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

One win from overly-long review of classification

CMA has had a big win.  The treatment of scary content under the National Classification Scheme (NCS) is to be a focus in the next stage of the revision of the NCS.  CMA has been the main voice, arguing for years, that scary content has a big impact on children and deserved special care and attention. Think movies such as  It, Venom, Annabelle, or M3GAN, and their posters and trailers.

However, while attention is now to be paid to scary content, it is disappointing, that the government has not opted to radically revise the NCS. This is the time it could have grasped the nettle to establish one uniform set of evidence- and age-based classification guidelines 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.  Experience in Europe with countries that use the Netherlands classification system, Kijkwijzer, which has the above attributes, demonstrates  that consumers of that system appreciate the consistency that results and show satisfaction.  This isn’t a pipe dream:  it can and has been done.

But back to Australia.  An 8-week public consultation process was held by the Department of Communications, between April and May 2024 to inform the development of options for the second stage of reform. One of the findings from this process was that the Guidelines for the Classification of Films 2012, Guidelines for the Classification of Computer Games 2023 and Guidelines for the Classification of Publications 2005 (classification guidelines) should be updated to better reflect current areas of community concern.

The Department has now announced that

it has procured the Social Research Centre to draft a functional update of the classification guidelines, informed by contemporary research into harms, community standards and recommendations from previous reviews of the Scheme. Some areas of consideration include but are not limited to:

• reviewing types of content depicted at the X18+ classification
• harmonising the Guidelines for the Classification of Films 2012 with the guidelines used by broadcasters
• treatment of scary content for children, and mental health and suicide themes
• aligning classification standards of computer games with those for films

Any proposed changes to the classification guidelines will go through further public consultation and require agreement with the Commonwealth and all state and territory governments. Details on further consultation will be provided as the work develops.

This process is expected to take up to a year.

CMA will keep up its advocacy during the coming consultation to ensure that the rules are changed to align with the evidence about children’s needs.

*************************************