EveryonePlays: Sample Petitions Mailed to Attorneys-General

[Roland]

EveryonePlays: Sample Petitions Mailed to Attorneys-General – Part 3 by Roland

PALGN Feature: Letter from the VIC Attorney-General

[View Article]

[emech]

"It now appears that the reason for this setback is the overwhelming response from gamers in the public consultation. Of the 59,678 submissions, 86 percent came from retailer EB Games and the pro-R18+ organisation Grow Up Australia. O'Connor's office told GameSpot AU today that ministers had agreed that a broader consultation of the public's views was needed following the dominant response from "interest groups"." http://au.gamespot.com/news/6262044.html
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[Wrath-of-Jupiter]

All that optimism and hope... Can't say its gone, but I think we're all getting that bruding feeling that maybe all our pro-active work has had little effect and hasn't really penetrated this issue enough yet...

I guess the biggest hurdle we're facing is that the people voted in, our representives, who make laws on our behalfs, and make decisions that reflect us.. these law-makers we are meant to trust are in fact NOT gamers.. I would be suprised if these people even play with their children, let alone play games them selves.. I have met with the Federal MP of my electorate, and she by no means can explain the difference between a playstation and an x-box console =/..

Now im not trying to dis every parliamentarian, but the greater majority don't have any place for video games in their lives.. and for this reason, they assume that the people they are representing, are by and large also not gamers, and therefore, not putting in effort for this cause doesn't concern them much =(...

What ever the case.. the main thing now is to hope that they will give this issue a chance and not dismiss it as mentioned in the article emech brought to light, "a risk of interpreting the issue as a niche problem that didn’t deserve the full attention of the government."

[Dreamcazman]

Typical political response is all I can say...

Useless as tits on a bull.

[JackSlack]

Don't get too upset by letters like these. At this point, they're mostly shielding themselves.

I too suspect in the end it won't happen this time. But then, I never thought that at the start. The goal for us this time was to be seen as a credible political demographic, and I think we did that.

(I am, however, disheartened by the delegation of WA politicians who came out hard against it. The entrenchment of this is deeper than I had thought.)

[sobriquet835]

Basically what this letter says is that a state election is nearing and he doesn't want to shoot himself in the foot by taking sides on an issue like this. He doesn't want to alienate gamers, but he equally doesn't want to outrage family groups that are against an R rating. It's typical of politicians, they can never commit to a decision just in case it loses them a few votes. Gutless, and yet I can understand why they'd want to proceed this way, seeing as politics can be such a fickle field to work in.

[Fly]

He's not showing bias is all, he's come out before and stated he's all for it but the timing is such that any statement would be construed and taken out of context, which in legalities like this is effective political death, this is by and large why replies are measured and rather dismissive, however in this particular letter take not to what is actually being said, in specific the part about meeting;

He see's no point to meet for the hand over because another member had already agreed, if he had no intention whatsoever this would not be stated more than once and be brushed off as "inappropriate", instead it was stated multiple times that the hand over would not happen due to Mr O'Connor.

The best thing that could happen is that ending statement in regards to passion to the cause, that is something not once have I seen on a statement from any member I've written to, so to me, that shows that the message is getting across.

[Roland]

[BumJab]

^ page 18 of the PDF at http://www.ag.gov.au/gamesclassification
shows the 13 WA MP's that have come out against..
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[JP2daMC]

Come on PALGN, you need to know more about the issue you are spruiking than the readers!
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“Committed to gaming mediocrity and no platinum trophies.”

[Roland]

[Timu]

I wouldn't be too worried. I actually think this time round we have done a good job of putting a solid case forward without letting it get sidetracked into other more hairy issues like censorship and freedom of expression. But for anyone who has ever worked in the public sector, (as I briefly have) the wheels of government turn so slowly sometimes you start to doubt they move at all. Throw political distractions like elections in the mix, and it might even seem that things go backward before they go forward.

Im still confident this will get up eventually, I'm just not holding my breath for it to happen soon.