Australian Government Says "Silent Majority" Must Be Heard in Ratings Debate
- Thread starter Logan Westbrook
- Start date
What silent majority? From what I read, they asked for public opinion. They got it. It was overwhelmingly positive in favor of creating the R18+ rating. The only dissenting voices came from churches, who will rail against anything, and politicians, for what are likely political reasons. Ignore those dissenters! Not only are they only 1% of the feedback, but they will ALWAYS be against anything new! If 1% of the populace can derail a new classification for video games, it's a wonder Australia accomplishes anything.
Ah, Australia, the only country where religous morons and pressure groups can derail a supposed democratic process.
Our government got the answers it wanted in the last consultation, now as good elected minions of the people they're supposed to do as they're told, and not cripple a process based on minority groups whining!
I don't care if this church or that group thinks their opinion somehow is more important then 60,000 replies to a simple question, they dont get to air pointless crap we've heard before.
I've lost all hope for a competent government in this country without deporting all religions offshore along with their supporters and political friends
Our government got the answers it wanted in the last consultation, now as good elected minions of the people they're supposed to do as they're told, and not cripple a process based on minority groups whining!
I don't care if this church or that group thinks their opinion somehow is more important then 60,000 replies to a simple question, they dont get to air pointless crap we've heard before.
I've lost all hope for a competent government in this country without deporting all religions offshore along with their supporters and political friends
That's new. In America, our politicians only care about getting re-elected. Apparently public office is more addictive than crack. And you can tell it. Not too long ago, someone changed parties, and literally admitted that he did it because he didn't stand a chance at getting re-elected otherwise. I think we all just need to vote out anyone with "incumbent" next to their name.RicoADF said:
Yeah, I forgot about that being the case. If they can't be arsed to vote for what they "want" when they're required to go to the ballots, they really have no right to complain.Danny Ocean said:
Thing is both our parties are full of idiots, so we're really left with no choice. Thats why the last election literally came down to the smaller parties with the 2 big sides getting Labor - 50.12, Coalition - 49.88.*Saltyk said:
Numbers sourced from here:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/17/3015006.htm
I'm going to take the unpopular option and say that there might be some truth in what the government is saying. The survey the put out was only really pushed onto gamers, the main ways to find out about it was from EB games or from websites like this. Both of these options obviously result in the survey only being put out to gamers who will probably not criticise the R18+ rating, which probably means that the survey does not neccasrily reflect the nation as a whole. From the Government's perspective it's like asking prison inmates if the time for their crime of choice should be less. There probably was some bias in that survey, mainly based on who knew to do it, and I can understand a government taking that into account.
What you guys have to keep in mind is that just because this majority was silent, that does not mean that they don't care. There was practically 0 info on this survey and most people would not have know that it existed and that their opinion could be heard, and from experience most people (non-gamers included) do have an opinion on the ratings of all media. I think that it's poor form for a country that claims to be democratic to change laws on the whims of a select few and if this was anything but video games we would be praising the Government. Imagine if a "Should child molestors be allowed to get away with it" survey was put out and for some reason only 60,000 people answered it and most where convicted paedophiles, and from this the result was 98% in favour. If the Government went ahead and changed the laws based on this survey there would be rioting in the streets and whoever was involved would rightly be called an idiotic dipshit who doesn't know how a democracy works and hopefully get fired and/or gaol time. It would never happen
Obviously the laws being changed are very different but the basic premise of terrible sampling, survey making/distributing and the idiocy that is making a law based on those terrible surveys are the same.
Also, guys, use some common sense. If the survey was good than a Government would act on that to bolster their own image (but probably only around election time), so if this survey was a good one we would have some change to the rating system. It doesn't make sense for any Government to piss off 98% of the population unless what appears to be 98% is actually a much smaller percentage inflated by poor sampling. Anyway, doesn't 98% seem really, really high. I find it hard to believe that 98% of Australians want an R18+ rating, 98% of gamers though...
This therefore leads us to the conclusion that it is a poor survey, and if you have any brains at all you'll be glad that the Government isn't changing things based on a warped or totally wrong idea of public opinion. What they're doing here is stepping away from being lead by a small group of people who probably don't represent the opinions of the majority of people, which is something I don't think we should be hostile to. I understand that it's difficult when something you want is being thrown away, but I'd much rather live in a country where the majority of people determine the laws and I go unhappy than a place where a select few determine the laws and I go happy. Australia already shifts to the latter too much (without me being happy mind you), so maybe not going over a little bit more is best right now.
Still, that doesn't mean the Government is without blame. They're morons for putting out a limited survey like this and it shows that they have a very limited understanding of online communities and how gamers opperate, which is not a good thing. They should have made this survey more well known and dedicated more resources to making this a less bias as possible so it could actually achieve something. What I think is happening here is that the Government has realised they stuffed this all up and is just wishing that it will go away. As I said before I'm glad that they aren't acting through with this broken survey yet, and I don't think they ever will, but they still need to held accountable for being shit at gathering people's opinions. They really screwed up here and need to be held accountable.
Also, if this survey was biased to the other we probably would see more of an effect. It's sad, but true. If this survey was only given out at church meetings and 98% were against, it would probably still be counted as biased, but it woiuld be more likely to have an effect than the actual survey. Governments tend to stick to conservatism, no suprise here. That doesn't mean that the Government is actively seeking the conservative audience though. A politician will probably kill their family for higher approval ratings if they could, and so sticking to a small group while pissing off the majority just seems really... unpolitician-y.
For the record I believe that the majority of people want the R18+ rating (myslef among them), but this really is just conjecture on my part. Only until I have solid proof that the majority of people want it (which this survey doesn't provide) will I start writing posts about how the Government is fucking over democracy (whatever that is) and deserve to die in a car fire.
What you guys have to keep in mind is that just because this majority was silent, that does not mean that they don't care. There was practically 0 info on this survey and most people would not have know that it existed and that their opinion could be heard, and from experience most people (non-gamers included) do have an opinion on the ratings of all media. I think that it's poor form for a country that claims to be democratic to change laws on the whims of a select few and if this was anything but video games we would be praising the Government. Imagine if a "Should child molestors be allowed to get away with it" survey was put out and for some reason only 60,000 people answered it and most where convicted paedophiles, and from this the result was 98% in favour. If the Government went ahead and changed the laws based on this survey there would be rioting in the streets and whoever was involved would rightly be called an idiotic dipshit who doesn't know how a democracy works and hopefully get fired and/or gaol time. It would never happen
Obviously the laws being changed are very different but the basic premise of terrible sampling, survey making/distributing and the idiocy that is making a law based on those terrible surveys are the same.
Also, guys, use some common sense. If the survey was good than a Government would act on that to bolster their own image (but probably only around election time), so if this survey was a good one we would have some change to the rating system. It doesn't make sense for any Government to piss off 98% of the population unless what appears to be 98% is actually a much smaller percentage inflated by poor sampling. Anyway, doesn't 98% seem really, really high. I find it hard to believe that 98% of Australians want an R18+ rating, 98% of gamers though...
This therefore leads us to the conclusion that it is a poor survey, and if you have any brains at all you'll be glad that the Government isn't changing things based on a warped or totally wrong idea of public opinion. What they're doing here is stepping away from being lead by a small group of people who probably don't represent the opinions of the majority of people, which is something I don't think we should be hostile to. I understand that it's difficult when something you want is being thrown away, but I'd much rather live in a country where the majority of people determine the laws and I go unhappy than a place where a select few determine the laws and I go happy. Australia already shifts to the latter too much (without me being happy mind you), so maybe not going over a little bit more is best right now.
Still, that doesn't mean the Government is without blame. They're morons for putting out a limited survey like this and it shows that they have a very limited understanding of online communities and how gamers opperate, which is not a good thing. They should have made this survey more well known and dedicated more resources to making this a less bias as possible so it could actually achieve something. What I think is happening here is that the Government has realised they stuffed this all up and is just wishing that it will go away. As I said before I'm glad that they aren't acting through with this broken survey yet, and I don't think they ever will, but they still need to held accountable for being shit at gathering people's opinions. They really screwed up here and need to be held accountable.
Also, if this survey was biased to the other we probably would see more of an effect. It's sad, but true. If this survey was only given out at church meetings and 98% were against, it would probably still be counted as biased, but it woiuld be more likely to have an effect than the actual survey. Governments tend to stick to conservatism, no suprise here. That doesn't mean that the Government is actively seeking the conservative audience though. A politician will probably kill their family for higher approval ratings if they could, and so sticking to a small group while pissing off the majority just seems really... unpolitician-y.
For the record I believe that the majority of people want the R18+ rating (myslef among them), but this really is just conjecture on my part. Only until I have solid proof that the majority of people want it (which this survey doesn't provide) will I start writing posts about how the Government is fucking over democracy (whatever that is) and deserve to die in a car fire.
They actually announced the decision to hold off actually making a decision before the recent Federal election. In essence, it's an attempt by the various Governments around Australia to pander to some lobby groups in the hope that they won't lose votes whenever their arse is up for re-election.
The funny (and sad) thing about all of this, is that when the so-called 'silent majority' (eg parents) are given information on how our classification system doesn't really work to protect their kids, such as games getting a MA+15 rating when it really should be R+18, and on how parents can control what games are played on consoles via the parental lock, they end up supporting calls for an overhaul.
One final point. Some here are pointing at conservative politicians as the problem (I'm not a fan nor a member of any political party). Please keep in mind that any changes in the system require the support of the Federal and State Attorneys-General. All but one of these politicians are from the Labor Party, and yet they are all still stalling.
The funny (and sad) thing about all of this, is that when the so-called 'silent majority' (eg parents) are given information on how our classification system doesn't really work to protect their kids, such as games getting a MA+15 rating when it really should be R+18, and on how parents can control what games are played on consoles via the parental lock, they end up supporting calls for an overhaul.
One final point. Some here are pointing at conservative politicians as the problem (I'm not a fan nor a member of any political party). Please keep in mind that any changes in the system require the support of the Federal and State Attorneys-General. All but one of these politicians are from the Labor Party, and yet they are all still stalling.
If the silent majority is willing to stay silent, then their opinion doesn't count. Obviously, they didn't give enough of a damn to speak up. Silence is, in this kind of situation, a kind of consent.
Time to put up, Australia, and give your adult citizens the right to make game decisions on their own.
Time to put up, Australia, and give your adult citizens the right to make game decisions on their own.
The problem with Atkinson is he was so outrageously against the R rating, he basically blocked any discussion. But, now that he's gone (and more importantly, replaced with a pro-R-rating AG) therer's less likely to be any resistance from the remaining AGs, who probably aren't as negative towards the rating, or at the very least don't particularly care whether it gets through or not.RhombusHatesYou said:
The whole thing is a shambles, but I look at all the people in this thread saying "God, Australia is dead, we're all ruled by right-wing conservative fascists who hate boat people!" and I think,"Jeez, some people are taking this a tiny bit too seriously."
I think most of the rage stems from the fact that the government is still taking the consultation of the ACL as a voice of authority. Especially in the IT sector where they have about as much right of comment as a Scientologist at a mental health conference. Seriously, does someone on their board have photos of gillard taking it up the poop chute or something?
The entire IT industry in this country, and abroad went 'Filter=bad idea' and 'NBN=poorly planned and uncosted'. What's the government do? Listen to industry experts? Nup, they take their cue from people so arch-conservative they think that fire and the wheel are cool new things.
It's almost enough to make a man deny his faith for fear of being lumped in with these mouthbreathing tardmonglers.
