People Planet Peace

Fail: Minister shifts goalposts on Internet filtering

The Australian Greens say that Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has scored another Internet filtering own-goal this week, this time contradicting a statement on his own ministerial blog.

Yesterday (Wed 17/9/09) in Senate Question Time, Senator Conroy directly contradicted his earlier position on net filtering of peer-to-peer internet traffic.

Greens Communications Spokesperson Senator Scott Ludlam said the Minister was either trying to hide some quiet goalpost-shifting or was simply unaware he had contradicted himself.

"Maybe the minister doesn't read his own blog," Senator Ludlam suggested.

Minister Conroy posted the following comment on his official departmental blog on 22 December 2008:

"Technology that filters peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic does exist and it is anticipated that the effectiveness of this will be tested in the live pilot trial." http://www.archive.dbcde.gov.au/2009/july/future_directions_blog/topics/civil_and_confident_society_online/internet_filtering_wont_stop_peer_to_peer_and_bittorrent_traffic_so_why_bother

However, yesterday, Minister Conroy admonished Senator Ludlam for seeking information on what proportion of illegal net traffic the government's filter would actually block.

Minister Conroy: "As Senator Ludlam well knows, there has never been a suggestion by this government that peer-to-peer traffic would or could be blocked by our filter. It has never been suggested. So for you to continue to make the suggestion that we are attempting to do that just misleads the chamber and the Australian public, Senator Ludlam, and you know better than that. We are not attempting to suggest that the filter can capture peer-to-peer traffic."

"We received another vivid demonstration yesterday of why people are right to be suspicious of this pointless waste of $44 million," Senator Ludlam said.

"The Greens support measures that will achieve better protection for children from objectionable online material, but Minister Conroy reminded us again that the mandatory internet filtering scheme started out as ill-conceived and has just gone downhill from there."
 

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