Premier of Tasmania Talks Gaming

Screen Play has an interview with David Bartlett, the Premier of Tasmania, about his long-running love affair with video games. Bartlett is a longtime video game fan that has been playing games since the days of Pong. He played games on a Vic 20, he lived through the early days of Apple, and he hung out at his friend’s house to play around with his Commodore 64. Now he is sharing his love of games with his son. Yes, he is a rare breed of politician.

Here's a few excepts from the interview about Wii and DSi gaming:

What games have you discovered on the Wii?

I’m going through a second wave of gaming fun with Hudson. He and I play a lot of the Lego games, Lego Star Wars, Lego Batman... We’re currently playing Lego Indiana Jones.

Here's a bit about the National Broadband plan in Australia:

Gamers love fast internet connections, and Tasmanians were the first customers connected to the national broadband network. The coalition campaigned against the NBN. What would you say to the Opposition leader, if you bumped into him in Canberra?

I’d say ‘Tony Abbott, you’re taking us back to the past’. The optic fibre rollout in Tasmania is as important to the next 50 years of Tasmanian history, as Hyrdoindustrialisation, that is the poles, the dams and the wires... were to the past 50 years.

Finally, a question about e-sports in the region:

Mr. Bartlett, one group who’ll be very excited about the NBN will be competitive gamers. If Tasmania followed the South Korean experience, do you think your constituents would be ready to see ‘e-sports’ broadcast on TV?

There’ll be some people who’ll want to be part of that, and immerse themselves in online words, and other people who don’t. But I certainly think there’s an opportunity for trialling of content and trialling new entertainment.

Read the whole thing here.