Australian Capital Goes R18+

[risenbone]

On a separate note, is anyone else a little creeped out by "ACHIEVING A JUST AND SECURE SOCIETY"? Sounds like the motto of a totalitarian 1984/V for Vendetta type dictatorship-but-we-promise-its-for-your-own-good thing.

Well thats not the Australian motto really thats the Motto for ASIO or the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation which is Australias CIA,NSA,FBI,US Marshals all rolled into the one organisation.

Although to be honest about the only reson Australia doesn't try and take over the world is we couldn't be arsed to much trouble and we only end up controlling the idiots we moved to Australia to get away from.

 

[Pearwood]

Ah that's what the capital of Australia is... *goes to finish crossword*.

Grats guys

 

[Chaosweaver]

Woohoo, now people have heard of us!

But seriously, I'm glad my hometown is the one making this move first. Not sure why it will take 9 months, though.

Porn, Fireworks and Video Games, stock up. Seriously you'd need gruesomely violent video games if you had to live in Canberra. The roundabouts, dear God the roundabouts.

Come one, come all.

 

[Vault101]

about,.....fucking..time

now I can wait about 10 years before it gets over here

 

[Chaosweaver]

Oh and btw, we're not "within NSW". Slight error in the article there. NSW is a separate state which surrounds the ACT, but we are not part of it.

 

[Therumancer]

Interestingly I wonder how this will affect previous games that Australia didn't get. I wonder if there will be a rush to bring them into Australia. Not to mention how it will influance releases and what impact the Australian market plays, do they go by Canberra, or the rest of the country?

Being in the US I also wonder about regional laws. If you look at the case of Geohot you'll notice that the guy got nailed for possessing marijuana but had a liscense for it from another state which didn't help. If someone in Australia decides to head to Canberra and buy a game that isn't approved in another part of the country, can they be arrested there for making the purchuse, or for possession of the game?

I don't know, when I hear about one city doing this, capital or not, I have thoughts of regional law enforcement deciding to put game stores under pseudo-suerveillance so they can shake down game purchusers who live in their area or travel through their territory. Similar to how police have unofficial quotas of tickets they are supposed to hand out when they town needs money so they harass motorists, or even give tickets arbitrarly.

You know... cop knocks on the door and serves a fine for possessing a game illegal in the current area, which he knows about because he was "informed" of it's purchuse someplace where it was legal and being brought to that residence.

It sounds crazy, but with a hot button issue like this, and all the crazies involved, a slow transition like this seems like it's going to create a lot of problems.

 

[Porygon-2000]

Interestingly I wonder how this will affect previous games that Australia didn't get. I wonder if there will be a rush to bring them into Australia. Not to mention how it will influance releases and what impact the Australian market plays, do they go by Canberra, or the rest of the country?

Being in the US I also wonder about regional laws. If you look at the case of Geohot you'll notice that the guy got nailed for possessing marijuana but had a liscense for it from another state which didn't help. If someone in Australia decides to head to Canberra and buy a game that isn't approved in another part of the country, can they be arrested there for making the purchuse, or for possession of the game?

In Australia, at least in regards to X-rated material (i.e. Porn), it is illegal to sell it anywhere but Canberra, but not illegal to actually possess it. So, if I were so inclined, I could make the trip to Canberra, buy my smut, and take it back to Melbourne without any legal worries. I'm assuming the same would work for video games, and is consistent with other laws of this nature. (if we were talking fireworks, that would be another story...)

Personally, about damn time! Gonna get my gore on!

 

[sir.rutthed]

I still bet it gets blocked by some idiot at the last minute. Seriously, I don't know what I'd do without being able to make my monthly 'Poor Australia' jokes.

 

[Metalrocks]

amazing. they finally did it. so i can return back to australia in october and buy games which are mend for adults. victory for gamers in the country down under
now they just have to squeeze it through the rest of australia and everything will be fine. then im sure not going every time to the capital to get my self a R+ rated game.

lol, and i guess many people here today learned that sydney is not the capitol of australia. its always funny when people say its sydney, same as with switzerland. everyone thinks its "zürich" but actually its "BERN".

 

[Reaper195]

Nooo! Now I won be able to boast about the games have with the 'Banned in Australia' sticker, or 'Uncut!' somewhere under the title!

Still..it's about time.

 

[Lady Larunai]

Now if we can just get rid of the bloody price gouging we will be set.

 

[infohippie]

On a separate note, is anyone else a little creeped out by "ACHIEVING A JUST AND SECURE SOCIETY"? Sounds like the motto of a totalitarian 1984/V for Vendetta type dictatorship-but-we-promise-its-for-your-own-good thing.

I sure as fuck am. As an Australian, I find that slogan fucking terrifying.

 

[Tazzy da Devil]

Now I just have to wait until Melbourne catches up. No longer will we be laughing stock of the gaming world!

 

[Caffiene]

Im not sure if its accurate to say that ACT will be the first to be able to purchase R18 games. Although ACT does have a habit of things like that (eg, X-rated movies, as mentioned already), this reads more like ACT are just the first to put legislation in place to be ready for when the R18 rating is introduced at the start of next year. I dont think they can actually get the R18 content until the rating comes into place, and by that time the other states and territories will most likely have introduced their own legislation too.

Well thats not the Australian motto really thats the Motto for ASIO or the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation which is Australias CIA,NSA,FBI,US Marshals all rolled into the one organisation.

They like to promote that image, but ASIO is not our equivalent of the CIA, it is only the FBI/Marshalls equivalent.

Our CIA/NSA equivalent is ASIS, the Australia Secret Intelligence Service. They have a website, etc, but keep a much lower profile and stay out of the news as much as possible, unlike ASIO.

... but maybe Ive said too much *hides under bed*

 

[Byron Campbell]

now its time for the USA's free-to-air television code of practice to catch up to the rest of the western world.

 

[RicoADF]

Its so sad that it took them this long. Say what you will about the US but at least our freedom of speech/expression isn't hung up in red tape.

Considering 99% of games were released in Australia unaltered it wasnt exactly stopping our freedom of speech, most "R-18+" games were just rated MA15+. It's really not going to change much except the occasional game that will now be able to get in as R-18+.
Glad to see it's done, even just to stop ignorant foregners from thinking we don't get R-18 games before hand.

Yay, welcome to the 21st Century Australia, here's your complimentary cupcake and party hat.

Don't be so silly.

At last! Welcome to the civilized world Australia

We've been here all along, just needed a few bookeeping changes to categorise games better , after all owning said games was never illegal, just selling them here.

 

[RicoADF]

Interestingly I wonder how this will affect previous games that Australia didn't get. I wonder if there will be a rush to bring them into Australia. Not to mention how it will influance releases and what impact the Australian market plays, do they go by Canberra, or the rest of the country?

Being in the US I also wonder about regional laws. If you look at the case of Geohot you'll notice that the guy got nailed for possessing marijuana but had a liscense for it from another state which didn't help. If someone in Australia decides to head to Canberra and buy a game that isn't approved in another part of the country, can they be arrested there for making the purchuse, or for possession of the game?

I don't know, when I hear about one city doing this, capital or not, I have thoughts of regional law enforcement deciding to put game stores under pseudo-suerveillance so they can shake down game purchusers who live in their area or travel through their territory. Similar to how police have unofficial quotas of tickets they are supposed to hand out when they town needs money so they harass motorists, or even give tickets arbitrarly.

You know... cop knocks on the door and serves a fine for possessing a game illegal in the current area, which he knows about because he was "informed" of it's purchuse someplace where it was legal and being brought to that residence.

It sounds crazy, but with a hot button issue like this, and all the crazies involved, a slow transition like this seems like it's going to create a lot of problems.

Generally if you have say, a firecracker in Sydney where it's illegal that you bought in Canberra, you will still be charged for possession of an illegal item. As for video games, they'll be released federally at once, I'm guessing Canberra is doing it first to set an example of how it'd work, making it easily to enforce it on other states. As already stated in the news it'll be for the whole of Australia at the start of 2013, so even if your court with on in Sydney I doubt the police will care, as possession of said game is not illegal, only the SALE of it. I can get mortal combat if I wanted it, just not legal to sell it here.

 

[Ectoplasmicz]

It's about time as well. So many of us agitated, so many now satisfied.

 

[ten.to.ten]

Wait, there's a sensible politician still left? When the hell did that happen?

I can shed some light on this. It's not that the ACT government is 'sensible', it's just that the ACT is really just a piddly strip of land around the nation's capital and only holds some 300 thousand citizens, so the ACT 'government' is really just a glorified local council. As such, they're all made up of wanabees who can't break into Federal politics, and thus spend all their time doing things that make them feel like they're up with the big boys, like having a human rights charter, dedicating public art to themselves, legalising gay marriage, and now this.

So yes, there's a lot of benefit to their actions, but they're not motivated by common sense, only a desperate desire to have their name attached to something.

More like what makes the ACT so good is the fact that it's basically one single city full of middle to upper class public servants who aren't held back by the reactionary rural redneck and outer suburb bogans that those of us in the states have to deal with.

To address your points, while the laws in the ACT may only affect 350,000 people, it's better that there's at least one sane, if tiny, place in the country. Charter of rights? Every single other western nation has one. Do you think it's just a coincidence that Australia is the only country that doesn't have one and also has a government that censors entertainment on a scale much larger than just about any other Western democracy? If we had a federal charter of rights we probably would have been playing R18+ games since the beginning.

As for legalising gay marriage, the ACT does not have gay marriage, they have civil unions, just like Queensland, NSW, Victoria and Tasmania. Yeah, real crazy, out there stuff. If the climate wasn't so fucking miserable and it wasn't so tiny it'd be the best place to live in the country by far.

Good on the ACT for doing this, I say, though of all the pros and cons of the place, R18+ games is pretty insignificant, and will be completely insignificant by the time it's rolled out in the rest of the states next year.

 

[harvz]

just moved to Canberra this year for uni so... hell yeah!