Australian Classification

[JohnSmith]

[link]http://www.comlaw.gov.au/comlaw/Legislation/LegislativeInstrumentCompilation1.nsf/0/404495489915EE76CA25741100165EFA?OpenDocument[/link]

That link will take you to a page where you can choose how to view a copy of the classification guidelines. Please take note of the things that aren't allowed even in the very highest classification band. Furthermore X18+ is only obtainable in the ACT or NT, those territories contain less than a million people in country of over 20 million and they are a pain to get to.

So now armed with some information about the views held by the people who actually make the decisions I'm sure you will understand more easily why crazy stories about censorship keep popping up hear. Speaking of which police have been sex shops in my state NSW and confiscating any X18+ material they may have had.

Oh and for the TL,DR crowd amongst the gems of things not allowed even under X18+ is spanking. In fact as far as I read it plain vanilla sex is just about all that is allowed.

 

[BonsaiK]

Yes, well just because it isn't allowed doesn't mean you can't get it. Most sex shops in Australia flaunt these laws because frankly even the people enforcing them realise that they're kind of stupid, and police usually have more pressing things to do than go around busting people for a bunch of harmless spanky porn.

 

[JohnSmith]

The worrying thing is though that customs now has the power to search you for any form of pornography electronic or otherwise at airports and they will confiscate or fine you for anything that would be refused classification. Which could come as a large surprise to most people as few are actually aware of what the act and its guidelines actually say.

 

[Trogdor1138]

It's getting worse every day here and I fear for the future of the country... Kind of wondering whether I want to raise my kids here or not... It's no longer a Democracy.

 

[BonsaiK]

Well, I would have assumed that they had that power anyway. Mind you I think that even customs officials may not be 100% sure on what the rules are and what they should and shouldn't be confiscating when it comes to material like that. Some stuff is fairly obviously banned but when it comes to the grey area, who knows how clued-in they are.

 

[JohnSmith]

It's getting worse every day here and I fear for the future of the country... Kind of wondering whether I want to raise my kids here or not... It's no longer a Democracy.

Denmark and Canada both look pretty good but the entry requirements are kinda steep.

 

[Trogdor1138]

It's getting worse every day here and I fear for the future of the country... Kind of wondering whether I want to raise my kids here or not... It's no longer a Democracy.

Denmark and Canada both look pretty good but the entry requirements are kinda steep.

Canada has always been my big choice, it seems pretty awesome from everything I've seen and heard, luckily my lady also would love to live there. It might just happen one day ^_^ I should be able to get over there, obviously not for awhile though.

 

[Fire Daemon]

What is illegal and what isn't can be quite iffy when it comes to porn.

"activity accompanied by fetishes or practices which are offensive or abhorrent" from the PDF basically says that if it's offensive if it's a no go. Whats offensive to one person is obviously not going to be offensive to another, it probably isn't going to be offensive to the person enjoying it right? I don't think that laws should be left to personal taste because that is just inviting misuse, there should be clearly cut boundaries as to what is illegal and what is not.

Thankfully this was written in 1995 and in the past 15 years we haven't seen a mass outage of non-vanilla porn. The boundary seems relatively set and people know what those boundaries are. It could be moved and we may see people being arrested for their spank porn but I feel that day is far away.

Still, Canada is looking better everyday.

 

[Biosophilogical]

(a) adults should be able to read, hear and see what they want;
(b) minors should be protected from material likely to harm or disturb them;
(c) everyone should be protected from exposure to unsolicited material that they find offensive

So remind me again; why don't we have an R18+ rating for games??? After all, having the rating would be in-line with these three relevant guidleines for rating laws.

 

[JohnSmith]

(a) adults should be able to read, hear and see what they want;
(b) minors should be protected from material likely to harm or disturb them;
(c) everyone should be protected from exposure to unsolicited material that they find offensive

So remind me again; why don't we have an R18+ rating for games??? After all, having the rating would be in-line with these three relevant guidleines for rating laws.

Ah not sure if it was in the guidelines or the code but it explicitly states that a game or interactive movie will be denied classification if it is unsuitable for minors... So based on that I think we have actually been pretty lucky with some recent releases (God of War 3).