We’ve just been on the phone with a representative for Greg Smith, the Attorney General for NSW, to discuss his comments on Seven News last night, and confirm his exact position on R18+.
“The AG doesn’t want any dilution of the Refused Classification category for games, but remains fully committed to an R18+ rating for video games,” said the representative.
We asked why he had stated on Today Tonight that he wanted games like Grand Theft Auto IV banned, a game that was passed as MA15+.
“That was just his reaction after watching the game,” said the rep, “the point is that he wants games with extreme gratuitous violence or gratuitous sexual violence to remain in the Refused Classification category.”
It sounds as though Greg Smith’s idea of an R18+ rating is to simply tack all the criteria of the current MA15+ rating across to a new rating that is R18+ in name only. Worryingly, the rep also stated that the R18+ guidelines are still being “negotiated”. We asked him to confirm whether or not the new guidelines have actually been finalised, and we were told he wasn’t precisely sure as to whether new guidelines had currently been agreed upon, but he would follow up for us.
More news as we get it.
UPDATE: We’ve had it confirmed by a representative of Brendan O’Connor that the updated guidelines for R18+ will be released today. As soon as we get hold of them we’ll update.
Chazz
Friday, November 4, 2011 at 11:33 AMMy reaction summed up in 4 seconds;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5mLjKI968g
bennie
Friday, November 4, 2011 at 11:48 AMWho exactly is it who decides what constitutes “gratuitous violence”? I recently watched a CSI, I think it was, on TV, at like 9.30pm, and there was a scene of a woman who had her head completely blown off by a sniper… is that gratuitous violence?
The Gremlin
Friday, November 4, 2011 at 12:07 PMIts not up to him, is up to the classification board. 5$ says it will pass as MA15.
Mase
Friday, November 4, 2011 at 12:17 PMI gave up on this issue long ago. If its not AG’s who are uninformed or misunderstand what is being worked on, it’s the change in who is the AG that pushes this issue back.
I was one of the first people to defy the Mortal Kombat ban (remember my reader review of it?) and I’ll be more than happy to do it again when they ban another game aimed at an adult audience.
It’s stupidity like this that will make the common gamer into a criminal because the laws will not evolve with statistics.
Fenixius
Friday, November 4, 2011 at 12:18 PMWhat this shows is that trying to change the law to benefit the public is naive; and outright impossible. Instead, one should always simply ignore inconvenient laws, and look for international workarounds.
Thanks for that, Mr Smith. I’ll take this message to heart. Globalisation rocks.
Aaron
Friday, November 4, 2011 at 12:20 PMA quick google of Greg Smith turns up the usual signs, anti abortion campaigner, anti-euthanasia, anti-stem cell research, anti equal rights for homosexual couples. So yeah, get out your conservative evangelical nutjob brush and give him a splash of paint (white of course).
he’s basically a drinking body of Jim Wallace (not literally, but I imagine he would be).
ilzydroid
Friday, November 4, 2011 at 12:34 PMit’s funny how the 7 News article yesterday, had mainly focused on GTA San Andreas’, ‘Hot Coffee’ mod…. that has been officially buried in the code and cannot be accessed without hacking the code…. how could the AG have been viewing this in the game without it being hacked?
Of course the public wouldn’t know that and probably wouldn’t care…. regardless, this guy is going to desperate measures…. I hope he gets hit in the face with reality one day…. he is in obvious and dire need of it.
iBRINGtheR41N
Friday, November 4, 2011 at 12:44 PMSo what’s wrong with having fun doing stuff in a video game that 80% or so of us wouldn’t do in the real word.. I’m not a robot that gets told what I can and can’t watch and play..
RobbyM
Friday, November 4, 2011 at 12:48 PMit’s pretty obvious – the NSW Libs, in order to get their legislation passed have done a deal with Fred Nile (remember when he wasn’t blackmailing them – unless they refused to pass his legislation?) .. The game reclassifcation will never happen as the conservatives hold the balance of power and politicans are too afraid of upsetting this minority as its easy votes – as long as they keep them onside.
Kyodar
Friday, November 4, 2011 at 1:11 PMDid no-one get the whole bit about GTA4 being about the American Dream? And how, at its heart, it’s shallow and meaningless? Was that just me?
allanon10101
Friday, November 4, 2011 at 1:47 PMAnything like the guidelines he seems to want would be a complete and total betrayal of the public trust. 11 years now this campaign has been running to introduce an R18+ rating, with the support of over 90% of the Australian voting population, and for them to introduce it in the manner described above would put us right back at the start again
JBoost
Thursday, November 10, 2011 at 9:34 AMLess Venting, More Planning about Importing