Australia should ditch its censorship of certain fetishes and some instances of violence in pornography, according to a review that could open the way to everything from wax fetishes to pirate pornography.
On Wednesday the Albanese government released a review of the classification system handed to the Morrison government three years ago, promising to prioritise reforms to tackle in-game gambling.
Video games containing simulated gambling should be classified at least R18+, which are restricted to adults, while games containing paid loot boxes should be rated M, according to the communications minister, Michelle Rowland.
Rowland announced the commonwealth will seek agreement from the states and territories for the new classifications but has so far not responded in detail to the other recommendations of the report.
Neville Stevens, who completed the classification review in May 2020, recommended that “in the films guidelines, the absolute prohibitions on legal fetishes and violence (where violence is unrelated to sex) within the X18+ category should be removed.”
Australia has long refused to classify films combining sex and violence, effectively banning films such as Ken Park, Larry Clark’s tale of degraded skatepark life, and pornography that depicts violence separate to sex.
The Reason party leader, Fiona Patten, raised the issue in 2010 when the Rudd government proposed filtering the internet, complaining that even “mainstream adult films” such as Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge had been banned because of depictions of pirates having sword-fights.
The removal of the ban on fetishes was backed by the Classification Board, the Eros Association and the Scarlet Alliance.
“Departmental research into attitudes towards refused classification content shows that the community is unconcerned about depictions of most fetishes, as long as there is consent, and no serious harm is inflicted,” the review found.
“Similarly, depictions of violence that are not directly linked to sexual activity do not appear to be of particular concern.”
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Jarryd Bartle, an associate lecturer at RMIT university and former policy adviser at Eros, said the X18+ guidelines set “a pretty low bar” for the exclusion of fetishes.
For example, under current rules the depiction of consensual “dripping of candle wax” on a person’s body would be banned, he said.
The review also recommended that “online platforms should be required to employ and promote the best available technological barriers to minors accessing R18+ content.”
That recommendation added to calls from a parliamentary inquiry to require identity and age verification in order to view pornography websites.
The eSafety commissioner has developed a plan for how to achieve age verification, which is now being considered by the government.
Rowland said: “The Stevens review demonstrated that the national classification scheme is out-of-date and not fit for the modern media environment.”
In the first tranche of reforms the government will update the classification system to respond to the large volume of online content that is not compliant with the current scheme.
The government intends to expand options for industry to self-classify content, making it simpler and more cost effective for the film, streaming and games industries to classify their content in line with Australian classification guidelines.
Rowland said this and changes related to in-game gambling simulations would be done before the government “considers more comprehensive reform, informed by the review’s recommendations”.
“The government will consult with industry and other key stakeholders on broader reform of the scheme in due course,” she said.
