What's the point of an ad regulator that can randomly refuse to review ads?

When a sponsored Typo post advertising Christmas ornaments in the shape of a penis and a sex toy showed up in Collective Shout supporter Susan’s Facebook feed, she made a complaint to Ad Standards.

Typo's penis-shaped Christmas ornaments 

But Ad Standards did not consider Susan’s complaint against the unsolicited penis ornament ad. She received an email notifying her that the Chair of the Ad Standards Community Panel had refused to forward the complaint to the panel for review. 

1. The entire system relies on members of the public making complaints. There is no pre-vetting

This means advertisers can do whatever they want, and their ad will only be reviewed if and when a member of the public makes an official complaint. If nobody complains, the ad will not be investigated. Industry self-regulation takes the onus off the advertisers and instead places responsibility for regulating the advertising industry on individual community members.

This lack of pre-vetting has enabled companies to display billboards depicting gangrape and bestiality, school buses to advertise sex industry trade show Sexpo and the URL for live-streamed porn and prostitution, and Honey Birdette videos of sexual ‘choking’ to be broadcast in Westfield and other shopping centres – along with countless other examples.