Since I filed this story, I received both Telstra and ACMA’s responses to my questions.

Telstra media spokesbloke Craig Middleton writes:

Yes we were approached by ACMA who had received a complaint from a member of the public. The ACMA inquiry did not proceed to investigation because BigPond Movie’s licence to offer Pulp Fiction had lapsed and it had been removed from our catalogue.

BigPond Movies had not received any other similar complaints and complies with [Broadcasting Services Act] controls which prevent access by persons aged under 18 to R-classified material. This is achieved via the use of a credit card subscription where credit cards are only issued in Australia to those 18 and above.

ACMA’s response confirms this:

In the course of the investigation the ACMA requested BigPond to provide information about the service’s compliance with the requirements of Restricted Access System Declaration 2007. BigPond subsequently advised that it had lost the commercial rights to sell the content that was the subject of the complaint, and that the content was therefore no longer available on the service.

As both Mark Newton and Geordie Guy told me, anyone can buy prepaid disposable credit card numbers from a variety of retail outlets, so this is no longer a workable way of validating a user’s age.

None of this is ACMA’s fault, really. They’re just trying to implement the law as best they can with limited resources.

Also, yes, the movie in question was Pulp Fiction not Reservoir Dogs. It’s all Tarantino, so same thing.

Yet more examples of ACMA general ineffectual operation. They are still forced by law to apply censorship designed for children to these complaints.

Our whole classification system needs a major overhaul. It is a mish-mash of junk added for political expediency over a period of many years.