Meeting with Censorship Ministers about video games

3/11/93

Draft guidelines for a system of classification for video games in Australia will be the main topic of a meeting of the nation's Censorship Ministers in Sydney tomorrow.

Attorney General Cheryl Edwardes, the Minister responsible for Censorship in Western Australia, said a classification system for video and computer games was essential to ensure there were proper safeguards in place to regulate the availability of such games in the community, particularly for young children.

"The popularity and easy access by children to these games means that some measures must be established to prevent exposure to extremely violent and pornographic material," Mrs Edwardes said.

"Since I first raised the issue of video game regulation at the last ministerial meeting in June, it has been decided that a classification system and industry code of conduct would be developed by the Office of Film and Literature Classification.

"Following extensive consultation with the community and the computer game industry, that has now been done and the draft classification guidelines and code will be discussed in Sydney tomorrow.

"However, I will be keen to ensure that whatever the final form of the classification system, there are strict penalties in place for those who breach it.

"Of course, the technology relating to computer games is different from that of films or videos and this will be reflected in the wording of the various classification categories."

Mrs Edwardes said the technology surrounding computer games was often 'alien' to parents who purchased the games for their children.

"Parents might go and purchase a pack of 30 or 40 games for their children and be unaware that some of the games are extremely violent or may even contain pornographic material," she said.

"For this reason, there needs to be a regulation system which gives people confidence that what they buy for their children is acceptable and appropriate for the age group concerned."

Media contact:  Casey Cahill 222 9595