Censorship in New Zealand

I would like to discuss the context of censorship in New Zealand in this post.

In high school our Media Studies class had the privilege to attend a classification screening for the film "Defiance"(2008) starring Daniel Craig, hosted by Bill Hastings and the Office of Film & Literature Classification. We were asked by Bill and his team what our perceptions of the film were and asked us to classify the film with justification. The majority of the class voted for the film to classified as an M on the basis that it was primarily a 'war' film and that it wasn't too gory, something which the office clearly agreed as the film when released, received a rating of M.

OFLC obviously weren't going to listen and do exactly what we thought, however, it was nice to know that they were actively engaging in a process which is attempting to ensure that their judgments are in line with society in general.

Nearing the end of the event there was a question and answer section where someone asked something along the lines of, "How do you manage to watch all of the films?" A good question as there is something like less than ten people who work at the office. The answer was that they essentially get all classifications from Australia. If there are any controversial texts, they will review them here and also if they receive any complaints from domestic citizens.

This is an interesting thing to think about in terms of games. Is this shadowing of Australia representing our societal values in our best interest? Are some games more acceptable in Australia than in New Zealand or vice versa? Or is this system serving us effectively?