South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson, long standing opponent of the introduction of an R18+ rating for games in Australia, has officially withdrawn his support for a discussion paper and public consultation on the issue.

Jason Hill writes in The Age today that in March the Attorneys-General agreed in principle to canvas public opinion and develop a public discussion paper on the issue, but that Mr. Atkinson has now refused to agree to make the report public, effectively stifling the issue completely. Though the issue is still officially on the agenda at the upcoming Standing Committee of Attorneys-General meeting, the introduction of the much-needed R18+ rating would require the unanimous support of all Attorneys-General. With Mr. Atkinson now refusing to even discuss the issue, change is unlikely to happen any time soon.

With overwhelming community support for an R18+ rating for video games, we can only wonder why Mr. Atkinson continues to defend his increasingly untenable position.

Source: Censoring the Censorship Debate (Jason Hill, The Age)

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 30th, 2008 at 2:16 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Comment on Michael Atkinson Stifles R18+ Debate

1. 
   (link)
   

   Alex says:

   This and Steven “Goebbels” Conroy’s IT policy are exposing today’s Labor as further and further to the reactionary right. Next thing you know we’ll have banned books and CD’s. It’s all a little out of hand if you ask me.