Atkinson slams Gamers4Croydon

It's no secret that South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson is frequently challenged by gamers about his stance on the R18+ rating for video games in Australia. But far from the angry letters and e-mails the Attorney-General is used to receiving, a group of gamers have decided to tackle him in a new arena: the political sphere.

Atkinson is now being challenged on his home turf by a new political party dedicated to seeing R18+ introduced. Gamers4Croydon, a 650-strong party set up by campaigner David Doe in September last year, is planning to run its own candidate against Atkinson in the seat of Croydon in the upcoming South Australian election.

Atkinson has held the seat of Croydon for the past 20 years--it is the Labor Party's second safest electorate in the state. According to the mission statement on its Web site, Gamers4Croydon's driving reason for existence is to "exert pressure on the Attorney-General for South Australia, Michael Atkinson, as he is currently the only Attorney-General voting 'no' against the introduction of an R18+ classification rating for video games in Australia."

Speaking to GameSpot AU this week, Atkinson--who has previously maintained that he is not the only Attorney-General opposing an R18+ rating for games--said he wasn't threatened by Gamers4Croydon's presence.

"It's 60 days until the election and they [Gamers4Croydon] don't even have a candidate yet," Atkinson said. "Their Web site is full of memorabilia but not much else. This electorate has some 24,000 people to talk to and convince. Personally, I see no evidence of local support for their party."

Support or not, Atkinson is already lobbing criticism at Gamers4Croydon. He believes the party is made up of gamers who will fail to act in a civil fashion.

"I assume the Gamers4Croydon campaign will involve criminal activities and dirty tricks, which is what I've come to expect from gamers," he said. "Regardless, I think they will struggle to get even 1 percent of the votes, and their campaign will actually discredit the public campaign in support for R18+ rather than enhance its chances. They [Gamers4Croydon] might do better leading up to the election, but at this stage they’re not doing anything. What's more, David Doe has to stop taking pleasure in people abusing me."

Atkinson said that the presence of a new challenging party has inspired him to begin his electioneering earlier.

"Their [Gamers4Croydon] presence has good effect on me. I’ve been door-knocking hundreds of homes around Croydon and I find I'm doing everything more thoroughly and earlier than I normally would. But that's not to say I'm not treating this seriously; I’m out there working on the basis that this is a real contest," he said.

Speaking to GameSpot AU in response to Atkinson's comments, Gamers4Croydon leader David Doe said the party has several candidates, but he refused to reveal any other details at this stage. Doe said there is an undercurrent of anti-Atkinson sentiment in Croydon.

"Yes, he’s been in this seat for 20 years," Doe said. "But from what I've seen so far, and the people I've talked to, there's a fair undercurrent of anti-Atkinson sentiment. The guy is hugely experienced and for this reason we can't get him out of parliament. Gamers4Croydon are going to try and run the best campaign we can and see what happens."

But with less than two months to go until the election, Gamers4Croydon has only just registered as a political party. What's more, the party continues to remain tight-lipped about its upcoming campaign plans--its strategy to date has been to speak to people in the community and gauge their opinion on issues like R18+ for games.

"We haven't spoken to everybody yet, but hopefully we’ll get the chance to speak to most people in Croydon. Right now we're focusing on letting people know there’s an election coming up. We’re definitely going to get busier," he said. "It's going to be a long and protracted battle. We can’t afford television or radio advertisements, so we'll stick to meeting people in the electorate and raising awareness on the issues. We’ll just keep asking questions and give people the opportunity to make their own choice."

Doe labelled Atkinson's comments about Gamers4Croydon employing "dirty tricks" in its campaign as ridiculous. Doe is adamant that his party will have no trouble in securing more than 1 percent of the vote and is confident that Gamers4Croydon will get a seat in parliament. To nab a seat in the lower house, the party will need 13,000 votes in the electorate of Croydon; for the upper house, it will need at least one in 12 people in South Australia to vote for the party.

"I'm confident this will happen," Doe said. "As for Atkinson, it's not surprising he'd say something like that. It's a completely ridiculous statement. This is a serious issue and we're running a serious campaign. We don't need to use dirty tricks. What's more, I know the party is picking up momentum because more and more people have heard about us when we approach them. The more I speak to people, the more people are aware of our aims."

These aims are varied. Gamers4Croydon, despite its name, is not focused solely on the R18+ issue. In fact, its dozen or so policies revolve around things like starting a retrofitting program to have rainwater tanks installed on all existing homes where practicable; introducing an Independent Commission Against Corruption; banning all political advertising with public funds; making it illegal for politicians to lie about matters of public importance; creating the world's largest solar electricity farm; and opposing mandatory Internet filtering. According to Doe, these policies were not an afterthought to the R18+ issue.

"The R18+ issue is catalyst, sure, but all the other things are policies we believe in deeply and we look forward to trying to enact them," he said.

For more on video game classification in Australia, check out GameSpot AU's Aussie Games Classification FAQ feature.