Today was the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General (SCAG) meeting we've all been waiting for, the one Federal Minister for Home Affairs, Brendan O'Connor, suggested was "crunch time", hoping the Attorneys-General could finally come to a unanimous decision.

Good news was heard all-round though, with all States and Territories finally coming together and agreeing on the introduction of an R18+ rating for videogames on principal, barring one as GameSpot AU reported. New South Wales abstained from the vote, holding up the required unanimous decision to meet with his NSW cabinet and make a decision that "would not take long".

On Tuesday we reported that NSW's AG, Greg Smith, planned on abstaining on a decision in order to wait on the official Classification Review scheme submission from the ALRC, which isn't due until 2012.

GameSpot, however, reports that in the wake of the near-unanimous vote, Smith plans on deciding on the matter "ASAP".

also brendan o'connor believes the R rating will be in place by the end of the year because the commonwealth will look into overriding NSW if they don't end up agreeing.

silly SA is still getting rid of the MA15+ rating and changing it to R18+

last edited by ravn0s at 14:13:35 22/Jul/11

Well who cares about MA15+, only those who are over 15 and under 18,they don't vote so they don't matter.

Awesome. Another idiot voted in that is wasting time and money.

you know the NSW dude has been in office for like 3 months? I wouldn't call him an idiot for abstaining (Which btw is not saying "No! Someone think of the children!" crap SA gave us.

They are still having a Refused Classification for extreme violence, which means games like Mortal Kombat and Left for Dead 2 will still be banned from sale... so pretty much not what adults want at all.

Looks like its going thru now, in press conference this afternoon for 18 rating

Kotaku's declaring victory, which is unusual considering I was convinced Mark Serrels was close to cutting his wrists over this issue with all melodramatic articles about it.

Sounds like the process is seriously wrong when simply abstaining from the vote can hold it up if the other 90% are in complete agreement. I'm not sure why the federal government didn't step in sooner to end the indecision merry-go-round.

What other kinds of lower profile issues do they meet to decide on that get delayed for eternity because one of the state attorneys general realised he can't vote because his shoelace was untied?

They are still having a Refused Classification for extreme violence, which means games like Mortal Kombat and Left for Dead 2 will still be banned from sale... so pretty much not what adults want at all.

There's always going to be an RC category, regardless of what the requirements for R18+ are. The question now is will the requirements for this new R18+ actually be more than our current MA15+.

It's highly likely R18+ would let games like Left 4 Dead 2 and Mortal Kombat through. RC would now be more in line with X-rated sex or the like

Its not like R18+ is a catch-all rating that everything goes into, theres always going to be a need for RC to keep the truly f***ed up s*** out. Having R18+ just brings us in line with the way the rest of the world works.

bring on flailing limbs and excessive blood

^. We already have that... it just fits into MA15+ mostly and the odd title being RC where the rest of the world classifies it as R18+.

Edit: ACL page on this.

Cautiously welcomes it? Pigs. f***ing. Arse!

'you know the NSW dude has been in office for like 3 months? I wouldn't call him an idiot for abstaining'

he is an AG, he has been shadow AG for years, he is either incompetent, scared of Fred Nile or basically a Liberal dufus. Idiot not so sure, but if the pointy hat fits...

you know the NSW dude has been in office for like 3 months?

Well then he shouldn't be making important decisions like this if he's not up to it. And this issue has been around longer than 3 months. The guy is just f***ing around and wasting tax payers money.

I can't read any of that ACL s***, it just makes me want to rage

I kind of agree with SA and what they are doing. If we can't have both MA15 and R18 for games, then get rid of the MA15 rating. This is especially true for movies too as sometimes I fail to see the difference between MA15+ and R18 movies. For example Saw 1 was rated MA15 if i'm not mistaken when it came out. That was a suitable rating because while there were some intense scenes, there wasn't a whole lot of actual gore and such. Since then things only got worse to the point now they are just torture movies and extremely graphic yet they remain MA15. If any franchise deserves an R18 rating it's this one and they let it skate through. That is ok for MA15 but L4D2 and MK9 aren't? My fat arse. Just cut the MA rating all together if you ask me as it's just bulls***.

EDIT - WTF ACL.

with the boundaries of the R18+ film guidelines slowly eroded to allow extreme violence, actual sex and simulated paedophilia in films.

Name me 1 god damn movie where there is simulated paedophilia. f***ing fear mongers.

Although ACL awaits the final detail from the meeting, it appears that the existing ceiling for games has been maintained with a commitment to move the more extreme MA15+ games into a newly-created R18+ rating.

I thought that the decision they came to, was that they didn't come to a decision because of the NSW AG? Doesn't that mean no R18 for us?

last edited by DM at 21:50:31 22/Jul/11

It's highly likely R18+ would let games like Left 4 Dead 2 and Mortal Kombat through. RC would now be more in line with X-rated sex or the like

I'm not convinced this will be the case tbh. It appears the criteria for RC will remain unchanged...

O'Connor said even with an R18+ rating the conditions that had led some games to be “refused classification” – or effectively banned from sale – had not changed.

“There is certain material that should not be accessed lawfully in this country,” he said.

Yeah I'm not sure why the NSW AG should get a free pass for being in office only 3 months.

Even if he really is super f*** off busy since the election then surely he has a department staffed with some of the same people as the previous AG and they'd be across the issue and be able to give him the 60 second break down and of NSW's previous stance at these kinds of meetings in order for him to make a decision.
Not to mention that this sort of stuff should have at least been on the radar while they were in shadow government.

I think it's a fine move abstaining. He gave fair reason for the Government to step in and override and not cause embarrassment to the political partys involved.

That was basiclly a yes as far as I can see. It wasn't a No so have no objections as to which way it goes.