blog We couldn’t help but be amused by this post on excellent media and marketing site Mumbrella this morning regarding Communications Minister Stephen Conroy’s failure to respond to the Convergence Review into Australia’s media and telecommunications industries published six months ago. The site’s editor in chief Tim Burrowes writes:
“A note to media minister Stephen Conroy: It’s six months today since the Convergence Review reported. Not that you seem to have done anything with it yet … just a small request. How about you get off your backside and do some legislating?”
It’s amusing because today is also the nine month anniversary of the publication of the Classification Review, which readers may remember as the key document which was supposed to guide the development of Labor’s infamous mandatory Internet filter policy. Remember how Conroy paused the development of the filter two years ago, pending the outcome of that review? Yeah. No response on that front either, yet.
Now in contrast to Mumbrella, which appears to be seeking an active response to the Convergence Review, at Delimiter we’d be quite happy if Conroy simply announced that the Federal Government had decided to ditch the Internet filter policy as a bad idea. Because until he does, it will remain on the books as official Labor policy, despite the fact that it was almost universally opposed by the Australian population. And until it’s formally ditched we will continue to remind the Minister of that fact.
Fair call, Steve?
Image credit: kjd, Creative Commons
I’ve felt for a long time that the Classification Review would serve as a mechanism to allow the filter to be taken out the back and shot, under the guise that the review would be concocted in such a way as to show it being not required.
Yet to be proven wrong.
Time for Conroy’s filter to finally die?
Only if they want any chance at all of winning an election…
I doubt it will be a factor at the next election, it’s out of the mind of your average person, and I doubt the coalition will want to bring it up.
It made zero difference last election, why would it make a difference to this one?
Short answer: the NBN is giving a whole slab of tech-savvy businesspeople a reason to switch from Lib to Lab.
The filter is a big, squirmy, maggoty fly in that ointment. Still. And, to my mind, for no purpose.
Then again, maybe Conroy is planning to keep it around until just before the election, at which time he can burn it in effigy to rouse the crowd.
Fingers crossed.
Imo
1. This is a global undertaking… internet filtering isn’t something which is exclusive to Australia.
2. Whether global or not, being a religious nutter Conroy will continue to push, on his moral grounds.
3. Abbott is arguably an even bigger religious nutter.
:(
This was the problem from the beginning. It was an issue, almost universally opposed, but not a big enough one to be considered an “election issue” by the majority. As a result, Labor kept pushing it to grab votes from a passionate but misguided minority that supported it. If it was elevated to the status of “election issue” it would have been dead, buried and untouchable policy today (think Workchoices).
The risk of the filter policy will always be there while Stephen Conroy is the responsible minister.
Anybody who doesn’t believe that hasn’t been listening to what he’s said for the last five years, with his mindless and stubborn assertion that ‘anyone opposing my filter must be a paedophile’.
The coalition could well decide to bring it up in conjunction with the proposed data retention policy. These two policies in conjunction would be a nasty bit of work.
I think you’ll find that the policy was always Rudd’s. While he’s not leader, it won’t be on the agenda.
We’ve got to protect the kids being molested on Facetubes!
(What’s that? You can’t create a Facebook account until you’re 13? Meh).
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