Australia's Classification system, the backbone of Senator Conroy's internet filter and games ratings, is coming up for review. In the run up to the public submissions deadline we'll be publishing various opinions. Here, the Australian Sex Party's Fiona Patten lays out some groundwork and gives her views on the system.

Let's Have an 'F Rating' for a F**ked Classification System.

Last month's decision by the State and Commonwealth Attorney's General (SCAG) to again deny Australian gamers an R rating for their fav pastime, was entirely predictable. They've been playing this cat and mouse game with adult classifications for over 25 years with X rated films. Gamers in Australia should not be fooled into thinking that 'it will happen next time'. It won't. In five years they will still be waiting and the Ministers will still be promising.

SCAG has probably been the most conservative cross party grouping of senior politicians ever to exist in Australia. The recent changes have altered nothing. Rob Hulls has exited on behalf of Victoria and he has been replaced by an 'out' Christian, Robert Clark. John Rau has replaced the 'high Anglican' Michael Atkinson in SA and Christian Porter is the newbie for WA. The conservative Christian A-G in NSW, John Hatzistagos, who recently became the first ever A-G to give police censorship powers, is unfortunately still there although he will be removed at the next NSW state election in March. But don't hold your breath that the new NSW Liberal A-G will be any better because it will be yet another born again Christian - Greg Smith. So why is that men of religious persuasion get such a good run on SCAG? Where are all the civil libertarian Attorneys like Lionel Murphy, Gareth Evans and Daryl Williams

Although the South Australian John Rau is on record as saying he does not support his predecessor, Michael Atkinson's dogged refusal to allow an R rating for computer games, both he and Porter are strong social conservatives. When SCAG refused the R rating for games last time it was said that it was only because of Atkinson's intransigence. So why didn't they approve them at the next meeting when Atkinson had been removed and replaced with an A-G who said he was different? Go figure. Curiously, I think that Robert Clark may well end up being one of the more considered and logical members of the group in the months ahead.

The 80% of Australians who supported an R rating in the polls should be pretty concerned that before their last meeting on games, SCAG allowed the Australian Christian Lobby's, Jim Wallace to address them on the issue. They also allowed another anti games campaigner, Dr Elizabeth Handley to address them.

When I tried to address SCAG a few years ago on censorship issues I was told that the group did not entertain lobbyists of any kind. Clearly things have changed and now if you represent a Christian view you get in. This represents an appalling misuse of power and engages Australia's Attorney's General in discriminatory behaviour which could well be illegal if it was someone else doing it. If SCAG wants to be seen as discharging their duties to the people of Australian in a fair and unbiased way then they must now invite lobbyists from the gamers and adult industry to address them at their next meeting.

Gamers have to reclaim the middle ground that all the polls are showing they occupy. What they have to do now is what the X rated video/DVD industry did after waiting for over a decade for sensible and modern law reform on their issues. They told the censorship ministers to stick it up their collective bums and 'come and get us'. This means getting hold of R rated games and simply starting to sell them out to the general public in a form of 'civil disobedience'.

Civil disobedience only works when you have a number of factors in place. First you have to have the majority of public opinion behind you. Second, you need to be selling a product that a good percentage of police, judges and lawyers have seen or purchase themselves and who have a good number of family and friends who do the same. Third, you need a national network of retailers who will hold the line in the face of the first prosecution or two and who are prepared to fund the occasional 'not guilty' plea on as well.

These three factors are all in place for your garden-variety X rated film and I suspect that they are as well for R rated games. Civil disobedience on X rated films means that adult retailers are busted on a regular basis but on almost every occasion, the police do so with their heads bowed and a mumbled apology for what they are about to do. This is because it is not illegal to purchase an X rated film and neither would it be illegal to purchase or possess an R rated computer game in Australia. Only to sell it. So many of the police officers who turn up to raid an adult shop are actually customers of the shop or they have someone in their family or circle of friends who is. Ditto with magistrates. Under these circumstances its very hard for a government to eradicate a product although as we have seen with X rated films, bans that drive a product into the 'grey' market often have the effect of loosening up the category. No doubt that if we saw R rated computer games being sold semi-legally through adult shops, video libraries and computer games stores, that quite a few X rated games would sneak through into the system. With a non violent erotic, X rating, allowed for films, this may not be such a bad thing for the computer games market overall.

In fact it's the same argument that the federal Censorship Minister Brendan O'Connor has been using to push for an R games rating, That is, that by allowing an R rating, less adult content will be squeezed into the current upper rating of MA and that means that kids will have less opportunity to see adult material. If an X rating is allowed or is present alongside the R rated games, then there is the potential for people who don't like violence alongside their sex to have their cake and eat it too.

The Classification system is being reviewed and public comments are open until 28 January. You can register yours, here. Fiona Patten is President of the Australian Sex Party.

Update: The Twitter hashtag for discussing the classification review is #clasrev.