His rep is entirely based on getting away with it on his home ground. It is a bit like a grunge musician only behaving badly in Seattle.

‘He cited a contempt of court case against broadcaster Derryn Hinch as evidence that the girl’s parents might not have that right either. “Hinch published the name of (a) … boy who was the victim of a sexual offence. He justified it by saying the parents had given him consent. But the court said they couldn’t consent.”‘

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/05/26/1211653938450.html?from=top5

That’s the issue being referred to the United Nations. The precedent cited indicates that the only known examples of this CEDAW/UNCRC violation are exclusively associated with Australia. It is not recorded as having happened in any other developed country. So, that’s a first for Australia.

The market for Henson’s genre of photography has had to move on-line or to Japan and Australia, or to countries lagging behind in child protection laws.

Hamilton’s naked girl shots ruled ‘indecent’ | | guardian.co.uk Arts 23 Jun 2005 … The following correction was printed in the Guardian’s Corrections … David Hamilton – the photographer whose images hang in the US Library …
arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1512621,00.html – 43k – Cached – Similar pages – Note this

I imagine Henson’s material has been found in child pornography investigations all over the world. He’s a pG/G in Australia. The police can only act if he turns up at Heathrow, Dulles or Milan, in the latter case they may arrest him for blackening the name of Caravaggio.

None of this is top-secret, Alison Croggon would have been aware that some ( or all?) of the foreign galleries cited in her letter, were not prepared to touch Henson’s fetish photographs with a barge-pole.

Greg …. if you have seen these photos, and you are in the UK …. does that mean you can be charged with child pornography?

And do you have a job, for crying out loud? The time you spent hunting down all those blogs and the number of comments on each one …

1 – why is a guy who calls any woman a bitch automatically called misogynistic? It is a comment directed at a single person regarding her actions, not pertaining to her gender. Am I misogynistic if I call Hetty a crazy bitch? Am I being anti-male if I call a guy a bastard? If I call a guy a bitch, am I showing hatred and disdain for men or women?

2 – I find your comparison of these photographs to some naughty 19th century pictures quite bizarre. The view of what is decent and indecent, rude or acceptable, has changes immensely in this time. It reminds me of an episode of Doctor Who I watched recently, where Rose was wearing some overall shorts and a t-shirt in Victorian times and kept being referred to as “naked” and “undressed”. Pictures that were considered dirty 100 years ago are now artistic. To see how times have changed, just look at the fashions worn by girls in their early teens. Do you honestly believe these are not titillating and suggestive outfits?

3 – your use of “experts” is also a bit puzzling. There’s a running joke in the medical field that whatever symptom a patient turns up with, a specialist will always see it as being caused by something in their specialty; it’s a case of people looking for what they know. That’s why I wouldn’t trust an orthopedic surgeon to treat a case of post-natal depression – sure, he’s still a doctor, but that doesn’t mean he’s an expert on the matter (and is more likely to worry about the poor new mother’s bunions). Of course someone who works in pornography is going to view the works through their own filter; no, a Dutch pornographer isn’t necessarily an expert when it comes to what’s porn and what’s not.

4 – Can you please give specific examples of the Classification Board’s passing of this child pornography? Since they pass this stuff “all the time” you must have a lot of examples.

5 – why do you only use the UK as a basis of comparison? There is no real difference in the prop

The fact you’re signing your comments with not just your name but also your title/ position/ whatever you want to call it suggests you’re definitely posting with a specific agenda. That doesn’t make for good or meaningful debate.

Repeating your opinions ad nauseum doesn’t make them correct – wandering about Teh InterWebz posting similar comments on any Bill Henson-related blog post you stumble upon simply makes you look narrow-minded and dogmatic rather than intelligent and genuinely concerned.

For a public domain example of the Classification Board being a bit open-minded, you had the recent example of naked 15 & 16 year olds in a tub surrounded by Moet bottles, that was non-sexual as well! So, the CB is all very tongue in cheek, the real test, is whether he can do it in London, Dublin, New York City etc. and the answer to that is no. Henson was supported by the prostitution and pornography industry in Oz throughout his trouble, and they assignerd their lobbyists to do the mredia and the CB.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=XaEi9ESRB8o