Australia’s favourite communications minister, Stephen Conroy, is back from getting his photo taken with Arnold Schwarzenegger and speaking at CeBIT in Germany. Just yesterday he spoke at the Australian Telecommunications Users Group Conference in Sydney, where he defended his plans to filter Australia’s Internet.
He told attendees and journalists at the conference:
“There is this argument out there that says – my God! We can’t let the Senate have a say on this!”
“The Government of Australia is elected,” he said. “If the parliament wants to take this path, the last time I checked, that’s ok.”
With bold comments like this to be made by a politician that’s seen so much debate against himself, it seems he’s just digging himself deeper and deeper.
I asked Senator Scott Ludlam of the Greens a couple of weeks ago what he thought of Conroy’s filtering scheme, he had this to say:
“We’ve been emphasising all along that there are more important issues like violence against women and children,”
“Not a single one of these issues will be addressed by Conroy’s filtering scheme, so why not tackle the problem head on by using law enforcement, parental supervision and education from primary school all the way through university.”
I asked Ludlam what the Greens would do if they were in Conroy’s position:
“I think if it was up to us we’d be more collaborative,”
“You’d put ISPs, entertainment and child welfare in a room and say here are the issues, what’s the best way to tackle it”
I asked if he thought Conroy was being collaborative at all:
“No, he’s not being collaborative at all”
I also had the chance to speak to a spokesperson for Senator Nick Minchin who told Tech Wired:
“Based on all the evidence it’s not practical, nor is it doable,”
“When The Broadcasting Services Act in 1999 was raised it found evidence that filtering didn’t work,”
Tech Wired also asked what the opposition would be doing if they were in power:
“We think Opt in filters add value, though our core view is that through law enforcement, good resources and parental and teacher supervision we can attempt to fix the issue”
One has to question why Conroy still wants to go ahead with the filtering scheme.
Conroy maintains that his filtering scheme will not block political content, though with ACMA adding to their block list an abortion website the day after this was brought up, he has a lot to answer for.
“We are not building the Great Wall of China. We are going after the filth – like child pornography. Its been done around the world and it can be done here.”
To add to the irony, yesterday also saw a take-down notice issued by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to BulletProof networks, the hosting provider behind Whirlpool.
The take-down was issued to Whirlpool to remove a URL posted by user Matthew Law. The URL was to an abortion website that ACMA deemed “potentially prohibited”.
This confirms that the ACMA added the URL to its blacklist and deemed it prohibited, a thought that many are currenltly debating on the Whirlpool forum.
If you have time, watch the 1 hour of Senate estimates discussing Internet filtering yesterday:
Govt from Ben Grubb on Vimeo.
Tech Wired Australia recently interviewed user Matthew Law from online forum Whirlpool. Matthew submitted an abortion website to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) for review as to whether such content is prohibited in Australia.
OPPOSITION leader Malcolm Turnbull posted on Twitter this evening saying that he would post something soon about the Government’s clean feed proposal.
“Thanks for all the queries about the Government’s clean feed Internet proposal. Will post something on this soon.” – Malcom Turnbull
This will be very interesting as I only recently found out (shame on me) that Turnbull was actually a part of the chair of a large Australia Internet Service Provider, OzEmail.
Many people on Twitter have been communicating with Malcom, and in turn he has begun to talk back! Read more
