would have viewed his films. And then the court still would have found him guilty (provided of course the prosecution could prove beyond reasonable doubt that Hall had made or produced the film in Victoria and not elsewhere).
Wow. Great post, Gomer. I’m glad I’m not the only one paying attention to this issue. I think really think Abby Winters is a great site and they have an approach to porn that is the most positive and non-exploitative in the business.
You’re right. Hall made the mistake in setting up shop in Melbourne. I guess he figured that his content was “softcore” enough that he would pass on by without a reputation for infamy. But despite his ignorance, Australia is really going overboard in their treatment of Abby Winters. I get that AW didn’t receive a Media Authority Classification because it was operating illegally but putting the site on a mandatory internet blacklist? I mean come on, we are not talking about Max Hardcore here…
Its just not clear that they would be able to get approval to produce in Canberra because of the “graphic” nature of their girl-girl content. Like it or not, Australia knew what they were doing by going after one of the most popular pornographers in Australia. Using this scare tactic they want to effectively end porn production in Australia as we know it.
@origen01: Chances are Hall probably didn’t think too much about the legal consequences of his actions when he was first starting out. A lot of people act first and then deal with the shit hitting the fan later rather than getting good advice to set up their affairs so that the shit doesn’t hit the fan in the first place. This isn’t a phenomenon unique to the porn industry but happens in all walks of life.
I’m not saying that he wouldn’t have any difficulties operating out of Canberra, but he would certainly have far fewer difficulties than operating out of Victoria. As far as I’m aware it is possible to make X-rated films in Canberra. Of course if he wanted to produce stuff beyond an Australian X-rating then he may have some problems. But if he kept within the X-rating I think he could produce films in Canberra.
The issue of the internet blacklist is something that an agency of the federal government did and not the Victorian government (which was responsible for the prosecution outlined here). Although I’m not exactly pro-pr0n — I take an interest in the industry from a distance and am far from being an advocate for it — I do agree that the blacklisting of the site does seem a little over the top when you consider all the other porn out there which is much more explicit/ exploitative and all the stuff that didn’t make the list. Given that this was done by an agency of the federal government there would presumably have to have been some criteria according to which they decided which sites to put on the list. It would be interesting to see a list of those criteria and discover the basis on which they acted.
One further matter which would be of interest is to find out where in the chain of command the decision to prosecute Hall came from. Australia has a very small porn industry and prosecutions for production are almost unheard of. So who decided to prosecute Hall? Was it the Attorney-General himself or some underling?
“One further matter which would be of interest is to find out where in the chain of command the decision to prosecute Hall came from.”
like most things in victoria – starts with some outrage from the knuckle draggers in the editorial offices of the herald sun.
But Gomer, Abby Winters has been targeted by various media outlets (most notably the Melbourne Herald Sun) for many years due to the fact that their depictions of sex are “explicit” and distributed uncensored. The AMCA claims this type of pornography is illegal so this was probably the reason why the site was blacklisted.
I guess the reason why Abby Winters gets the most attention is because the models are relatively young (the average age is 20 I believe) so I somehwat understand the critics’ concerns. But to prohibit them from performing in porn? Though the girls are young, they are still legally adults and if you prohibit access to Abby Winters you effectively prohibit access to 80% of the porn on the Internet.
This does not seem like something a free modern society does. I live in a conservative US state and we would never do that…
Now I’m reading a story in NEWS dot COM dot AUS that the Australian government wants to ask incoming travelers at customs if they are carrying RC pornography. Searches have been authorized…
Theres seems to be alot of ignorance in your country as to what the RC classification actually includes. It is not a classification that is solely reserved for child abuse recordings.
I understand trying to stop child pornography and child sex toruism but doing this across the board is just an invasion of privacy.