Leisure Suit Conroy in the land of the game loving R18+ wizards

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 04 February 2011 13:22

Your IT - Entertainment

Could it be that Senator Stephen Conroy, who still wants to blight Australians with a freedom destroying filter, has decided that supporting the R18+ games classification might be one way to salvage his reputation by having done at least one good thing in his ministerial life?

Senator Stephen Conroy, Australia's Minister for Communications, Broadband, the Digital Economy and heck, let's even add in the NBN and the freedom-killing filter, could also soon add the 'Minister supporting the R18+ classification' to his already lengthy, 'Yes Minister-esque' title.

The news comes courtesy of ARN, which conducted an in-depth interview with the minister most often known for being out of his depth, what with all the spams and scams out there in those portals - not including the barely-seen-these-days Minister Peter Garrett, of course.

Claiming to have made his position clear during 2010, the Ministerial Senator told ARN that: 'I've always supported the R-rating and did so long before the Government made its decision. Just because it's a video game doesn't mean it should have a different classification system to movies and all other things.'

He added that: 'I've always argued we should try and have across platforms one system, ie it should be platform neutral. That's why the argument around Internet filtering becomes particularly ferocious because I argue it's just another platform, it's not mystical.'

Wait a minute, Minister Conroy - are you trying to sneak in a reference to your hated filter alongside the highly popular decision to support the R18+ classification?

Of course you're not trying to sneak it in. You simply did it, in a typically political way. I guess we can expect no less from our primary minister of communicatory spin who seeks to politically sin with a filtering sting.

Whether support for an R18+ classification is enough to get Senator Conroy out of the political sin-bin he's been in all this time with freedom loving Australians is yet to be seen.

But at least there's movement at the R18+ station for Australians. Now, all that needs to happen is political action to make R18+ a reality, instead of just another supportive statement that has, as yet, led us no closer to an R18+ Australia - even if the Minister did take the opportunity to sneak in yet more filter spin.