Catholic parishioners are circulating a petition to ban ‘sexualised’ billboards and outdoor advertisements which demean women and expose children to inappropriate content.

It comes after one of the petition’s organisers saw an on-car-advertisement for a carwash featuring a woman in a suggestive pose. Hose between legs perhaps?

SMH writes:

Matthew Restall and Bridget Spinks have 4000 signatures, including that of Archbishop of Sydney Cardinal George Pell, and are hoping to collect as many as 100,000 by January, when they will be submitted to the NSW and Victorian parliaments to be tabled.

[…]

Ms Spinks said there was great support – from both religious and non-religious people – for the campaign, which has been backed by The Catholic Weekly.

Bridget Spinks says that if no one acts now, by 2040 the level of our community standards is going to drop and ‘Who knows what our children are having to deal with.’

AMI's new billboard.

Restall says this version of the AMI ad attracts to much attention. Have advertisers no shame?

As for Matthew Restall – well it seems he just won’t rest. He’s been campaigning to have AMI’s Want Longer Lasting Sex billboards banned for six months and isn’t happy that they have replaced ‘sex’ with ‘censored.’ You can’t please everyone huh. I’d love to hear Mr Restall explain how the AMI ad in its newest state objectifies women or is inappropriate for children.

Catholic Weekly writes:

He [Matthew Restall] said the recent “censoring” of billboards was a superficial move designed to appease the Advertising Standards Bureau while attracting more attention. He has welcomed The Catholic Weekly’s support and expects that “hundreds of Catholic families will take up the cause and get behind this campaign which seeks to clean the environment of the real pollutants in our cities”.

He said the company behind the billboards “has replaced its signs only to gain more publicity”.

They spoke about this on Sunrise this morning and Kochie said one or two people complaining to the ASB and then the ads being removed was taking it too far. Too right Kochie.


Update 11AM: SMH reports that the ASB is investigating fresh complaints about the Longer Lasting Censorsed billboard — because the letter S is still visible in the ad.

‘Child advocacy’ campaigner Julie Gale (Kids Free To Be Kids) says ‘the new ads showed the advertiser was not serious about complying with the earlier ruling.’ Amazing. If half the energy that was wasted on these billboards was actually spent on real child protection initiatives, some kids might really be better off.