blog We couldn’t help but be perplexed by this blog post on The Punch by Liberal MP and Shadow Minister for Families, Housing and Human Services Kevin Andrews, which appears to imply that Australia doesn’t need the National Broadband Network, because of the strong adoption of mobile phones. Writes Andrews:

“Mobile phone services have grown rapidly over the last 10 years. At the same time fixed-line telephone services have stagnated. This growth in the take up of the mobile phone has coincided with a rise in the number of household consumers who do not access to a fixed-line telephone service. The choice of not having a fixed-line telephone service seems to be driven by age and living arrangements.”

What Andrews appears to not understand that well is that the NBN is not being rolled out because Australia needs better telephone services. The NBN is designed to upgrade the nation’s broadband infrastructure. Sure, the NBN will also be used for telephone services, but it would be drawing a very long bow indeed to suggest that’s what it will mainly be used for. Data, not voice, is the way of the future.

Image credit: G Schouten de Jel (photographer’s website), royalty free

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy tonight said he had not had any direct contact with US Government officials over Australia’s controversial internet filtering plans, despite reports the US had raised the issue directly with the Federal Government.

News Ltd blog The Punch has reported that US State Department spokesman Noel Clay said the US has raised concerns on the matter with Australian officials. The US has been broadly critical of countries implementing internet censorship regimes.

“Well, I’ve seen those concerns, [but] I haven’t had any direct contact with the US State Department,” Conroy said on the ABC’s Radio National Australia Talks program tonight.

“I saw the reports in the morning papers. My department I don’t believe has been directly contacted. They maybe are speaking to the Department of Foreign Affairs — but I was unaware until I saw this morning’s news reports of any approaches at all at this stage.”

Conroy said Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith hadn’t raised the issue with him. “It could be that it just hasn’t been passed through,” he said. “I haven’t had a briefing from the Department of Foreign Affairs.”

The news comes as Conroy has increasingly appeared in the media — on TV and radio shows particularly — in recent weeks to talk about the filter issue.

Legislation on the matter has been postponed, and some, such as Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, believe the associated bill will not be introduced into Parliament until the next Federal election.

Labor Senator Kate Lundy has been attempting to convince Labor figures to back an amendment to the bill that would make the filter opt-in instead of mandatory.

However, Conroy appeared to pour cold water on the idea tonight, saying the Government didn’t provide opt-in measures to other forms of media, and that the internet was not a special medium.

Image credit: Office of Stephen Conroy

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy will hit the radio airwaves live tonight to debate the Government’s controversial internet filtering project with dissenters such as outspoken Internode engineer Mark Newton.

The politician will appear on the ABC’s Australia Talks program at 6PM (AEDT). The show will be chaired by ABC presenter Paul Barclay. Also appearing will be Electronic Frontiers Australia vice president Colin Jacobs, UNSW journalism professor Catharine Lumby, Internode’s Mark Newton and Michael Grace, regional chief for internet filtering company Netsweeper.

Jacobs and Newton are both seen as leaders in the movement opposing the filter, while Lumby has conducted research on the subject. The adversarial relationship between Conroy and the EFA has run white hot at times.

For example, just several weeks ago, the minister accused the leaders of the EFA of deliberately misleading the public in its campaign against the filtering project.
At the time, journalistic freedom organisation Reporters without Borders had released what it called its ‘Enemies of the Internet’ report, noting it was concerned that online censorship may enter the nation through the filtering project driven by Conroy.

“While one could possibly excuse Reporters without Borders for their ignorance of the government’s policy, the same cannot be said of the local … Electronic Frontiers Australia, who through Colin Jacobs, chairman Nic Suzor and board member Geordie Guy, have run a campaign to deliberately mislead the Australian public,” Conroy said in the Senate.

In return, the EFA described Conroy’s attack as “extraordinary”.

Just last week, Newton mocked what he called Conroy’s “hissy fit”, publishing a satirical imagined conversation between Jacobs and Conroy in which the minister repeats previously published policy statements.

The news comes as the level of public debate about the filter continues to build. This morning the Australian blog the Punch reported US Government officials had raised concerns about the filter plans directly with the Australian Government.

Image credit: Office of Stephen Conroy

The Federal Government’s internet filtering scheme isn’t in place yet, but politicians are already complaining about an overly zealous web filter much closer to home — the one installed in Canberra’s Parliament House.

Liberal Senator Scott Ryan told a Senate Estimates Committee yesterday (PDF transcript) that the parliamentary web filter had blocked some “odd things” over the past few months, including News Ltd’s commentary website The Punch in February.

“You may know that for those of us who live in Melbourne, it is relatively common that our trains do not seem to work in late January, once it gets over 32 degrees,” he added. “At that time the filter was blocking the train timetable website.” Ryan added the rogue filter had also blocked a travel website, an article about Apple’s new iPad tablet device, and another “commonly used website across Melbourne”.

Ryan said he had started a folder of “printouts” when a website had been blocked, adding the problem “does not fill us with a great deal of faith in a proposed national internet filter”.

Department of Parliamentary Services deputy secretary David Kenny told Ryan the filter had been replaced in 2009 and that it blocked a list of sites. If members of parliament had complaints, he said, they should contact parliamentary official the Usher of the Black Rod as a first step.

“Getting individual sites unblocked is a particularly laborious process. If you need to use a website, you often do not have time to do that,” Ryan said. “How do you oversee what this thing is picking up?”

Kenny said he was “not suggesting” that The Punch should or not should be on the list. “I have not heard, prior to your comments just now, anybody having concerns,” he said, but noted the department would look into the issue.

The Federal Government is planning to introduce legislation regarding its controversial internet filtering scheme in late February or early March. The legislation will introduce mandatory filtering of the internet for Australians at the internet service provider level, with the aim of screening out objectionable content that has been refused classification on our shores.

Image credit: Carl Silver, royalty free