Oh dear - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 11:53 - 15 Comments

Oh dear: Mark Newton’s epic government rant

Delimiter has read quite a few submissions to quite a few government enquiries and committees. Generally they’re produced by representative organisations like the IIA, AIIA or ATUG and are quite dry.

They typically examine both sides of an issue and come to a broad conclusion gently nudging the government in the direction of their members’ concerns, without telling the Government too explicitly what it should do.

There are other types of less diplomatic submissions — entries from companies which have very strong views on how they should be regulated, for instance. Or individuals who are experts in their field and are concerned by the issues raised — often academics from universities.

However reading through Internode engineer Mark Newton’s submission (PDF) to the Federal Parliamen’s Joint Select Committee on Cyber Safety the other day, it was apparent that Newton’s comments didn’t quite fit into any of these categories. Newton’s submission was, in fact, one of the most epic rants we have ever had the pleasure to witness.

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