HOW do you ensure someone looking at an artwork understands what they're seeing? A quick quiz at the gallery's entrance, perhaps.

This is one of the practical difficulties arising from attempts to regulate how children are used in art.

The Australia Council has released a summary of submissions to its plans to create protocols governing the depiction of children in art.

The guidelines, sparked by the controversy surrounding the work of the photographer Bill Henson, are being developed to help artists who work with children to do so with proper care and responsibility, says the council.

But what will this mean in practice is tricky terrain, as is clear from the council's two-page summary of feedback so far.

Some argued it was impossible to ensure people viewing an artwork had an appropriate understanding of its context and creation.

"It was pointed out that art necessarily contains ambiguity, and that the only way to control an artwork's reception is to control its creation," the summary said.

The protocols, which take effect from January 1, will not be limited to photography. They will cover artworks, exhibitions and publications.

Securing funding from the government's main arts funding body will depend on adhering to them.

Other submissions questioned the need for protocols given the range of existing laws covering working with children.

One respondent argued that if an activity was legal, it was not the government's role to develop protocols to regulate it.

Others supported attempts to clarify the ability of children to give informed consent.

But some feared protocols would stop artists dealing with any issues relating to young people. And concerns were raised that politics could end up guiding funding decisions.

The council has not released the submissions and declined to say which organisations or individuals made them. It will release its draft protocols for comment next month.