Barbara Biggins OAM CF, is CMA’s Honorary CEO.

A unified classification system – or has the horse bolted?

There’s one thing that CMA would ask the incoming government to do: grasp the nettle and establish a classification system for films and games that is evidence-based and unified.

By unified we mean a uniform set of evidence- and age-based classification guidelines (one for films and one for games) to be used across all screen content platforms, and applied using one uniform classification tool, developed and overseen by one body responsible for all classification.

What we have is an increasingly fragmenting system that doesn’t serve parents and children well.

Once upon a time, Australia had a cooperative and mostly unified classification system for screen media. States agreed that one Commonwealth classification office could classify, on their behalf, all films for public screening using one set of guidelines. Over the years, videocassettes and DVDs were added into the film classification system. An additional set of guidelines was developed in 1996 with the advent of videogames.

The classification categories used for many years were the now well recognised G, PG, M, and R18+, with MA15+ being added in the Keating years.

This system served its purpose reasonably well (though long-criticised for being neither evidence- nor age-based). But with the advent of new media and a drastic increase in product to be classified (especially games and apps), the system was not coping. If product were to be classified and provide viewers with the necessary consumer information, the industry needed to be enabled to classify their own product, and to do so using a “classification tool”. [A classification tool consists of a series of questions designed to ascertain what the correct classification category for each product should be.]

Here’s where the fragmentation set in.

In January 2017, the then Minister for Communications announced the introduction (after a one year pilot) of the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC) tool which was said to produce classifications consistent with Australian categories. This is still in use by most game platforms, though Apple always does its own thing (but has incorporated, in Australia, recent rules about loot boxes and online gambling sites).

Meanwhile, between 2016 and 2018, Netflix’s own movie rating tool was tested and approved. In 2022, Spherex was announced as “the national film classification tool” to be used by self classifiers eg by streamers.

However, in March 2024, the Minister commented on the passage of legislation to allow for more tools, adding to the existing options for classification, saying:

Australia’s classification regime has long required modernisation, and that’s what the Albanese Government’s reform agenda is delivering.

The changes now in effect will help industry and the National Classification Scheme manage the increasing volume of film and computer game content needing classification, so Australians continue to have access to trusted information to inform their viewing choices.

What we have now, in April 2025, is no fewer than four such approved tools: IARC for games, Netflix, Spherex, Amazon for Primevideo (in 2024). Furthermore, industry can apply if they want to develop their own.

Presumably the government has great confidence that this expansion of tools will produce consistent classifications that consumers can rely on. The big problem (apart from the diversification in tools used) is that Australia’s present classification categories depend heavily on a subjective assessment of impact on viewers/players. All the presently approved tools are attempting to measure, through a series of questions, whether such impact is very mild, mild, moderate or strong. Government confidence would seem to be misplaced: if there is room for subjective judgment across four or more tools, then there is all the more scope for variation.

If the system were to be evidence- and age- based, then the development of a series of questions based on the research would produce a far more objective and reliable result. This is well evidenced by the 25 year experience of the Netherlands Kijkwijzer online film classification system and tool. It’s the only system in use there (PEGI is used for games), it’s well maintained and updated by one body, and is greatly appreciated by its users for its multi-level age recommendations.

What Australia needs is a radical rethink and restructure of the national classification system if it is to meet its obligation to protect children from being harmed or disturbed. In its long running review of the present outdated classification system, the government could have chosen that path. Instead, it’s tinkering at the edges, while enabling industry to develop more of its own tools to multiply the opportunities for inconsistencies.

Does the incoming federal government really want to protect children from screen harms? If so, it needs to choose a better path and soon!

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