First time some f...wit stupid PC arsehole tries to stop
me from taking pictures of my kids anywhere I want to,
he or she is gonna be wearing the camera and whatever
else I can grab on the spot.
Public, last warning.

Of course not

Yes.  To the advantage of whoever will be charging for
the "blue card".

They have no "duty of care".  Read their disclaimers.
It's bullshit for them to claim they do.

Wanna bet this was started by whomever charges for that "blue card"?
Oldest trick in the book: invent a straw man, then charge people
to protect them from said "baddie".  It's also called pure and simply,
a racket.

"Ken Chandler"

<http://www.couriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,17979111%255E31

my wife wrote the conflict resolution policy for WA, and we had a few
debates as she was putting it together.  One raged about a theoretical
scenario - the passing of a casual flirtatious comment.  Now say a guy
passes 5 women and compliments them on their attire and they all take it
well, possibly benefitting from the interaction, yet a sixth takes offense
and lodges a claim, we've now a situation where we have 2 'victims' - the
one who was the recipient of the comment, and the guy who's about to be
dragged through arbritration and have a cloud hang over him from there on -
always wary about how he's to deal with the opposite sex.

Sure he may have been insensitive, sure there may have been mixed messages,
but at the end of the day we have 2 vitims.

I argued that *context* had to be taken into consideration and the
complainant HAD to be treated as though they were NOT a victim.  it allowed
the person a chance to see the situation in a different light and possibly
even come to the conclusion that it was their choice (trying to be careful
here! - it was a lot more complicated than that) to respond the way they
did.  Maybe it was their background, maybe a bad day.. whatever, maybe they
could re-evaluate the situation in a different setting and see that the
comment was not intended to offend.

A bit like the situation where a child falls and everyone rushes up moaning
with frowns on their faces, expressions of concern which precipitate the
inevitable reaction from the child - they burst into tears whether they've
been hurt or not!  For the parent who smiles and asks "you OK?" the general
reaction by a surpised or mildy hurt child is 'yup' and a smile in return.

I feel this whole 'pedo's with cameras' situation is a huge joke that does
no one any good.

So some tosser gets his jollies looking at kiddies playing on the beach, or
some cretin suffering arrested development sneaks shots of girls at the
beach.  Were society to say to the children involved 'thats just this
weirdos way of getting his kicks - but you're OK, we're not judging you by
what HE does' then these kids would be OK .. and th the kids would NOT be
victims (!!!!)

look at it another way, we have a fine art nude hanging in a gallery and we
all call it art, then one day some bloke in a raincoat is found tugging
himself in front of it - do we now call it porn and tear it down?  NO

So why should pics of kids playing footie ar swimming at the beach be
treated as though they are 'dirty' or somehow tainted ?

Why should we curb our activities as parents (I'm not one btw) or as
photographers?  It would be like saying pictures of children are filth!
This is the same crap that lead to the covering of legs in the victorian era
and the purging of documents that were deemed less than savoury by the
perverted minds of the critics that scrutinized and censored them.  It's
probably the same reason Burkhas are enforced on women in some moslem
countries..

no.  these same confused individuals would still collect images of kids from
target catalogues and post them to the web..  and these kids would become
victims and society would reinforce the abomination

the nannys?  legislators who are scared of consequences unseen and
unimagined..

duty of care has gone mad.  I had a dolt in one of our photo labs who
repetitively insisted on peering closely at the chemistry while he flicked
it in his eyes.  I told hime to wear glasses, I even banned him from the
darkrooms (that was deemed 'unfair')  In the end I turned bulldozer and
failed him, telling him he was a danger to himself.  Luckily I got away with
it, but come ON!  Where does it end??

k

So they ban the parents with the digi p&s and the odd one with an SLR.
Whats stopping some pervert sitting a few hundred yards away with a big
telephoto lens? or the pervert with the phone-cam that nobody notices?
I'd be much happier knowing fellow parents were taking pictures in the
open, and that likewise I could.

Not wanting to condone the actions of pedofiles, but realistically, if a
pedofile takes a few photos of a kid on the beach or playing sport, how
does that hurt the kid? For example, that wacko that took pics of kids
and put them on his website, did that hurt those kids in anyway? Even if
the kids found out that their face was on a website, most kids would go
"cool, what's to eat". It only starts hurting the kids when adults start
making a big fuss over it and basically telling the kids that it is
hurting them.

Perhaps to the blue-carded photographers? It'd be a pretty good lurk to
convince a kids footy club that parents taking photos presented the risk
of pedofiles. Hey I've got a blue-card and I'm a professional
photographer, I can do the photos so the parents can still have some
photos (for a not-so-small fee of course). And hey, being the great
community-minded guy that I am, I'll donate a percentage of my sales to
the club.

I think it's based on someone wanting to profit from it. I can't see how
a sports-club/pool could be held liable for someone taking photos of
someone. Firstly, it's not a crime to take photos. Secondly, if photos
are taken that are used inappropriately, it is a civil matter between
the subject and the photographer. If there is any legal aspect, it's
purely from the shark lawyers who think that it's alright to pursue
anyone who has had a vague association, rather than those actually
responsible. In some way it goes back to our society's current trend of
refusing to take responsibility for our own actions.

I am not aware of any cases, but common sense says it has the potential
of happening. To get a blue card, they do a police check. If a wacko has
never been caught, his police record will be clear. Doesn't prove a
thing about the person's trustworthiness, only proves they have never
been caught. The blue-card will (in theory) reduce the chance of people
committing a 2nd offence, and is designed to stop known pedofiles
getting into positions such as schools, scouts etc. Realistically
though, how many cases are caused by cases such as this? Most cases of
molestation I've heard of, have been caused by a family member or
trusted friend. The few cases where it has been someone working with
children, they'd most likely get a blue card anyway, because they hadn't
had any convictions at the time of the offence. Recently the
pointlessness of it all came up over the issue of Santa photos. A santa
in a supermarket must have a blue card - lets get this straight, he
needs a blue card so he won't molest children in front of a camera and
the parent?

Well I know I'd take a much better photo of my kid.