Politician Blames Death Threats for Anti-Mature Games Rating Stance
South Australian Attorney General Atkinson standing ground.
The Attorney General for the state of South Australia, Hon Michael Atkinson MP, claimed this week that death threats made directly to him make him unlikely to change his stance on the introduction of an R18+ game classification.
"I'll consider changing my mind about all this when the gaming community decide to behave in a civil fashion and apologise for the theats to me and my family. But I don't plan to back down from the fight. I started my mission and I plan to finish it," he says in a recent interview with GameSpot.
Atkinson's stance is in fact disabling the rest of the country from instigating a full and mature rating system. "It's unlikely I’ll change my stance [on R18+ for games] anytime soon, considering the last death threat I received was pushed under my door at 2am, presumably by someone who doesn’t like my stance on R18+", he says.
It appears that the negative behaviour of some people on the pro side of the debate is merely cementing Atkinson's view, "It was like something out of a Hollywood film--letters cut from magazine headlines arranged together on a page. I receive abusive emails from anonymous senders on a daily basis. I get called a paedophile every single day. But I won’t surrender."
Atkinson has also taken against even the idea of debating the issue, stating that ,"I don't think the discussion paper presents a fair and balanced view of the issue without pictures of the games that would be rated R18+. I think the majority of the population are unfamiliar with these games and without images, they won’t be able to imagine them in their mind's eye. They’ll have no idea how violent or sexually depraved they are, and what kind of torture, drug use, and blood spatter they include."
"I also believe that very few people outside the gaming community will have a say in this public consultation, which will mean an overwhelming response in support of R18+".
"I'll consider changing my mind about all this when the gaming community decide to behave in a civil fashion and apologise for the theats to me and my family. But I don't plan to back down from the fight. I started my mission and I plan to finish it," he says in a recent interview with GameSpot.
Atkinson's stance is in fact disabling the rest of the country from instigating a full and mature rating system. "It's unlikely I’ll change my stance [on R18+ for games] anytime soon, considering the last death threat I received was pushed under my door at 2am, presumably by someone who doesn’t like my stance on R18+", he says.
It appears that the negative behaviour of some people on the pro side of the debate is merely cementing Atkinson's view, "It was like something out of a Hollywood film--letters cut from magazine headlines arranged together on a page. I receive abusive emails from anonymous senders on a daily basis. I get called a paedophile every single day. But I won’t surrender."
Atkinson has also taken against even the idea of debating the issue, stating that ,"I don't think the discussion paper presents a fair and balanced view of the issue without pictures of the games that would be rated R18+. I think the majority of the population are unfamiliar with these games and without images, they won’t be able to imagine them in their mind's eye. They’ll have no idea how violent or sexually depraved they are, and what kind of torture, drug use, and blood spatter they include."
"I also believe that very few people outside the gaming community will have a say in this public consultation, which will mean an overwhelming response in support of R18+".
Comments
YenRug 20 Jan 2010 15:39
1/1
"I also believe that very few people outside the gaming community will have a say in this public consultation, which will mean an overwhelming response in support of R18+".
Errrr, isn't the whole point that it's gamers who want to be able to play 18 rated games, so surely they're the ones who want to have their say about it? If you don't play videogames it's really a non-subject where interest is concerned, unless, of course, you're an interferring busy-body who has no clue what you're talking about...