APN Outdoor will not promote site that hosts conversations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians but JC Decaux will

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Billboards from a Victorian government campaign that aims to encourage conversations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people have been pulled because the Outdoor Media Association said they were potentially in breach of rules against racial vilification.

The “Deadly Questions” campaign has been rolled out by Aboriginal Victoria as part of the push toward a treaty between the state and Aboriginal people.

It encourages non-Indigenous people to ask questions they had been afraid to ask of Aboriginal people for fear of being branded ignorant or racist and provides video or written responses from individual Aboriginal people around the state.

Deadly Questions: ask Aboriginal champions anything about being Indigenous Read more

Questions already on the site include “Why should I be sorry for something I didn’t do?” and “Can you get more welfare if you’re Aboriginal?”

A number of those questions were due to be plastered around Melbourne on billboards operated by APN Outdoor.

But the contract was dropped after APN Outdoor referred the material to the Outdoor Media Association (OMA), which in turn referred them to Ad Standards.

In a statement, OMA said two of the seven proposed ads were found to potentially be in breach of the section of the Australian Association of National Advertisers code of ethics banning racial vilification.

“While we recognise the purpose of the advertisement is to raise awareness of an important issue and that the advertisement is meant to provoke a reaction and drive visitation to the website, Ad Standards advised that two of the executions could potentially be found in breach of section 2.1 of the AANA code of ethics if the advertisement attracted complaints,” a spokeswoman from OMA said. “This information was provided to our OMA members.”

The Aboriginal affairs minister, Natalie Hutchins, said it appeared the advertising body had missed the point of the campaign.

“I’m disappointed by APN’s decision and this unfortunately proves why we need to have a campaign like Deadly Questions,” Hutchins said.

Natalie Hutchins (@NatHutchins) Maybe @APNOutdoorAU need to ask a Deadly Question rather than ban it.



Any suggestions of what they should ask?https://t.co/OWY0HQNdPK



(https://t.co/suMUSyET0l)#deadlyquestions #dq

The chief executive of APN Outdoor, James Warburton, said that submitting advertising material to OMA and Ad Standards for review was its usual practice, and later told the agency that created the ads that it had been advised two of the ads were potentially in breach of the code of ethics.

The ads were then pulled from APN Outdoor, but will run on JC Decaux, which also does outdoor advertising and tram wrappers.

A spokeswoman from Aboriginal Victoria said the questions were meant to be challenging, and said it was ironic that in challenging racism it could be accused of racial vilification.

“We understand that some of the questions asked by the public – and that we are repeating in the campaign — are provocative, but that’s the point,” she said. “To have an open discussion we need to acknowledge that some ugly viewpoints exist.”

Aboriginal Victoria said it needed the media to support the process, which it said would break down barriers as part of the path toward negotiating a treaty.

Victorian lower house passes treaty legislation after Greens accept Labor deal Read more

“It’s incredibly disappointing to have APN and the OMA dictate what they think is appropriate with regards to discrimination, when these questions are ones that we invited, are providing responses to, and represent the real conversation that Victorians want to have,” she said.

Legislation to establish the supporting framework for negotiating a treaty or treaties with Aboriginal Victorians, including the framework around a representative body that has been likened to the proposed Indigenous voice to parliament, is due to be debated in the upper house this week.

If it passes, it will be the first legislation formally signalling an intent to negotiate a treaty with Aboriginal people in any Australian jurisdiction.