Australian attorney general refuses to support 18+ game rating

"People are participating and 'acting-out' violence and criminal behaviour when they are playing a video game,"

Even if that were true, I guess the alternative being proposed by banning them is to let those desires remain suppressed, so that those at risk can bury them deep in their psyche where they can fester until those fragile minds can no longer keep them contained creating a spectacular catastrophic personal implosion that leaves the person, their loved ones, and potentially their entire community permanently damaged ? Yes? Sweet! I'm in!

What the fuck?! If I see that dude I'll seriously battle rifle his ass and tea bag his corpse!

Yay another idiot politician that does not understand videogames.

Plus Australia was a british prison colony............

Question for the Aussies: How does one become the state AG? Did this "gentleman" win an election and get chosen for the position, or was he just appointed?

If the former, then I think he'll find that gamers refuse to support him in the next election.

(This post rated D for Bag).

You gave us Heath Ledger, Russel Crowe, and AC/DC. Why can't you take our sweet ass video games in return?

This is the most diabolical display of injustice I've ever seen since my beans touched my peas at dinner time last week. Utter madness.

All this from the most dangerous country to live in in the world.

That Crazy Old Bastard.

It's so wonderful to see Australia frustrate you guys.

what exactly is a "vulnerable adult"?

"it certainly does restrict choice to a small degree, but that is the price of keeping this material from children and vulnerable adults. In my view, the small sacrifice is worth it."

This is the crux of the matter. He doesn't play games, so he doesn't give a shit. It is a small sacrifice to HIM.

Mr Atkinson is kind of old, so hopefully we don't have to wait to long in AUS for R18.
I assure you all he does not reflect the majority, at least in Melbourne.

I'm sure he's doing this as some kind of stunt, controversy makes good publicity.

Never mind that there have been no conclusive medical studies linking video games any any rise in violent behavior. This is simply this man's -opinion- that some sort of media should be banned for reasons of sound mental health. I can't believe something like this can actually happen in the modern day. It's frighteningly close to banning a book because "this media does not promote sound moral judgment" or censoring a movie because "this media does not promote a good view of our wonderful government". Orwell would be proud, I'm sure. What's next, mental hygiene police to come and make sure you don't have any "dangerous media" hidden away in your house?

Here is my idea for valve currently, quit worrying about players not getting a game in another country and fix the servers they broke yesterday. Down rate me as you wish but how many of you have been able to play a game from beginning to end since about 12 est today, we can't make it past the beginning of the second map any campaign including crash course.

aussie aussie aussie oi oi oi

Her Depeche Mode T is rad.

It is like if Jack Thompson was President.

I wanna kill this mofo so badly, I hope he dies from a painful heart attack hahaha I would dance in his grave, then fill his house with the most violent video games lmao!

I am hoping somehow this will get overturned. We are a very liberal country, just this douche in South Australia seems to be able SOMEHOW to ban all us millions from playing it. Importing FTW.

That's a pretty self-righteous attitude from the descendant of Britain's worst criminals.

Hell, in the past forty years, Australia's government was kidnapping aboriginal children from their parents. Now they're worried about the effects of video games on the public? Call me prejudiced if you like, but there's no excuse for this. Why don't Australians fight back against their oppressive, heavy-handed, and condescending government? It did wonders for us.

What region codes does Australia have? Does this mean that you can only play L4D2 on another region's console if you import the game or get it off ebay or something?
If Australian 360 have the same code as European ones, what's to stop people just buying it online?
Is Gears 2 available? The Hitman games?

I think some non-Australians are a little confused as to how one man can block a discussion on an 18+ rating.

Australia is still technically a Commonwealth (ie controlled by the British monarchy, even though this is more of a throwback and the Queens role is taken on by the Australian Governor General, who's only real power is of veto on legislation and to dissolve parliment if the need arises (the Australian parliment has only ever been dissolved once)). So when I speak of the Commonwealth and Federal governments, I am refering to the same thing.

Australia has a system of Federalisation, meaning that all State laws are controlled by the Federal government, according to the diviision of powers (which lays out what laws are determined by the Commonwealth, the State or the local government and where they overlap). This also means that any changes to the Federal constitution must be agreed upon UNANIMOUSLY by the Attorney General(s) of the Commonwealth and the State governments. Hence an Attorney General (who is appointed by the Premier of his State or the Prime Minister in the case of the Commonwealth Attorney General) from a backwards state, which is mainly desert and who's only real city is filled with bikies, prostitutes and serial killers, can block a discussion from the entire Standing Comitee of Attorney Generals.

Oh and P.S. Australia was discovered and established as a penal colony AFTER America refused to take any more convicts from Britain.

So here's what you do. You get your hands on a long range sniper rifle and an expert marksman, snipe the fucker, then dump the rifle in the middle of the fucking ocean. Oh man... where's that sniper dude from Wanted when you need him?