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Actually, Australia's game rating system has "MA 15+" as its highest category - this maxes out to age *17* as the next-highest ratings category is "R", which covers 18 and up. So the current Australian system actually rates games to a ceiling age of 17 years, 11 months and 30-odd days. :-)

Yes, it's pretty insipid that there's still a prevailing assumption amongst some Australian legislators that video games are for kids - but let's also remember that it's only the Attorney-General of South Australia that's holding up the process. And as he's an elected member of parliament, it's not like he'll be in the job forever...

Oh, and "sting" -- Australian free-to-air TV has approximately 13 channels these days, including networks that happily show movies featuring violence, full-frontal nudity, coarse-language and what-not... plenty of which wouldn't get a look-in on their U.S. equivalents. The reason that Australians are pretty peeved about the video games rating issue is that it's in *exception* to the system in place for movies and television.