There is one thing Jim Wallace of the so-called Australian Christian Lobby got right in his attack on ratings reform: When it comes to protecting children and community standards, the authorities are asleep at the
wheel .
Unfortunately, it's the delaying tactics relied on by out-of-touch members of the Fundamentalist Right that have had that result.
The issue in question is finally
removing the loophole in the classification of interactive entertainment (in the main, computer and video games) that forces content designed for adults into the rating category appropriate for 15 year olds – either with no, or very minor changes.
The unavoidable flipside of our rating system being unable to distinguish between adults and children because the distinction is not available, is not only that adults are treated as children – it's that children are treated as adults.
The only way to treat children differently from adults is, obviously, to have an adult rating – as we have had, for a long time, in most other media.
Hence the campaign for an R18 rating,
a sensible reform that will help parents know which games their kids should and absolutely should not be playing.
It's not about saving Australian jobs in the sector presently seriously undermined by our out-dated
classification system – although it will certainly do that. It's not about recognising that the average gamer is now in his or her 30s, and an increasing proportion of the content created in this medium is made by adults, for adults, not children
– although that's true. It's not about the fact that restricting adults to the same content as teenagers is nanny-state censorship (cue the sadly appropriate Mark Twain quote about censorship being telling a man he can't have a steak just
because a baby can't chew it ) – although it is.
Most importantly, this reform is about protecting our children – and giving parents the tools they need.
Which is why
80% of Australians support it.
And yet, in December, instead of finally implementing this exhaustively-researched, long-investigated and not-particularly-complicated common sense reform, the nation's Attorneys-General
baulked. They ordered a year-long review instead, putting more kids at risk in the meantime.
And why?
Jim Wallace apparently thinks it's the video of supposedly R18-style content
that was shown to the politicians that made them accede to his lobby's demands for further delay. Maybe they'd never seen an R18 film before, and were surprised when the adult content designed for adults and for whom an adult rating is sought was, well,
adult. Not appropriate for minors. Conflicting reports suggest it might not have been the video put out by the censorship advocates (which tends to include material that would NEVER be rated R18 in Australia anyway) so it would not have been any worse
than content we already see at video libraries around the country.
Which begs the question – why maintain the loophole?
Wallace, who was ghoulish enough on this page last week
to rhetorically link the adult content he dislikes with the Tucson shootings, thinks what we play has more of an effect than what we watch, by virtue of its interactivity. He doesn't present any evidence for this claim – not even the
cherry-picked studies from dodgy no-name American universities on whom his colleagues tend to rely.
But that's because, in reality, it's besides the point. If – and that's a big if – interactive
media were shown to have more of an effect, then that would be an argument for tailoring the classification guidelines for each rating category – not for refusing to distinguish between kids and adults. If what's appropriate for an adult in film is
not appropriate for an adult in games, then that would be a reason to have tougher guidelines for games than films – not to claim that what's appropriate for an adult is appropriate for a 15 year old. Which is what having no R18 rating does.
Nobody here is seriously suggesting extreme, dangerous content that really requires banning full stop should be made available for adults. Nobody is suggesting a free-for-all: when R18 is eventually implemented, extreme
content will still be refused classification, just as it is now with films.
Jim Wallace is fighting the wrong battle – he should be arguing about what content he thinks that an R18 rating should permit, not
whether it should exist or not.
Because the one thing we should all be able to agree on is that adults and children are different. That children deserve to have their innocence protected from the things that are
appropriate for adults.
And any sensible classification system would recognise that simple fact, with an adult, not-for-kids classification.
It is long since time that ours did.
A further year's delay is absurd, and lets down every Australian family.
