Section 14

Submitters on Auckland City Council’s billboard ban should be congratulated for their overwhelming rejection of the city’s plans to regulate commercial speech. It remains to be seen whether the council will take any notice or whether the consultation process is as much of a farce as any of us suspect.

Meanwhile, in those parts of the third world that Auckland is trying to emulate, similar bans have already gone into effect. The city of São Paulo banned outdoor advertising from January 1st this year. Tony de Marco has posted a set of images on Flickr documenting the change and it feels slightly creepy - like some 1950s film where you wake up one morning and everyone’s disappeared.

Hat tip: Boing Boing.

UPDATE 20/4/07: Compare this to Shanghai, where they know how to advertise. Jakob Montrasio posted this picture on Flickr showing a 420 metre high Windows Vista advertisement. Sadly, not something that would be possible in the People’s Republic of Auckland.

Hat tip: Passport.

Auckland’s crackdown on commerical speech is being extended into the suburbs. I reported in December on the billboard ban proposed by Auckland City Council for the central business district. Today the NZ Herald reported that the decolouring campaign is to be extended across the whole city.

Signs affected include billboards, murals, banners, flags, balloons, posters, sandwich boards, wind socks, blimps or projections of light which advertise a product, business or service. Messages or noticeboards 50cm or less inside a door or window are also included.

The public have until March 2 to make submissions on the bylaw.

The details of the proposed bylaw changes are on the city council’s web site. The page contains a link to the bylaw submission form.

Auckland City Council is proposing to ban billboards from the inner city. (Hat tip: Kiwiblog)

Auckland City Council plans to ban billboards in the Queen St valley - from Hobson St across to Anzac Ave - including Britomart, Karangahape Rd and the Viaduct Harbour. It is argued the ban will help to make Auckland an “international city”.

If you’ve seen the wonderful film Good Bye Lenin!, you will remember the statues of Lenin being removed from East Berlin and replaced with enormous Coca-Cola banners. It seems Auckland would much rather travel in the opposite direction.

Is this a free speech question? The argument will be made that the proposed regulations are intended to preserve “heritage” buildings and that the restriction of speech is incidental. More likely is that this is a deliberate attempt to restrict a certain class of speech - commercial speech - because some councillors find capitalism distasteful. If that is the case this is most certainly a form of politically motivated censorship.

Ms Fryer said the ban would bring Auckland into line with other “main international cities with European influences”.

I can only assume “European influences” is secret code for socialism.

UPDATE 15/12/06: Auckland City Council last night voted in favour of the ban, which now goes to public consultation.

Julian Pistorius, deputy leader of Libertarianz, has written letters to various Auckland councillors and posted their replies.

Auckland City Council has joined Wellington in kicking Falun Gong out of their Santa Parade. Last week, this site reported (Importing Chinese Repression?) that Wellington City Council had excluded the Falun Gong float from the Christmas parade because it was being ’streamlined’. This week, Falun Gong reports (Falun Gong discriminated against in New Zealand) that the same thing has happened in Auckland.

Their 2006 application was initially welcomed as Parade organisers said a 60-piece brass band would be a great addition to the parade. There was also an offer of $250 to help band members as they are all volunteers.

When organisers were subsequently told the band members comprised Falun Gong members, the application was withdrawn on the grounds that the “organization does not ‘fit’ with the Santa Parade,” and would not, “turn children’s fantasies into reality, to delight families staging an annual fantasy Santa Parade to herald the start of the festive season in Auckland.”

As I said in my post on the Wellington decision:

The biggest concern is that city officials have been pressured (either explicitly or implicitly) by China to exclude Falun Gong from council-sponsored events. As a public entity, the city council must ensure that it doesn’t use its sponsorship of cultural events as a way to censor political or religious expression.

I asked Wellington City last week about concerns that they were keeping Falun Gong out of the parade because of pressure from China. I asked for assurance that we weren’t importing Chinese repression into New Zealand. I haven’t had a reply.

Auckland City has a sister city relationship with Guangzhou in China. Presumably Auckland councillors are also willing to censor religious expression to protect their ratepayer funded holidays.