The Australian magazine Art Monthly featured a nude six-year-old on its July cover, reportedly to protest artistic censorship. The Sydney Sunday Telegraph reported that Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd did not support the decision."I have very deep, strong, personal views on this, which is that we should be on about maximizing the protection of children," Rudd said. "I don't think this is a step in the right direction at all."
Art Montly editor Maurice O'Riordan reportedly selected the cover shot to support artist Bill Henson, whose photographs of a nude 13-year-old were briefly displayed in a Sydney art gallery, prior to being seized in a police search.
O'Riordan said he hoped the July edition of his magazine would restore "dignity to the debate" of artistic representation of children.
"Maybe this is bold, but I don't see the need to give in to that sort of hysteria or the prospect of complaint," he said.
Melbourne photographer Polixeni Papapetrou took the cover photo of her daughter Olympia Nelson, currently age 11, back in 2003.
Nelson recently described the picture as "really, really nice," and denied suggestions that it constituted child abuse.
"I love the photo so much. I think that the picture my mum took of me had nothing to do with being abused, and I think nudity can be a part of art," she said.
Hetty Johnston, executive director of Bravehearts, an Australian organization that aims for a "movement for change" in how pedophilia is addressed in the court of law and the community, disagreed, calling the magazine photos "sexual exploitation of children."
Johnston added that the rights and protection of children should come before artistic merit.
"When those two things collide we have to err with the children; it has to be in the best interests of the children,'' she told the Nine Network. "I can't see in any circumstance where taking a photograph of a naked child is in the child's best interests. We need laws to make it clear; the laws are flaky and the laws aren't able to protect children."
Prime Minister Rudd threatened to pull the backing for the government-funded magazine if it refused to comply with new protocols regarding the depiction of children.
