Protecting children has long been the underlying main contributor to Labor’s push to censor the internet in Australia. ‘If you’re not with us, then you support child abuse’ is a pretty strong statement to make but it’s how most opponents to the filter have been made to feel.

Despite widespread public condemnation and sensible arguments put forth against him, like some sort of deaf Goliath of a steam train Stephen Conroy continues to rumble forward with his plans.

In his latest address to public concern Conroy wrote a piece on ‘The Punch’ responding to filter criticism penned by Getup campaigner Eliza Cussen.

Unfortunately, like all things Stephen Conroy, his response although written to “outline the facts” is full of contradictions and outright lies. Worse still it’s a further departure from the original intent to protect Australia’s children from… well who knows.

In his rebuttal Senator Conroy asserts a number of points. Here they are along with the relevant criticism nobody at The Punch seems to have had the balls to raise.

$49m for law enforcement by providing 91 additional AFP officers to the Child Protection Unit


Well this sounds good… although whether it’s a case of the AFP doing their job or otherwise I do note there’s a distinct lack of online child abuse reported on in Australia. Usually this sort of stuff (child grooming and what not) seems to happen in shady European and Asian countries.

A grants program to encourage ISPs to offer additional filtering services to households on an optional basis. This filtering could enable customers to block access to particular websites and chat rooms, if the customer chooses to do so.


So why are we bothering with a mandatory filter again? This idea is brilliant and should be the only filter option on the table. It covers opt-in and will allow much broader filtering of content not suitable for children on the internet.

Of course if lazy parents actually did their job and supervised their kids there’d be no need for filtering in the first place.

Funding for a range of education programs for children, parents and teachers through the ACMA Outreach program


This seems like a complete waste of time. Parents are more clued in then adults about the internet these days and if people are posing as kids online it’s not like they’ll be able to tell the difference.

As for educating parents… if they haven’t worked out by now that the internet can be dangerous if their kids are left on it unsupervised, then it’s probably too late.

Funding for the cybersmart website and online counselling service.


Cybersmart is a government website that asks children questions like ‘how cybersmart R U?’ and uses terms like ‘e-secure’ and ‘cybernetrix’.

Seriously no kid is going to visit this website unless they are forced to via school or something. Kids aren’t idiots or strangers to technology… they’re well beyond asking if they’re cybersmart or not.

The very existence of the website Cybersmart is an embarassment to Australian children and the government.

And what’s online counselling?

‘OMG I JUST SAW GOATSE, HELP ME I’M SUICIDAL!’ – We already have children’s helpline et al, what the hell do we need online counselling for?

Establishing the Government’s 300 strong Youth Advisory Group and Consultative Working Group on cyber-safety.


Jesus christ enough with the commitees and advisory groups already. I
have no idea what either of these groups do but by name alone they already sound like a massive waste of time and money.

ISP Level filtering which would block RC material on URL based websites through a public complaints mechanism.


Oh great, public complaint system. Seriously Conroy have you met the population of Australia? We’re a country full of freaking wowsers, hip no holds barred teach savvy youth, self righteous ‘BAN EVERYTHING YESTERDAY!’ family groups, vegetarian softcocks and bogan all-you-can-eat meatasauruses.

How the hell are all these groups going to come to any sort of rational agreement when it comes to agreeing what should and shouldn’t be on the internet?

The Rudd Government does not support Refused Classification content being available on the internet. This content includes child sexual abuse imagery, bestiality, sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act.


Seriously when was the last time you saw a website on child abuse?! Every man and his dog knows this sort of stuff goes on solely on private p2p networks and direct transfers.

What do you honestly think that when we hear about these child abuse sting operations that the police have just been sitting in their offices searching for websites?!

Ditto for all the other categories mentioned. As for instructional text, if I can call up a mate overseas and get him to mail, email or fax the information I require to me – then censoring it on the internet achieves a big fat nothing.

Under Australia’s existing classification regulations this material is not available in newsagencies, it is not on library shelves, you cannot watch it on a DVD or at the cinema and it is not shown on television. Refused Classification material is not available on Australian hosted websites.


So lets just ban anything that’s not an Australian website then shall we? Sounds brilliant.

Unless the URL’s requested are on the RC Content list, the web traffic will not pass through a ‘filter’.


Of course it bloody will, that’s a filter works! You pass any and all data through it and it checks if it’s on the ban list or not. If the data doesn’t pass through the filter then how the hell is it supposed to check if it’s on the ban list?!

The Refused Classification Content list cannot be made public because if it was, it would simply be a catalogue to direct people to specific URLs that are Refused Classification.


If the filter is doing it’s job and blocking these websites, just how are people going to be directed to such sites?

I can guarantee you now that this government blacklist will leak just as easily as the ACMA list did. There’s a lot of pissed off nerds that work for ISP’s and if you’re distributing the list to every ISP in Australia all it will take is for one employee to crack it and leak the list.

Good luck keeping that genie in a bottle.

The Government has held a public consultation on improved transparency measures to ensure the public have confidence in the list and the submissions will feed into the legislative framework.


Simply put, by keeping the contents of a list secret you are creating a massive aura of non-transparency around the list. This act in itself far outweighs any token gestures towards hollow transparency the government might engage in.

You want the general public to have trust in a filter list they have no idea what’s on?

Last time the ACMA blacklist leaked it was found to contain Youtube, PartyPoker, Wikileaks, an anonymous redirect service, Rapidshare, Abbywinters, Wikipedia, several other .AU adult sites, www.ballroomdancing.com.au and practically all major online poker sites.

Yeah, having complete faith and trust in a government maintained blacklist sounds like a good idea…

High traffic sites like YouTube and Facebook are not included in the policy.


Ironically I imagine social networking sites like Facebook are where most child grooming goes on. It takes all of 2 seconds to create a bogus profile and then hunt down some jailbait.

Good thing the filter won’t be tackling the potentially largest threat to children’s safety online.

Specific debate points or not it doesn’t take an idiot to realise that Conroy himself has no confidence in the proposed internet filter. It’ll be easily circumventable and as far as protecting children goes, well it’s not like you run into the nasties of the internet with actively going and looking for it. This becomes less of a matter of protecting and more of a matter of babysitting. This should be a parents responsibility, not the rest of Australia’s.

If Senator Conroy is serious about protecting children perhaps he could have a look into the recently announced ‘Little Miss Bayside Pageant’. Set to be held in Melbourne in June the pageant provides a pedophile paradise with contestants up to the age of 13 competing ‘in a formal gown, casual outfit and sport or swimwear.’

Forget policing the internet for website in far off distant places, here we are bringing potential child abuse right to our doorstep, legally! Where the hell are the Conroy’s, wowsers and family groups when you actually need them?!

Oh that’s right, they’re too busy campaigning to protect children from imaginary nasties on the internet…


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3. Stephen Conroy: Australians are opting into child porn
4. Stephen Conroy censors TV debate on internet filter
5. Stephen Conroy vs. Google: Who are you going to trust?