Atkinson Down, R18+ Soon to be a Reality.

Some days you just wake up to good news:

R18+ video games are a step closer to being allowed in Australia following the resignation of South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson.

Mr Atkinson’s decision to leave the front bench means he will no longer be in a position to vote on changes to the country’s classification system, including the introduction of an R18+ rating for games.

The decision came after voters gave the Rann Government a kicking in last weekend’s state election. Mr Atkinson won his seat of Croydon comfortably but still suffered a 14.3 per cent swing against him, according to ABC reports.

Whilst a lot of gamers out there were hoping for an epic dethroning of Atkinson from his position by the Gamers 4 Croydon party who thrust themselves into the limelight on a single issue it was always far more likely that he’d walk away with a comfortable win. However you’d be forgiven for not expecting that Atkinson would step down after he was elected (I sure didn’t) but in retrospect its classic politics. Remember during the last federal election where there were rumours circulating that John Howard was planning to retire part way through his term if he was reelected. He had already lost the election thanks to his bungled Work Choices legislation but the notion that a vote for Howard was actually a vote for Costello didn’t win them any favours. Naturally if Atkinson had announced he would retire from the front bench before the election you can almost guarantee he wouldn’t of won his seat again, especially with the large swing against him regardless.

So with Atkinson out of the way and the next meeting of the attorney-generals in April it looks like we might see the introduction of a R18+ classification to Australia sometime in the near future. There’s still a lot of work to be done in this area (How can the games be displayed in retail stores? Will there be required ID checks? Etc.) however with none of the representatives agreeing with Atkinson’s stance it looks like a sure thing that the classification will be put through. Couple this with the fact that if Aktinson’s replacement does give R18+ the tick they’re almost guaranteed to be looked upon more favourably, to the tune of 3.7%.

That’s probably the biggest surprise of the election as Gamers 4 Croydon managed to grab a considerable percentage of the votes. Whilst they’re far from a single issue party their claim to fame was the push for a R18+ rating. Atkinson did his best to cut them off with crazed legislation like banning posters during the election campaign (the cheapest and one of the most effective ways for smaller parties to get noticed) but they still managed to make quite an impression on the people of South Australia. They’ve stated that they’ll be undergoing a transformation soon to ditch the direct association with gamers in their party name (as the issue will be pretty much settled in the coming months) but they will still carry on with the G4C tag. For all the work they’ve put into it I’m sure we’ll continue to hear from them for a long time to come and I hope they keep their progressive technological bent.

For what its worth I’m happy this thorn in my side will be disappearing soon. Whilst I was only marginally affected by the lack of a R18+ rating (Curse you Australian Left 4 Dead 2!) it was still something that needed to be rectified in order to make all entertainment mediums in Australia as equal as they should be. The next few months will see a flurry of activity to get this whole issue off the drawing board and into reality and it really couldn’t come any sooner.