We don’t normally make a practice of criticising our friends from Australia but just this one time, we’re left with no choice.

We’ve learned that the country’s advertising watchdog, the Advertising Standard Bureau has made a decision to ban the new BMW Z4 ‘Expressions of Joy’ campaign from Australian television.

We’d understand if there was some sort of justification as to why the advertisement met enough opposition to ban it, but according to the ASB, they decided to dismiss the ad because it promoted ‘car hoons to spin and burn their tyres’.

Say that again?

If you haven’t seen the ad, it pretty much involves a BMW Z4 driving on top of an enormous white canvas with trails of pain on its tires. As it drives around, it paints the canvas into the artwork that was envisioned by Robin Rhode and director Jake Scott. While the car doe do a number of drift-worthy spins, it does so under the banner of ‘art’, which apparently, the ASB misconstrued as promoting dangerous driving.

Continued after the jump with video.

If you haven’t seen the ad, it pretty much involves a BMW Z4 driving on top of an enormous white canvas with trails of pain on its tires. As it drives around, it paints the canvas into the artwork that was envisioned by Robin Rhode and director Jake Scott. While the car doe do a number of drift-worthy spins, it does so under the banner of ‘art’, which apparently, the ASB misconstrued as promoting dangerous driving.

In their interpretation, the ASB noted that the driver intentionally allows his Z4 to perform a four-wheel drift, which in their mind is tantamount to reckless driving. Never mind that it was merely an artistic exhibition to promote the Z4.

The ASB’s banning of the commercial prompted a reply from the folks at BMW, who naturally didn’t understand the mind-numbing reasoning the ASB gave in banning the commercial on Australian television.

BMW spokesman Toni Andreevski said: “The commercial is a bit of a case of a piece of art and the freedom of art that’s being thwarted by Victoria’s anti-hoon laws. Obviously, we believe that the audience can distinguish between fantasy and reality.”

Nevertheless, BMW was a good sport about it and simply said that “safety is important to us, and we have agreed not to appeal the ABS’ decision.”

Despite being banned from Aussie television, viewers from Australia can still check out the commercial here. Thank God for YouTube, yes?