Australian Internet Censorship: The New Ingsoc.

Stephen Conroy, the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, is pushing for ISP filtering in Australia. He plans to get the legislation through before the next election. According to Conroy, the censor will protect children from coming across inappropriate material.

Since when do we need a nanny state? It should be up to the parents to protect their children from material their children should or should not be seeing, and even this should be limited. A twelve year old may be counted as a children under law, but my youngest brother can make rational decisions (and can probably get around the filter anyway).

If this censor is enforced, Australia will be on a slippery slope to becoming a police state. Already, our right to free speech is impinged upon by law. Our rights to free speech not protected, and furthermore our rights are not protected by law.

The internet censorship will be the first of it's kind in Western Democracy. It will restrict not only freedom of expression, but also freedom of information and will push Australia out of the international market for digital media.

My only hope now is that the senate doesn't put the legislation through.