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Anti-Gamer South Australian Attorney General Quits
dogbolter writes "South Australian Attorney General, Michael Atkinson, infamous for the banning of R18+ rated games and the censoring of political comment in Australia, has quit. The recent South Australian election provided a massive swing against Atkinson's governing labor party. As a direct result of the South Australian election result, he is standing down. Hopefully someone with half a clue will assume the vacant post and overturn the decision to ban adult oriented computer games."
There actually is a "Gaming God"!
RAGE QUIT!
Summation 2
As far as politics news this would have to be the best thing I've heard in ... well forever (In Australia anyway).
So can we all get Senator Conroy (the minister for fascism) to throw in the towel too?
A lot of game shops have petitions to sign - Aussies, if you are dropping by one to pick up the latest austrlian-modified (aka heavily-censored) version of whatever, ask to sign the petition. (I found one to sign, right at the front of the store "GAME", in the Brisbane CBD). More info about the craziness of no R18+ games for Australia is Here
Finish him!
...the potential for evil. There is no guarantee that the replacement will be less clueless or less malevolent towards the pastimes of modern society. With a little good luck, some of Atkinson's stupider decisions and stances will be reversed. Politicians, however, are more adept at finding and deploying bad luck than good.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
how is the SA AG's view on computer games flawed? It should be obvious to anyone that he believes that the views of his constituency...are not supportive of a "wider range" of content in video games.
First of all, he doesn't believe that. In a recent letter he wrote about this, he stated "this issue has little traction with my constituents who are more concerned with real-life issues than home entertainment in imaginary worlds". So it seems that he is not representing the will of his constituents, but he thinks that they don't care about it.
As to why it is flawed, that is because it is so out of step with the rest of the country. Adding an R rating for video games requires the agreement of all Attorneys General of all the states. Michael Atkinson is the only one who will not agree to it, despite the evidence suggesting that the majority of Australians support the introduction.
The main problem is that it doesn't stop kids from seeing adult games. In fact, because there is no R rating, games that would have received that tend to get MA15+ ratings. Those that aren't banned, that is.
To my knowledge he didn't 'ban' R18+ games, he simply didn't agree with the vote - which was required by each AG to get it through.
You could say he effectively banned them but it's more his lack of support than anything.
Also he stepped back into a backbench role, he's still in politics although yes we do REALLY hope someone with a clue steps up for his old position.
As a Victorian I'm glad to see him go, the capital of this one state of South Australia, Adelaide is referred to as "the city of churches" (quite seriously) these morons have been causing the rest of the country for too long.
Now if we can just get rid of this Stephen Conroy idiot, maybe Australia won't be a laughing stock for tech news and articles for a while again.
Good riddance Atkinson, good riddance.
"Nations other than the United States of America?"
I don't know about that...
"Nations which don't use English as the language of commerce and teaching?"
Alright, I get it now, you're yanking my chain... you can drop it.
"Nations which are not based on European culture or otherwise have majority white populations?"
Is that supposed to be some kind of sick joke? Well, it's not funny if it is.
Seriously though, such nations and cultures are more than welcome to have websites dealing with whatever issues they like in whatever language they like... many already do. Slashdot does not have to be that site. In fact, it doesn't even have to be a site most white, English speaking Americans are interested in.
I see your observation that Slashdot does not cater to the demographic of "everybody in the world" and raise you the observation that "it doesn't have to, and probably shouldn't".
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
It wasn't a great election result for Gamers4croydon, who were standing against the Attorney General on the platform of allowing R18+ ratings. They only received 3.7% of the vote. In fact, there were more informal (or invalid) votes at 5%.
Still, they will be happy with the final outcome, even if it wasn't a victory for grass roots campaigning.
Every independent survey run found wide support for an R rating for games amoung the Australian community: Link (reference in there to a survey finding 88% support). Atkinson is considerably more conservative than his base on the issue - this is (or was) a politician's individual crusade, not him representing his electorate.
I don't think this is quite the scalp everyone is looking for..
It is good enough. He was the one person in Australia who was preventing the R18+ rating from being introduced. He wasn't just one politician who was against it, he was someone who had veto power over the entire thing. Now that he is out of that key role, the way is clear for all Attorneys General to allow the change to go through.
Victory. /administrator voice
Shock Horror, the system worked. Sorry for the rant but after numerous threads about the issue and countless uniformed "why don't you Aussies do something" posts I think we can are entitled to a little schadenfreude. We dealt with Atkinson within the system. I wonder how Conroy is feeling about now, between the censorship and NBN debacle he hasn't many people left who like him enough to vote for him.
However we can be certain the people behind Atkinson who are the driving the anti-game agenda aren't quitting as easily but still, this is a step in the right direction and I think it will be very hard for the puritans to replace Atkinson on the ratings board.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Thompson is hardly a pain in the ass, as that would require him to be somewhat effective. If anything, his lunatic raving has worked in favour of game players and -publishers, since he makes the anti-gaming side look bad by association.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
It's mostly because what he's trying to do and what's actually doing are two very different things.
Here in Australia, anything which is Refused Classification(RC) is, in effect, banned. If/When the new internet filter gets put in then apparently even websites talking about RC games or other material will be blocked in part or whole. Since there is no R rating, anything which would receive one is instead RC.
This has a number of negative effects of course. For the purposes of this guy one of the most important is that the ratings board which is of course "at arms length from the political process" which is supposed to mean unaffected by politics, but really means unaccountable to voters, despite their generally rather stodgy views do not particularly like banning things. They perhaps feel that banning things is a really rather serious action to take.
This means that a lot of material which should probably be in the lower end of the R rating band gets pushed down into the MA15+ band, because while it's not exactly appropriate it's not exactly ban worthy either. This means that the upper end of MA15+ is full of a lot of stuff which really isn't necessarily appropriate for someone who is 15 years old to be able to buy on their own without mum and dad being vaguely aware that it's being bought.
Personally I dislike games like manhunt and the other over the top gore games and wouldn't be at all sad if they had never been made at all, but I also feel that Fallout 3, while I personally loved it, is probably a bit borderline for some younger players. Under the current law games like that get pushed into the MA15+ rating zone when they would probably be more comfortable in the R region(and of course the drug animations could have remained in all copies of the game rather than being cut because of this very reason).
Atkinson's position is counterproductive to what he actually wants to accomplish.
And in the meanwhile, in Switzerland, politicians have passed the first step for making a law targeting all games that "require cruel acts of violence against humans and humanlike creatures for in-game success”. The objective of this law is to make it forbidden to produce, advertise, import, sell or distribute such games. It seems, however, that this is not the final vote, and there is a real possibility that public outrage, from gamers as well as games companies, could bring the politicians to back down on this, and simply make it forbidden in the law to sell 18-rated PEGI games to minors.
The point is that a cabinet minister has to consider more than just the views of his electorate, he has to work for the good of the whole state. Approximately 11200 people voted for Michael Atkinson (as their first preference) in the lower house, whereas about 8300 voted for Gamers 4 Croydon as their first preference for the Upper house (just shy of 10000 votes were distributed to their candidate before he was excluded), and several of the other minor parties also support an r18+ rating for games.
These is also the question of the harm done to South Australia's reputation interstate, especially as the premier has often spoken of the need to attract young interstate migrants to the state.
The key point is whether those 11000 people voted for him because of his policy on games (unlikely, there was a 14% swing against him, and only a 3% swing to the Family First Party (Christian right and the main "moral guardians") (indeed, Gamers 4 Croydon got more votes there than the FFP, suggesting that censorship wasn't the main issue there).
Atkinson's censorship of games is a part of a pattern of behaviour. This is the man who also passed a law making anonymous speech illegal specifically for this election campaign.
He then had the cheek, after intense criticism, to say if he was re-elected he'd remove it after the election. It's likely that this was more damaging to the Labor party in this election than the R18 issue.
I am very happy to hear he no longer holds office, as I detest the man and what he stands for. Australia is now a slightly better place. Next up, hopefully, Conroy and the internet filter.
It should be obvious to anyone that he believes that the views of his constituency (which BTW is more than just teenaged and 18-25 year old anglophone middle class computer-literate males) are not supportive of a "wider range" of content in video games.
Let's say that I don't believe in setting aside reservations for Native Americans, or giving them special rights with regard to gambling. I feel that it makes them second class citizens, and stunts their ability to be contributing members of a larger society.
So I should get a say in what happens to them, right? Just because I have an opinion? Even though eliminating reservations or leaving them be would have virtually no effect on my life what-so-ever?
Yeah, democracy makes lots of sense...
Next, you're gonna say I, as a man, can vote on whether female rape victims have the right free counseling, medical care care and an abortion.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
This is good lets hope the guy never again gets into a position where he can threaten our freedoms and liberty. Not only was he against the R classification for games but he was also an advocate for Internet and press censorship.
I know I will be called a troll for asking this: but how is the SA AG's view on computer games flawed? It should be obvious to anyone that he believes that the views of his constituency (which BTW is more than just teenaged and 18-25 year old anglophone middle class computer-literate males) are not supportive of a "wider range" of content in video games. Given what he does, his decision is quite sensible.
To cater to the sensibilities of other people, and decide that their needs come before some others, does not necessarily make him "anti" anyone. Just like how if x is not larger than 3, it does not automatically make is smaller than 3, but it could also be equal.
Even if this is the view of his constituency, you're talking about tyranny of the majority, which is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, problem with a democratic government.
This is wrong (at the very least misleading), please stop spreading it.
It is not, emphatically not illegal to posses RC material. It is illegal to sell, hire or publicly exhibit RC material. The classification law covers sale, hire and public exhibition, not possession.
RC is not effectively banned, there is a separate classification for outright banning which makes it illegal to posses material on this list. It is a specific list not blanket ban as any material without a rating is treated as RC, this includes material that would be rated as E but was never submitted for classification.
I can personally testify that getting RC material past Australian customs is quite easy, they were more concerned about which country my guitar was made in rather then the DVD's I bought in SE Asia, certainly at least some of which were RC.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The poll results from the mentioned article are below, 96% want him gone, he should have been pushed a long time ago, but at least he knows his time is up.
Thanks for voting!
Are you happy that Michael Atkinson will no longer be South Australia's Attorney-General?
* Yes 96.57% (1211 votes)
* No 3.43% (43 votes)
Total votes: 1254