ANOTHER plea that Labor drops the policy of mandatory internet censorship FORTHWITH
Dear Senator McLucas,
Queensland ALP Senator Jan McLucas
Congratulations to you – and to Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan – on the re-election of a Labor Government.
I’m one of the people in the community who hoped to see Labor remain in power – but I’m also delighted the ALP will be forced to rely on support from progressive cross-benchers.
One of the main reasons why is the mandatory internet censorship issue (aka Conroy’s Filter).
The ALP’s blind support of this policy, justified only with cliches – and despite extraordinarily widespread criticism from within the IT industry and by IT users – is a major reason I’m glad Labor will not be able to govern alone at this time.
I have no doubt this absurd and widely-despised policy very nearly cost Labor government.
It tarnished the ALP’s reputation with a large number of computer-literate, uncommitted voters – offsetting the positive impact of the ALP’s much larger broadband expenditure pledge. In a very close election, that unnecessary loss of support was decisive.
I refer to the recent article by the ABC’s Technology Editor Nick Ross:
I wrote an article in similar vein on my own blog around the same time:
Yesterday evening, I made the following comment on Twitter.
SydWalker
Julia Gillard. Get yourself another tech advisor. Not Conroy again! PLEASE!!!
#labor #greens #ausvotes #openinternet #nocleanfeed #abcnews24
It has been been re-tweeted 33 times – and counting.
On election day, I was handing out for the Greens. I’ve done that for a decade or so, and I’ve got to know my Labor equivalents. I asked one of them what on earth had been Labor thinking re: the Internet censorship issue? He rolled his eyes and told me he’d tried to lobby within the party for a couple of years to get the policy reversed, without success.He told me it was like banging his head against a brick wall.
The Labor leadership’s determination, to date, to continue pushing the ‘filter’ proposal, strikes me as akin to neuroticism. It’s habitual – but lacks any coherent rational explanation.
PLEASE drop this discredited policy NOW – so the Gillard Government can regain community trust and move foreward with what is potentially a first class IT policy.
We need an NBN with built-in guarantees of affordable universal access, net neutrality, freedom of information flow and best-practice privacy standards.
Substantial progress towards implementing this, by the time of the next Federal election, would stand Labor in good stead with the electorate.
I respectfully suggest you need a new Minister to implement this – someone with genuine empathy for the whole objective.
At the very least, PLEASE drop the mandatory internet censorship policy forthwith.
Yours sincerely
Syd Walker
near Cairns,
Queensland
