The Australian classification system is under review with the first deadline hitting on 28 January.

When it comes to protecting children and community standards, the authorities are asleep at the wheel.

For instance, Donald McDonald, the Classification Board Chair, has repeatedly failed to explain the presence of sexual reward in computer games and simulated paedophilia in films, despite both being banned.

This is why ACL welcomes the review of the National Classification System announced by the Attorney General before Christmas.

While the system has been left behind by new media - a key reason for this probe - any review should also take in outdoor advertising and the self-governing television stations whose constant boundary pushing has left very little public and prime time space as a respite for the necessary innocence of childhood.

Of course those who make a living from exploiting people, particularly young women, along with those who produce violent and sexualized video games, want to see the rules loosened further.

Somehow they want us to believe that lifting current bans on extreme interactive violence and gratuitous sex will better protect children.

Despite this argument being run strongly in the lead-up to last December's meeting of censorship ministers, they baulked at lifting the bar on R18+ computer games when they were shown video of the sort of material such a rating would allow into Australia.

Members of the public supposedly expressing overwhelming support in opinion polls for lifting the ban of extreme interactive computer game violence might also baulk if they too could see what the State and Federal Attorneys General saw.

It was very clear to me that the great majority of AGs were in a state of bemusement that anyone could want to make or play many of these games and particularly those proposed for an R18+ rating, and many said so.

It is clear that the meeting failed to get support for the R18 classification as a result.

The claims that the MA15+ rating for games contains a number of games that should be classified higher is simply an admission of a failed system.

Yet the Sex Party's Fiona Patten, representing the commercial interests the of the sex industry is already looking to push the bar and the profits further with an X rating.

It is naïve to think that opening the gate to more extreme material through X and R ratings will stop this material from falling in to the hands of children.

Just before Christmas, Internet Service Providers in the United Kingdom acknowledged they can filter pornography from the converging media of internet, phone and TV, despite years of denial like their Australian counterparts.

It is amazing how the threat of legislation or enforcement can advance technology!

However perhaps even more pointedly, the United States is attributing the violence in the language of politicians to creating the environment that resulted in the Tucson killings.

Bill Clinton went as far as to say: "what we say falls equally on the hinged and unhinged alike".

How much more what we play!

The Classification system is being reviewed and public comments on the terms of reference are open until 28 January. You can register yours, here. Jim Wallace is Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby.