Labor: Public debate on internet privacy ‘unnessecary’
The Australian public also rightly demands transparent government. That’s why the Rudd Government promised at the election to “restore trust and integrity in the use of Commonwealth Government information, promoting a pro-disclosure culture and protecting the public interest through genuine reform”. We’re working hard to fulfil these commitments.
-Joe Ludwig, Cabinet Secretary and Special Minister of State, January 2010.
The disclosure of the contents of the panel of experts’ report before the completion of the process, particularly any negotiation phase, has the potential to prejudice the outcome of the process.
Yet here we are months later, with an all new and improved Julia Gillard Labor prime minister at the helm and still nothing’s changed.
Back in June it emerged that the Rudd government were conducting secret consultations with Australian ISP’s over the viability of mandatory snooping on Australian internet users.
Despite having sworn any and all involved to absolute secrecy, details of the consultations thankfully leaked out. Unfortunately the details that were leaked didn’t extend much beyond an acknowledgement of the consultations taking place themselves.
Under the Freedom of Information Act however, the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) put in a request to see a document. This document contains the outline of proposed government policy with which the Labor government hopes to spy on all Australian internet users’ online activity.
The good news?
The SMH received a copy of the document.
The bad news?
Roughly 90% of the document was censored by the government prior to public release.
The reason?
The release of some sections of it “may lead to premature unnecessary debate and could potentially prejudice and impede government decision making”.
Not only do the Australian government want to exclude you from any and all discussions on monitoring your internet access, they also deem any such discussion as unnecessary. What’s more they believe that anything you could possibly have to say on the matter would just impede their decision making process anyway.
In short, the Australian Labor government wants you to shut up, bend over and take whatever they thrust at you with a smile.
Although our head of state is still technically the Queen I was under the impression that we were still somewhat of a democracy.
So how then did things get this bad? I never thought in my wildest dreams I’d be hearing any Australian government tell me that my input into a matter that directly concerns me is unnecessary and would only serve to impede the decision making process. How dare they.
Whether this is a Labor policy or a greater reflection of the state of Australian politics I’m not sure, but one thing however is clear;
Somewhere along the line the Australian government has forgotten it serves the people.
Come August it appears that voting a government in is as close as your average Australian will ever get to helping shape the future of politics in Australia. Vote them in and under a veil of complete secrecy they’ll do just whatever the hell they damn well please for the next three years.
You are not worthy, welcome to the new Australian politic.
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:22 pm cbp(Quote)
Agree with you but there’s a lot in our power on Aug 21st. The Greens are set to take Senate seats. If they perform well the filter is likely to be canned. All that is required is for the Nerds, to:
a) Get out from under their pizza-hut box mountains and down to a voting booth
b) Learn how Australia’s preferencing system works (i.e. you decide your preferences, not them)
July 23rd, 2010 at 5:25 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Apart from opposing the internet filter and presumably this internet spying mandate, I don’t really know all that much about the Greens other policies though. They haven’t exactly been very vocal about them.
This to me translates into not being entirely sure I want to give them my vote come August. I suspect I’m not alone.
July 24th, 2010 at 8:15 pm Leper(Quote)
Ah yes “premature unnecessary debate”, which in plain English means we don’t want to discuss our idiotic and unworkable censorship plan before the election, because it could cost us votes.
The Greens policies listed on their website seem to be big on social justice, along with a side-order of environmentalism. I’ll probably end up voting for them, since I find their environmentalism less idiotic than anything Labor or the Liberals plan to do.
July 25th, 2010 at 1:32 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
I don’t have time to go over them in great detail at the moment but from what I’ve skimmed, being fairly conservative myself, I’d clash with a lot of their policies.
This is why I’m reluctant to give them a vote despite our shared views on internet censorship.
July 25th, 2010 at 11:55 am Leper(Quote)
If you’re going to vote purely on the basis of internet censorship, you might want to consider the Australian Sex Party. Realistically they aren’t going to win, however, putting them first will ensure they end up with more public funding.
Then you get to choose between NBN + censorship or no NBN and no censorship.
July 27th, 2010 at 1:42 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
I dunno if it’s voting purely on the internet filter but it is somethin I feel strongly about. I guess if it was then I’d probably go for the Greens, seeing as I wouldn’t care about their other policies.
As for the ASP, well I’m not too fond of them. The more I see of Fiona Patten the more I get the feeling she’s a bit of a know-it-all. Also I don’t want to be associating sex with her anytime soon, even in a political party sense.
Then there’s some of their kooky policies;
Sorry what, you want to legislate mandatory female staff members quotas in politics? Good one guys.
If they can’t handle it they can’t handle it. Although if it takes their mind off abusing children for five minutes then I might be pursuaded to support the policy.
Oh please, half of Thailand will want to migrate to Australia if this ever comes about.
Some of their other policies do seem attractive though.