The X18+ rating was introduced on February 1st 1984 to cover Hardcore. However, soon after its introduction all the States moved to outlaw the sale or rental of any feature that fell into this classification. Currently it is only legal to buy or rent X18+ rated features in the Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory. It is however legal for people in the States to mail-order X18+ product from the ACT or NT.

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In 2000 the Industry agreed to a tightening of the Guidelines providing that the X18+ would be scrapped in favour of an NVE (Non-Violent Erotica) rating. It was hoped that this would be much more acceptable to the States. Unfortunately, this backfired and the X18+ was retained, whilst the guidelines were tightened. They went from this:

PRE 2000
No Depiction of sexual violence, coercion or non-consent of any kind is permitted in this classification. Material which can be accommodated in this classification includes explicit depictions of sexual acts between consenting adults and mild non-violent fetishes.

to this:

POST 2000
This classification is a special and legally restricted category which contains only sexually explicit material. That is material which contains real depictions of actual sexual intercourse and other sexual activity between consenting adults.

No depiction of violence, sexual violence, sexualised violence or coercion is allowed in the category. It does not allow sexually assaultive language. Nor does it allow consensual depictions which purposefully demean anyone involved in that activity for the enjoyment of viewers.

Fetishes such as body piercing, application of substances such as candle wax, ‘golden showers’, bondage, spanking or fisting are not permitted.

As the category is restricted to activity between consenting adults, it does not permit any depictions of non-adult persons, including those aged 16 or 17, nor of adult persons who look like they are under 18 years. Nor does it permit persons 18 years of age or over to be portrayed as minors.

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So the Sale and Rental of Hardcore features remain banned in all States, whilst the distributors based in the ACT and NT can supply product to them by mail order. This has however lead to a situation where many adult shops in some States simply ignore the Classifications altogether. Consequently much more extreme material can be found for sale or rental there, than in the ACT where Hardcore is legal, but strictly policed. 

For a far more detailed history of X Rated films in Australia I suggest you read Gareth Griffith's excellent 2003 Briefing Paper published by the NSW Parliamentary Library. Titled X Rated Films and the Regulation of Sexually Explicit Material, it provides a detailed and balanced overview of the X18+ rating.

Details of 200+ Adult features that have been Refused Classification by the OFLC since January 2000. Some were later edited by Distributors to achieve X18+ ratings, others were abandoned.

The major distributors of Adult Features are all based in the ACT and include, Gallery Entertainment, Adultshop.com (which includes AXIS and Calvista Australia), and Blue Diamond who deal in Gay Hardcore. The majority of the X18+ rated films would have been submitted by one of these companies.

Films that had been pre-censored and submitted in the hope of achieving an R18+ are only included if they then received an RC rating.

 We have no way of knowing  the number of titles that are not even considered by Distributors because they are too controversial. Since the change in the guidelines there has been a decrease in the amount of European Hardcore that has been picked up for distribution. At the same time the quantity of tamer American product has increased.

Due to it being illegal to rent or sell X18+ within any of the States, there exists a market censored R18+ Adult product. These are the only kind of Adult title that you will (legally) find for rent in your local video store. These particular tapes have been very heavily censored to remove all of the Hardcore Sex. This can mean the censoring of anything up to an hour or more of footage. To make things easier I have not included these titles. Quite simply, if it's a Hardcore feature and rated R18+, then it's definitely censored. 

The other main government agencies that submit films to the OFLC are the Police (WA, NSW, NT, Vic, SA, Federal), the Qld Office of Fair Trading, and the Australian Customs Service. Apart from the ACS, all the other submissions can be found in the OFLC database. They are not covered here. 

Hardcore films were not legalised in Australia until the introduction of the X18+ rating on February 1st 1984. Adult  titles were classified by the board prior to this date, but these R18+ rated titles had been pre-cut by distributors to remove all traces of hardcore sex. The site does not contain any such titles submitted between November 1971 and January 1984.

Hardcore titles submitted between February 1984 to December 1999 are not covered at present.