And where may I ask are the parents of these children in this article? No I do not have children myself and no doubt there will be more than a few who will say that disqualifies me from saying this, but the first line of defence is now and has always been the parents. Whether or not the games are classified as R18+ is completely immaterial. The real question should be "If such a classification existed and children should play them then where are the parents?" Let us not forget that an R18+ classification makes it illegal for a minor to posses. It is now and has always been the job of a parent to protect their children from and educate their children about not only the law surround such items but also about the possible effects of such items.

If under the current system a parent does not have the required authority or legal capacity to undertake such a task, then I would think that the efforts of the author of this article are misplaced. The efforts of the author should be focused on enabling parents to be able to undertake their responsibilities and removing any blocks under the current system that may be in their way, but not saying that the government should do (or in this case not do) something. To do that is not only laziness in the extreme but also short sighted and immature.

@Author N: And where may I ask are the parents of these children in this article?

I can think of two answers to that question. Answer one is they have enabled the content rating system on the kids gaming console. This will physically prevent the kid from playing games rated highly in sex, violence or whatever. Unlike internet filters these locks work dammed difficult to bypass. All gaming consoles have them.

The alternative answer is more pragmatic. They are off doing whatever they do, because at some level they realise the Elizabeth Handsley's claims about violent games are overblown hyperbole. They know this even though they haven't thought about it much, because when the look around to see all the supposed damage these games have caused they can't find any. The games have only been around 2 decades or so, so where are the government statistics on increasing whatever, where the the newspaper reports of ever rising crime rates in those two decades. So common sense has cut in, and they just don't give a rats.

Which leads me to ponder why Elizabeth Handsley is promulgating this rubbish in the first place. She may have a personal distaste for games and gamers, but geeze does she have to force her warped view of the world down the rest of the countries throats? And that is her end goal here - she wants the law changed to things she finds personally distasteful banned.

What's the matter did you let your daughters play games to keep them occupied and out of your hair while you worked? Dose it anger you that the FACT is that games today have adult themes? Dose the FACT that many of your generation, the baby boomers blindly let kids play any game they want, because of their own lazy parenting. Admitting this failing is hard, isn’t it Elisabeth. It is YOUR fault if your kids play violent games! Perhaps if parents knew what an R18+ game actually was they could prevent it happening BUT THEY DONT!

Urgh- another one of THESE people again.

You know what Liz Hansley, you're absolutely correct!

Consumer rights must be heavily curtailed for the (possible) mental sensibilities of impressionable children accessing material they would not actually legally be allowed to purchase due solely to negligent intervention by parents.

While we're at it, we need to remove all news programs, movies and television shows more extreme than PG, Radio commentators, all comic books with exception to Peanuts/Charlie Brown, and newspapers, in case some young 'victim' stumbles across it and have their minds corrupted!

And don't let anything like zero statistical evidence get in the way of hypothetical safety concerns either! Nor the little snag of logic that video games aimed for adults have been around just as long- and on some devices MUCH LONGER- than games aimed at kids- about two decades to be precise.

Oh, and nice try pretending that "The gaming Lobby" are trying to dress it up as 'protecting kids'. We're not doing that Liz- YOU are.
I'm being up front with you right now- I want an R18 game classification because I want to have the same rights to access a game as I would a move of R18+ (which has had a staggeringly low social impact), and feel that being denied access to them is completely unreasonable and unnecessary.
Simple.

Seriously, where do they get these people?

Elizabeth and other advocates of Conroy's internet handbrake forget that technology has moved on. These R18+ games are easily downloaded over the net through a bit torrent. Often in a free "cracked" version.

For example I found my 12yr son playing a banned version of grand theft auto free which would go straight through Conroy's filter and because is not sold here, there is no incentive for the copy right owners to enforce their copy right.

In essence, its banning has made it free and freely accessible to all australian kids with the nous to use a bit torrent. Just as Conroy's web filter will only work against the technically inept retirees who would not bother in the first place.

Exactly Shadow- it always seems to be those who know the least about technology and media that push for rubbish like this.

And you also raise a rather worrying element of Mr Conroy's legal expertise (the lack thereof).

The only problem I have with violent games is that children are so insulated from genuine violence as to have no concept of it with which to calibrate.

I grew up in a town where fist fights outside pubs were common. It took no imagination to acknowledge that one does not want this to occur to oneself.

An afternoon shooting roos or a night pigging convinces no-one that shooting is "fun". An hour or two spent pulling skins off makes blood far less fascinating.

Even chopping the head off a chook, or cutting the throat of the house cow is quite sufficient to convince a ten-year-old that he "never ever will do that again".

But a year later, when presented with the concept of nothing but vegies and salad for the holiday season, young man rose to the task.

Young man now has a healthy respect for life and for our role in deciding it for those in our care.
Young man has little taste for blood and a healty ability to let it flow when necessity calls, while feeling the costs.

The best way to deter youngsters from killing is to let them be present at the death of animals they love. I hope my grandchildren get the same education.

Games then fall into their trivial place.

Rusty

Very good point Rusty.

Well said Rusty and King Hazza.
Many things are harmful if abused. I'd put TV in this category, many foods and all drugs including alcohol. I would also argue that disconnect from reality and lack of balance is the real problem.
What the authoritarians fail to acknowledge is that the facts show that the "cure" is often much worse than the "problem". Trouble is, the cure often empowers people and gives them feelings akin to "schadenfreude". Never mind that this pleasure is unwarranted and harmful, it comforts the opinionated and "feels" right.
BTW. Gamers have not said that creating R18+ will create better protection: this is a parents job. But it will stop marginal R18+ games from being rated MA15+ because there is no other option. Less confusing wouldn't you say?