Forgot to say last night about the burden expansions to Australia's classification scheme would have on artists, who would have to submit their work for review and pay to have it rated. A similar situation recently threatened to stifle the app industry for smartphones in Australia, with the prospect of having to have those rated before sale. According to the current OFLC fee structure, geting a computer game rated costs $470 at cheapest.

If a similar fee structure is implemented for the fine arts, I wouldn't be surprised to see those disappear or go underground. The best case scenario would probably be sponsored exhibitions becoming more expensive to stage. Not that I know so much about these areas of the arts - maybe I am fortuitously mistaken?

On the related note of Australia's video game classification stopping at MA15+ [2] (meaning anything that would be restricted to adults only is instead refused classification unless an edited, less 'adult' version is produced [1]), I've been told that is largely due to South Australian Attorney-General vetoing every attempt to introduce an adult classification into the scheme. Mind, he retired in 2010 so hopefully there will be some action on this soon. Better that than new excuses.

[1] Or the title is released at a lower rating than it 'ought' to have, thereby destroying the minds of countless highschoolers.

[2] Since these posts pass through three sites, one of which so far as I am aware does not support LJ-style name links, I find myself avoiding referring to people by name. Should really resolve a policy for that.

When I started applying Australia's film classification standards to stories I read I was a bit curious and a bit hoping to highlight some absurdity in the system. More than one of my favourite stories, it turns out, would be illegal to sell in this country if they were film rather than print, at least by my reading of the standards. Not, as many reading this will know, that that's hugely difficult to achieve. But now it looks like something similar is being seriously proposed - potentially to require art in Australia to be rated by a board and, if deemed unsuitable, according to a potentially contracting standard of suitability, to declare it unfit to be shown.

Hopefully this has no chance of being recommended by the actual review later this year, nor of going into effect. Hopefully this is only the news take an opportunity to stir up a flurry of panic and protest, but Australia already has a bad history of restrictive censorship.

The best word I have to describe the Australian government's position on matters of rating and access is infantilising. Really, what else would you call a proposal to censor the nation's internet of anything more risque than a 15-year-old can legally see in a movie theatre? Refusing classification to any film depicting full-frontal nudity would be another step to really, truly banning all Australians from any media conservative Christians think is unsuited for children.

I am rather fed up with people seeking authority to 'protect' everyone else from what they deem immoral. If it's a matter of religion, then that's down to the individual. If someone believes my soul is imperilled by nudity or violence or images of people enjoying sex, then that is between me and your fictitious god. If you think society overall is endangered by access to such material, then you need to first show compelling evidence that its availability prohibits the free and safe daily life of the people. Otherwise we've no business banning media unless mayhaps it was produced by the actual abuse of or harm to actual living persons[1].

[1] Hint: BDSM is not necessarily abuse.

["But the chief of staff of the Australian Christian Lobby, Lyle Gavin, said there were dangers to children everywhere because of the failure of the classification scheme. ''Arguments against tighter classification measures and using technology will be mounted from the extreme left and the extreme right of politics,'' he told the inquiry. ''On the right, the nanny state argument will be applied against tougher measures and the use of filtering technology. On the left, it will be argued that adults should be able to see whatever they want, even claiming photos of naked children have artistic merit.''"

Hint 2: predicting your opponents' responses does not actually constitute a refutation of them]

Did some quick checking about where women can serve in the ADF. According to The Australian (framed as a favourable comparison with Israel, because that's what I am given to understand The Australian does), the roles women are currently banned from are special forces, artillery, airfield defence, clearance diving, armour, and front line infantry.

Just saw Barnaby Joyce (leader of the National Party) on camera saying he would feel uncomfortable about shooting a woman. in context of potentially opening up all front-line positions in the ADF to women. But surely he is not planning to go to war with Australia, and if those the ADF does engage in combat with, surely this is to their advantage?

He also said he wouldn't want to see a lady shot, but those don't seem like very good arguments to me. Why should the military career paths of women be limited according to whether men are comfortable with their choices?

Nor do I agree with implicit putting of women on a pedestal to be protected. That sort of reasoning mainly benefits men and social conservatism, enabling the policing of whether women are sufficiently worthy of their pedestal and punishing those judged to fall short of the standards set for them by men.

It seems all about what men are comfortable with as a debate, and what men decide on behalf of women, rather than what women might decide or want for themselves, or see themselves as capable of. But I suppose that is what it is about, getting men to realise and accept women as equal partners in all areas of life, rather than possessions or unhuman idols to guard.

Whether an opposition politician would feel personally comfortable shooting a woman should have no bearing on whether women are barred from work they are willing and capable of doing.

This past weekend, a state election. Everyone knew the approximate outcome in advance: after 16 years of Labor, historic landslide Liberal / National coalition victory. I had hoped voter antipathy might mitigate that somewhat, I know I wasn't the only one thinking perhaps a recapitulation of last year's national might be a good thing. But it didn't turn out that way at all, and I didn't vote for either of the major parties because I don't trust them, although since we end up with them I try to hope.

Walking to the polls, one of the folks handing out party 'how to vote' pamphlets recognised me as working at the library, and it didn't seem an appropriate moment to explain that being a volunteer rather than someone who receives income from the library in recompense for the work done there, I maybe can't quite claim to be 'someone who works there' (even though I go there and perform work for some hours each week). Apart from his being there on behalf of the Christian Democrats and thus The Enemy, that was a bit heartwarming and left me wondering why couldn't it have been someone else.

They, by the way- It was not so prominently covered on what I saw of the election night, but from a few days later it appears control of the state's upper house may no longer lie with the Greens, and instead could be in the hands of the Christian Democrats and the Shooters and Fishers party.

That worries me more than the lower house result, which had been all but foregone the past four years.