Barbara Scott
WA State
Member of the Legislative Council
Liberal Party
Electorate: South Metropolitan
Barbara Scott, the Liberal Shadow Minister For Children; Culture and
The Arts called for the games HITMAN: CONTRACTS, and MANHUNT to be banned.
Complaints from W.A. eventually saw the game MANHUNT reviewed and then
banned.
Parliament of Western Australia
House: Legislative Council- Second Reading
Date: Thursday, 19 August 2004
Member: SCOTT MS B
Subject: CHILDREN AND COMMUNITY SERVICES BILL 2003
Page: 5264b - 5266a / 1
HON BARBARA SCOTT (South Metropolitan)Only last week the public of Western Australia became aware - although the Opposition knew - that this Government had given away to the federal Government the ability to classify videos, films and television programs that are unacceptable and inappropriate viewing for young children. I wrote to the Minister for Justice and for Police and Emergency Services to see whether she would consider reclassifying the video game Manhunt, which I watched last week. I was appalled to see the violence in that video game. We know that that sort of video game violence can breed violence. I will not speak too much about that video game. It is rated MA 15+ but it could be played at home by children younger than 15. A minister of this Government has wiped her hands of it, saying that it is not the State Government’s responsibility. Any State Government can retain that ability; it does not have to be passed to the Office of Film and Literature Classification. However, this State Government is quite happy to hand over that responsibility to the federal Government.
Parliament
of Western Australia
House: Legislative Council-
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Date: Thursday, 26 August 2004
Member: SCOTT MS B; PRESIDENT; CHANCE
Subject: VIDEO GAMES HITMAN: CONTRACTS AND MANHUNT?
Page: 5696c - 5697a / 1
678. Hon BARBARA SCOTT to the minister representing the Minister for Justice:
I refer to her responsibility under the State Censorship Act and to The West Australian dated 13 September 2003, with articles titled “Game linked to crime spree” and “Violence is the name of the game”.
(1) Is the minister aware of the video games titled Hitman: Contracts and Manhunt?
(2) Is the minister aware that the nature of the games is to murder people and avoid detection?
(3) If not, will the minister make herself aware of the nature of the games?
Hon Tom Stephens: The Liberal Party has done more to promote those games than anyone else. Nobody knew about them before.
Hon BARBARA SCOTT: The member should read the hundreds of e-mails I have received in support of our move to have them banned. I have had hundreds of e-mails from Western Australians concerned about them.
Several members interjected.
The PRESIDENT: Order!
Hon BARBARA SCOTT: Thank you, Mr President.
(4) Will the minister restrict access to the games by ensuring that they are not available to be played in prisons and youth detention centres?
(5) If not, why not?
(6) Is the minister aware that New Zealand has banned Manhunt?
(7) Will the minister request the Office of Film and Literature Classification to ban both these video games?
(8) If not, why not?
Hon KIM CHANCE replied: I thank the member for some notice of this question. I provide the answer on behalf of the minister assisting the Minister for Justice.
(1)-(2) Yes.
(3) Not applicable.
(4) The Department of Justice advises that the games are not permitted in prisons or detention centres.
(5) Not applicable.
(6) Yes.
(7)-(8) The Minister for Justice advises that she has written to the commonwealth Attorney-General seeking a review of the computer game Manhunt. The minister is seeking a copy of the classification board’s reasons for its decision on the computer game Hitman: Contracts before deciding what action to take.
Several members interjected.
The PRESIDENT: Order!
The parliamentary secretary bench seems to be suffering from neglect, by the sound coming from it. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will ask one of them a question.
Hon Norman Moore: I was hoping to get a copy of that game so that I could work out how to do it!
***
Under the leader Colin Barnett, the WA Liberal party took the following policies to the 2005 State election.
Quoted from:
Coalition will restore State’s censorship
powers
December 5th 2004
A Coalition Government will take back the right to ban video games, movies
and other publications the community believes are overly violent or
contain content that could harm Western Australian children.
Launching the Coalition position statement Protecting Our Children: A
Commonsense Approach to Classification and Censorship with Shadow
Children’s Minister Barbara Scott today, Opposition Leader Colin Barnett
said Western Australia should have the power to overrule national Office
of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) ratings in the interests of
protecting WA children.
The commitment also includes:
· A plan to present a formal request to the Federal Government and State
Attorneys General to change guidelines for computer game classifications
to prevent children accessing material containing excessive violence or
gratuitous sexual imagery.
· Lobbying for the introduction of G rating sub-categories to ensure
material within the classification contains age-based advisory categories
to help parents more accurately choose age-appropriate material for their
children.
· A plan to formally request the removal of an allowance for
“discreet” drug use and nudity to be “justified by context” in
some G-rated material.
· A range of proposals to improve restrictions to the access of
inappropriate Internet material by children.
“By taking back WA’s censorship powers, the Coalition is putting in
place a safety net that allows the State Government to immediately deal
with inappropriate publications that fall through the cracks of the
national censorship program,” Mr Barnett said.
“The Coalition recognises that there is merit in the Federal censorship
system but there is little doubt that material is sometimes released with
inappropriate classifications that allow it to be accessed by children.
What the Coalition is proposing is a system that can deal with that
eventuality swiftly.”
Mr Barnett said a prime example of why the State needed censorship powers
was the MA15+ rating of the Manhunt video game, which encouraged players
to kill in the most gruesome and violent manner possible.
It took lobbying from Mrs Scott before the video game was declassified so
that it could not be sold or rented to WA children.
“Clearly the classification given to this video game was inappropriate,
yet it took months for it to be withdrawn. Under the changes the Coalition
would introduce, the State Government could have declassified the game
immediately and stopped more WA children being exposed to it,” Mr
Barnett said.
Mrs Scott said that as well as re-introducing the State’s censorship
powers, the Coalition would ask State and Federal Attorneys General to
alter the guidelines for the classification of computer games to prevent
children accessing games that contained excessive violence or gratuitous
sexual imagery.
It would also lobby for the introduction of aged based advisory categories
such as G, G8+ and G13+.
“In 2003, Attorney General Jim McGinty supported the introduction of new
classification guidelines that allow drug use and nudity to be displayed
within the limits of G ratings,” Mrs Scott said.
“The allowance for “discreet” drug use and for nudity to be
“justified by context”, as set out by the OFLC is inappropriate for
viewing designed largely for children.
“The introduction of G rating subcategories will allow the G rating to
better cater for the varying developmental levels of children under the
age of 15 and restore parental confidence in the classification.”
The Coalition will also monitor increasing use of the Internet and its
impact on underage consumers by:
· Initiating a process of constant review to identify controls that can
effectively restrict children’s access to inappropriate material on the
internet;
· Examining options to provide families with the means of restricting
children’s access to inappropriate material on the Internet, including
software subsidies and education campaigns for children and parents;
· Implementing formal monitoring of web marketing practices aimed at
underage consumers;
· Developing and regulating a Code of Practice for the publication of
adult oriented material on the Internet from within Western Australia; and
· Maintaining pressure at a national and international level to establish
and enforce standards that ensure children are protected from exposure to
inappropriate materials on the Internet.
“The community expects leadership from Government on these issues and
that is exactly what the Coalition plans to provide,” Mr Barnett said.
The Protecting Our Children: A Commonsense Approach to Classification and
Censorship position statement is available on the Leader of the
Opposition’s website at www.loop.wa.gov.au.
Jack Snelling
SA State
Member of the House of Assembly
Australian Labor Party
Electorate: Playford
The following statement was made by Jack Snelling (ALP) in the South Australian House of Assembly on February 17th 2005. The former Deputy Head of the Classification Board he refers to is David Haines. Mr Snelling claims:
"It is remarkable that, upon retirement, someone who has held a position as an independent umpire takes up a position as such a lobbyist.
There is nothing at all remarkable about this. How many government ministers have left their positions to take up such roles?
Mr SNELLING (Playford): Late last year, along with the member for Florey and the federal member for Makin, Trish Draper, I attended the Christmas break-up of the Valley View Neighbourhood Watch. None of us had been invited to speak and, given the nature of the event, I thought that fair enough. However, that did not stop Ms Draper, who promptly invited herself to speak on the then imminent release of the French art-house film, Anatomy of Hell, of which she was rather critical. I am not of the opinion that adults should be able to watch whatever they want, and I think that the government has a role in censoring films that offend public decency. However, what flowed from Ms Draper was an extraordinary attack on the state government and the Attorney-General, in particular, for not using his powers to ban the film in South Australia.
I think that there are good reasons for the state's not striking out and taking a `going it alone' approach to censorship, the main reason being that, because of DVDs and videos, these films can be moved across state borders very easily. One has only to look at the number of X-rated or non-violent erotica films that constantly come across into our state from Canberra. What I find remarkable is that, while criticising the state government, Ms Draper, who is a member of the federal government (which has the prime responsibility for classification and censorship), seems to have done nothing to approach the federal government on these issues. I wonder what she has done to lobby the federal Attorney-General about the personnel who comprise the federal Classification Board probably not much.
Recently, I was amazed to learn that a former deputy head of the Classification Board has taken up a position as a lobbyist for the Eros Foundation, which is one of the main promoters of pornography. It is remarkable that, upon retirement, someone who has held a position as an independent umpire takes up a position as such a lobbyist. However, my main grievance is Ms Draper's getting up at community functions, at which she was not invited to speak, and making political attacks on the state government on matters for which the federal government has prime responsibility.