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Tamaki DVD given 'M' rating

Sun 26 Jun 2005 In: New Zealand Daily News

Brian Tamaki-produced film New Zealand, A Nation Under Siege has been given an 'M' rating, suitable for audiences 16 years of age and over due to explicit anti-gay and political content. The Film and Video Labelling Body passed on the DVD to chief censor Bill Hastings last week. However Hastings then stepped aside from classifying the 30 minute propaganda film when he discovered that Tamaki had attacked the chief censor himself calling him a 'self-confessed gay', and blaming this on the 'perverted' content increasingly seen on television. During this rant, Hastings is named and a picture of him is shown. The DVD will be handed out free by 'bishop' Tamaki on his nationwide evangelical tour. He hopes that its message will mobilise his followers to vote in the upcoming general election. In the classification ruling, the DVD was shown to be a political statement on behalf of the Destiny New Zealand Party; a direct conflict of interest for Tamaki's non-political 'charity' tax breaks. As part of his message, Tamaki mentions a 'radical homosexual agenda', describes the media as 'modern day witchcraft', and blames Bill Hastings directly for being "responsible for allowing explicit sexual and violent content into our country"; and influenced professionally by his sexual orientation. In a response, Hastings says his sexuality has nothing to do with the amount, or nature of content coming into this country. "No one's ever been able to explain what the link is between my sexuality and either a rampage of sexual material or paedophilia… There's no connection at all. We have evidence that my regime has been no different to my predecessor's." The Office of Film and Literature Classification stated that "aspects of the publication indicate that it is more suitable to an audience… who are able to bring some personal judgement and maturity to bear on its content."    

Credit: GayNZ.com News Staff

First published: Sunday, 26th June 2005 - 12:00pm

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