With the news that hardly any gamers and internet enthusiasts had bothered submitting their views to the Australian Law Reform Commission's public review on Australia's classification system, it emerged that many people were reluctant to do so.

They said that they already felt disenfranchised by the government which had repeatedly ignored and dismissed their widely-supported views in favour of family groups who claimed to speak for the greater Australian public. This was in the wake of hundreds of thousands of votes in polls against the introduction of an internet filter - Senator Conroy instead said that there was widespread support for the filter and cited a small and controversial McNair poll which claimed 80 per cent of the population wanted a filter.

This was followed with the dismissal by Australia's Attorney's General and Minister for Home Affairs, Brendan O'Conner, of some 60,000 Federal Government sponsored public consultation submissions on game classification in which 99.8 per cent of respondents were in favour of having the new classification. In the subsequent SCAG meeting no decision was made and concerns were voiced as to why two non-gaming representatives were asked to represent Australian community views - the Australian Christian Lobby's Jim Wallace and Professor Elizabeth Handsley of the Australian Council for Children and the Media group - both of whom were leading critics of the proposal.

We put it to the ALRC that gamers and those who oppose the internet filter had had enough of government surveys when history showed that the government would end up doing whatever would please ultra-conservative lobby groups.

Here is the full, unedited, response.

The ALRC is an independent agency for law reform and broad-based stakeholder and community consultation lies at the heart of our inquiry process. With all our inquiries, we ensure that views from across the community and related industries contribute to our understanding of the issues, and to the process of formulating proposals for reform. This Classification review is not different.

We have actually started to receive many more submissions, and we expect that as the deadline draws closer, we will continue to receive submissions from a broad section of the community and government, representing many different views and approaches. It may take us a few days for the submissions to appear on the website. Already the ALRC has conducted the first round of face to face consultations with a broad range of stakeholders from the television, film, and new media industries as well as from government, academia and community groups.

This is not the only opportunity for people to have input into the ALRC's Inquiry. We are planning to put out a Discussion Paper in September that will put forward some reform proposals for people to comment on and we will also do a second intense round of face to face consultations. So the process for garnering many different community perspectives will be quite comprehensive and we are confident that our final report, currently due at the end of January, will provide the evidence base and the contextual framework for reform recommendations that reflect the considerations expressed in our terms of reference, as well as the concerns of the community more broadly.

Of course we do acknowledge that as a law reform agency, we are not directly responsible for the way that governments respond to our reports nor whether or not they implement our recommendations. However, we are very confident in our own processes and that they are balanced and inclusive.

The last paragraph is especially telling. The ALRC has no say in the final government decision, but its report promises to be fair, inclusive and balanced.

While there will still be those who believe that individual bias exists within the organisation, ignoring the review, for whatever reason, is a guarantee that your voice will not be heard.

You can make a submission using this link. Note, however, that some people have encountered problems submitting their views with the online form and as such, the ALRC is accepting emailed submissions too.