Beyond The Fringe

The EFA highlights recent Senate estimate hearings where the ludicrous obstruction by South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson to introducing an R18+ classification for video games is discussed.

Without an R18+ classification, video games which are not classified in lower classifications default to RC (Refused Classification).

Senator BARNETT: Some of us are dumbfounded as to why we do not have an R rating for video games. Can you share any argument as to why we do not?

Ms Davies: In order to make any changes to the classification code and guidelines, including introducing a new classification, you need to have unanimous agreement from all state and territory ministers and the Commonwealth minister. To date, that has not been obtained.

Senator BARNETT: We have got a real problem here, haven’t we, because South Australia is opposing the position.

Ms Davies: The South Australian Attorney is on record on a number of occasions as opposing the introduction of an R18+ classification.

Senator BARNETT: We have a real problem, and this is something the Senate and the parliament is going to have to address. If we have one state opposing this, South Australia, then clearly we are not going to have any R rating of video games. That simply cannot occur as a matter of course legally.

Ms Davies: That is correct.

And from the EFA site:

The National Classification Scheme (NCS) is administered by the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General - the state and territory Attorneys-General and the Commonwealth Attorney-General. Under the NCS, films can be classified G, PG, M, MA 15+, R 18+, X 18+ or Refused Classification (RC). Video games, however, can only be classified G, PG, M, MA 15+ or Refused Classification. This means that any game that is not suitable for a 15 year-old cannot be sold in Australia.

The result of this absurdity is a constriction of software development in Australia. We are locked out of the international, growing market for adult games. As well, it encourages our software game developers to self-censor.

Why does the crow-eating Attorney General oppose R18+ classification?

From an address to the South Australian Parliament, Atkinson has pontificated illogically:

I have consistently opposed an R18+ classification for computer games. I am concerned about the harm of high-impact (particularly violent) computer games to children … I do not want children to be able to get their hands on R18+ games easily. I understand that the lack of an R18+ classification denies some adults the chance to play some games, however, the need to keep potentially harmful material away from children is far more important.

Where is the evidence that the internet is more dangerous to children than films and books and why is government increasingly usurping the role of parents to discriminate what is hygienic for their childrens’ tender minds and what is not?

We are suspicious that often prudish attitudes can be projections of distasteful penchants in the hidden corners of wowsers’ minds - and the fierier the sermonising, the more sordid are the secrets.

As Germaine Greer sagely observed during the Henson photography affair:

“.. the man who rejects them [Henson's photos] with exaggerated horror is appalled not by the works themselves but by his own response to them. Innocence is not an option.”

Control of the mass media using censorship and attack of free expression in the arts are two of the 14 defining characteristics of fascism according to Lawrence Britt. In combination with a third, exhibited by the repugnant religious right and its repellent rhetoric currently infecting and influencing the Oz parliament, along with the concatenation of threats to national security, the latest being the global economic meltdown, and the naked melding of big business with big government strikingly apparent in recent corporate bailouts, is there reason for concern that Australia is heading down a dark, familiar path?

“The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion.” Henry Steele Commager

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This entry was posted on Saturday, November 15th, 2008 at 1:30 pm and is filed under Australia, Censorship, Evangelicals, Games, Human Rights, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.