It seems the whole thing was a set up by 2 GB and Hetty couldn't be bothered at first.

What gets me though is that Hetty and Bravehearts were utterly silent when children were being brutalised with batons and tear gas in Woomera.

Some thoughts on exploitation (commercial and otherwise). You might want to rate the following in terms of their exploitativeness:

(1) Photographing a child model naked, with informed consent from model and parent.

(2) Displaying that image in a gallery

(3) Using that image on the invitations for the exhibition, which are mass-mailed to hundreds (thousands?) of people.

(4) Publishing the image on the web.

(5) Beating up a prurient moral panic over the image.

(6) Endlessly publishing and republishing the image, on TV news and in high-circulation newspapers (presumably within reach of the model's friends and acquaintances), sometimes censored, sometimes not.

(7) Calling the image obscene and suggesting the photographer and parents should be sent to gaol (for the "protection" of children).

(8) Trying to make political capital out of the affair.

The last thing anyone seems concerned about is the welfare of the child model, despite all this talk about child welfare and protection. The hypocrisy is overwhelming.

As the parent of an 11-year old girl, I would not agree to her posing nude until she turned 18 (when it became her choice). But, it is obviously legal for her to do so and other parents could make a different decision. It is legal for me to feed my daughter piles of junk food, get her ears pierced and allow her to watch M or MA films. I don't do these things because I don't think they would be good for her, but some other parents think differently. I might disapprove, but it's their choice, not mine

There appears to be some confusion about what things mean

Some here seem to think

Nudity = sexuality

An image of a nude child = the object for a predatory adult.

Nudity has been depicted in many images since man first daubed mud on the walls of caves.

From the article ““As a society, we simply can not legitimise the sexual portrayal of children in the name of art or anything else.”

The Italian Renaissance saw the infant Jesus depicted nude just as

the rape of the Sabine women has been depicted numerous times.

All of these depictions are classical / naturalistic and largely “asexual”.

If you wanted a “sexualized” image of a young girl, you would achieve more by covering her genitals and chest with some black slinky fabric and give her a pair of black stockings, than showing an image of her naked.

Sexuality is not an synonym for nudity and

Nudity is not a synonym for sexuality,

Except for those of limited comprehension.

Marilyn Shepherd “What gets me though is that Hetty and Bravehearts were utterly silent when children were being brutalised with batons and tear gas in Woomera.”

I know the person who was at one time the general manager of Baxter, you should meet him. A very compassionate person who had the difficult task of dealing with the angry, self-righteous, bullying flotsam and jetsam who tried to circumvent Australia’s right to regulate residents and ended up in places like Woomera.

He used to stand out at the front when they needed to don riot gear and draw batons to stop the rioting and lead his staff into the fray. He is one of my sort of people, doing what needed to be done.

From the spittle spraying rant of your posts, I am not sure I would want to be near you when eating (risk of an involuntary exchange of bodily fluids) but I do know, I enjoy dining out with the ex-Baxter manager.

Well, the good news is that the police have smashed another child porn ring and arrested dozens of paedophiles, with dozens more put on notice that their time is coming. And at least one of them committed suicide with hopefully more to follow. (A nice solution to the problem of the death penalty, if you ask me).

These police, whose names we don't know and who'll never get their share of praise and credit, have done the real work of investigating and stopping paedophiles while Hetty Johnston has been chasing...the limelight.

“The Henson debate is a debate we had to have, not just here in Australia but internationally. It is a healthy sign of a society that is evolving in its understanding of the rights of children to be protected and free from sexual exploitation.”

Yes Hetty. I’ve got no problem with that.

“The definition of “intent” then comes into play. This is always going to be a matter of opinion of course. Did Bill Henson do this work with the genuine intention of acting for the public benefit, for genuine artistic purposes? Or did he do the work to achieve economic gain and notoriety by taking nude photos of children to satisfy his own purpose, despite the public benefit and the law. We, of course, believe the latter.”

Why do you believe the latter? Sure, Henson took the photos for his own purposes…his own genuinely artistic purposes and for his own financial gain and reputation. But why would you assume that he would have produced them if he had thought that they ran counter to public benefit or the law?

As you said, intent is hard to be sure about and is a matter of opinion. So…why would you think the worst? What is your basis for this?

Anyway, the DPP thinks otherwise. And thank goodness for that.

Public agitants are so stooopud.

Ya just cannot buy this sort of publicity.

It also goes to the knee-jerk unprofessional truth about these people. The police hierarchy should have clarified this with the prosecutor FIRST. They either already knew it wouldnt fly and thus acting out of political motives (the looming 'war on porn' and the usual whiping up of the gullible into a paranoid frenzy of fear and loathing) or they're just incompetent, in that they went this far, without first ensuring that their case would hold up. They cant even get the case to trial.

Hah. 'The debate we had to have.' Well that just about sums up the current state of affairs. Just talk about problems, make a bit of a tokenist public spectacle, then we can all get it off our chest and feeeeeel oh so much better about doing nothing.

This game is getting so transparent. Its actually becoming very amusing.