R18+ rating for video games in Australia

The average age of the most frequent game purchaser is 40 (according to www.gamasutra.com/)

The average age of an adult video gamer has been found to be 35 (according to a survey from www.msnbc.msn.com)

The average gamer is 35 – 37 years old (according to studies from www.examiner.com)

The average gamer is 33 years old (according to ESRB, the international game ratings board (based in America) and www.gamasutra.com/)

So, from reading this you would presume that there are video games allowed in Australia that are restricted to adults, well then you would be sorely mistaken. In Australia there is no R18+ rating for video games in Australia. The reasons for this remain mainly unpublished as because they do not stand up to critique, arguments such as it will have a negative effect on society, video games are not for children and that only twisted people want to play these games.
Recently EB games ran a petition in support of the R18 rating. They gave the petition to federal attorneys department; it contained 30,000 signatures 16, 000 online submissions on 158kg of paper hand delivered to the department. Yet still nothing seems to be done about this issue. R18+ video games are not for children, not for the casual gamer. But as the statistics I have clearly outlined show, Video gaming is no longer just targeted at for children and violent video games have never been for children. Video games have evolved from pong and pac-man to super princess peach to call of duty. If the bureaucracy and the thinking that stood up to criticism would stop then no more time would be wasted in this irritating problem.

But people who make these decisions are convinced that the only result of R18+ rating will be a negative one on our society, but there will be very little change to our current gaming culture. For example the recent game left4dead 2 was not originally allowed to be sold or possessed in Australia because it did not fit the current rating system. It was then released later in Australia in a censored form, gamers were outraged saying “The censoring ruined the game” this resulted in 2 things. The sale illegitimate copies of the American release of the game (uncensored) to anyone of any age. None of the money from the sale of this went to the government (tax) and none of the money went to the people who created the game. The second thing that happened was that windows live arcade (for the x-box360 consol) would reaslease a modification for the cencored game allowing the full left4dead experience, but as of the time of the writing of this piece no such thing has happened. But if left4dead’s publishers and microsoft (the creator of the x-box360) agreed to this. The it would be perfectly leagal and legitimate as any release through x-box live arcade does not go through austalian clasification.
In fact the Office of Film and Literature Classification itself said in relation to left4dead 2: "The game contains violence that is high in impact and is therefore unsuitable for persons under 18 years to play," so from this one would infer if there was an R18+ rating this game would be allowed for sale in Australia uncensored but only to adults.

There is another point that bamboozles me. Some video games that I have played are come under the MA15+ rating, but they are in my opinion, very crude and violent. Games that if the R18+ rating existed would be under that classification not the lower one. A censorship board has a choice between not allowing classification (banning) and pushing it into a lower classification that it may not fit.
What would you pick?