[5] This includes films, video games, books, magazines, CDs,[6] T-shirts, street signs, jigsaw puzzles, drink cans, and slogans on campervans.
However, the Secretary for Internal Affairs, the Comptroller of Customs, the Commissioner of Police, and the Film and Video Labelling Body may submit publications for classification without the Chief Censor's permission.
It conducts research and produces evidence-based resources to promote media literacy and help people to make informed choices about the content they consume.
This made it more difficult for the Office to restrict or ban publications that simply exploited the nudity of children or portrayed classes of people as inherently inferior, but did not show any of the specified types of activity, notwithstanding the fact the FVPC Act directs the censors to give "particular weight" to these things when deciding whether or not to restrict or ban a publication.
[15][16] This change, which came into force on 1 February 2022,[17] requires major streaming services operating in New Zealand to rate content using an approved self-rating system.
[18] Also on 1 February 2022, the Act was amended to give the Chief Censor the ability to issue urgent interim classification assessments for publications which are "likely to be objectionable", effectively banning them temporarily.
[19] This power was used by Acting Chief Censor Rupert Ablett-Hampson to urgently assess a manifesto attributed to the perpetrator of the 2022 Buffalo, New York mass shooting, and a livestream of the attack.
[30] The Film & Video Labelling Body issued a new certificate to be displayed and alerted exhibitors to the note change so that they could update their information.
The Office classified the full 17 minute footage as objectionable on 18 March 2019 due to its depiction and promotion of extreme violence and terrorism.
[32] A 74-page publication (referred to as The Great Replacement) reportedly written by the perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque shootings was also called in by Chief Censor David Shanks.
[32] The publication was found to provide justification for the Christchurch mosque shootings and to promote further acts of murder, terrorist violence, and extreme cruelty against identified groups of people.
[34] Recent projects have investigated young New Zealanders experiences and views about sexual violence in entertainment media, and online pornography.
[35][36][37] It has convened public panels to assist it with the classification of films such as Baise-moi, Salo, Monster's Ball, Irréversible, Silent Hill, Du er ikke alene, Lolita, 8MM and Hannibal.
[38] For example, religious experts were consulted to assist with the classification of The Passion of the Christ, experts in road safety were consulted on Mischief Destroy, the Children's Commissioner on Ken Park and The Aristocrats, homeopathic practitioners on drug manufacturing books written by Steve Preisler, and rape crisis centres and psychologists on Irréversible and an edition of the University of Otago student magazine Critic.
The FVPC Act gives the Classification Office the power to classify publications into three categories: unrestricted, restricted, and "objectionable" or banned.