Nude photo of child angers Rudd

SYDNEY, July 6 (UPI) -- Using a photograph of a nude girl on a magazine cover as a way to protest artistic censorship was inappropriate, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says.

Rudd said the decision by Art Monthly Editor Maurice O'Riordan to place a nude 6-year-old girl on his magazine's cover was not "a step in the right direction" in the censorship debate, The (Sydney) Sunday Telegraph reported.

"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."

O'Riordan chose the photograph to support artist Bill Henson, whose artistic photographs of a naked 13-year-old girl were seized during a police raid in May.

The incident had sparked a major debate about censoring artistic expression and O'Riordan told the Telegraph he was simply offering his take on the matter with the cover shot.

"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.