Anthony Albanese, my federal MP, replied to my letter about Internet censorship. It’s nothing but platitudes and a regurgitation of Labor’s policy-speak.

Network engineer Mark Newton met with his local MP Kate Ellis in Adelaide yesterday. She too had nothing but canned responses.

This is not good enough.

The same goes for “pro-family” lobbyists like the Australian Family Association’s Anh Nguyen in Online filtering recognises families’ concerns today, or the people quoted in the Courier Mail‘s Web filter ‘needed’ to protect kids from porn on Friday.

Detailed, coherent critiques have been put forward addressing the technical, economic and policy flaws in clear, straightforward language. If you can’t counter those arguments with evidence and logic, not more “think of the children” hand-wringing, then we must stop wasting time and taxpayers’ money on this “filtering” folly. Now.

I can almost excuse family lobbyists for failing to understand. If you’re deeply concerned about children emotionally, then logical analysis probably isn’t your strongest suit. If you’re so ignorant of the Internet that you imagine “hardcore pornography” (whatever that is) suddenly pops up to freak out your six-year-old every time you turn your back to stir the soup, then you might also imagine some magical technology which can automatically figure out what you do and don’t want your child to see.

But “all our members have families, and they think X” is not the same as “all people with families think X“. Every family is different. Every child is different. And there are plenty of families who don’t want this so-called “filtering”. And don’t bring religion into it either, because there are Christian mothers who think censorship is wrong too.

An elected representative has no excuse for ignorance, however. We pay good money to advisors to keep them informed. Mark Newton is quite rightly concerned about Kate Ellis’ ignorance.

She was unknowingly parroting the same factual errors that Conroy uses every time he opens his mouth on this issue. It’s obvious that there’s a set of talking points that has been distributed around the Parliamentary Labor Party, and no matter which member you talk to they’ll say the same things.

Those same things are easy targets, low-hanging fruit. Because they’ve so completely failed to educate themselves on the facts of this issue, they’re absolutely simple to demolish.

There was nothing Ms Ellis said at the meeting that couldn’t be drilled into the floor by the factual data I’d footnoted in my letter (and I’ll be following up the meeting with another letter drawing attention to that fact, and suggesting that she forward my footnotes to ALP policy hacks so that they can replace their current talking points with true ones).

The overwhelming impression I walked away with is that the ALP members who support this policy don’t know what they’re talking about. They haven’t researched it, they don’t understand the existing law, they don’t understand the scope of what they’re proposing; It seems that they actually believe the talking points because they don’t know any better.

Anh Nguyen reckons the Phase 2 filtering trials should go ahead, asking “Why not give some families a chance to pilot to see if it suits their requirements?”

My response to that is simple: You already have plenty of options without interfering with everyone else’s Internet.

Why aren’t you trying the existing “filtered” Internet available from ISPs in the Internet Industry Association’s Family Friendly ISP program?

Why aren’t you using the free taxpayer-funded filters downloadable from NetAlert?

If you’ve tried them already and they don’t work for you, why not try one of the many other filters on the market?

Why not band together with like-minded parents and start your own “safe” ISP?

Why, exactly, do you expect the government to do your child-minding for you, and every other taxpayer to pay for it?

Here’s the full text of the letter I received today. You can also download it as a text file for handy editing.

Dear Mr Stilgherrian

Thank you for your fax regarding ISP filtering. I am aware that the proposal has attracted some criticism from those, like yourself, who are concerned that it will lead to censorship of the internet. However, the Australian Government has no plans to stop adults from viewing material that is currently legal, if they wish to view such material.

The Government regards freedom of speech as very important and the Government’s cyber-safety policy is in no way designed to curtail this.

The internet is an essential tool for all Australian children through which they can exchange information, be entertained, socialise and do school work and research. The ability to use online tools effectively provides both a skill for life and the means to acquire new skills.

However, while the internet has created substantial benefits for children it has also exposed them to a number of dangers, including exposure to offensive content. As such, parents rightly expect the Government to play its part in the protection of children online.

The Government has committed $125.8 million over the next four years to a comprehensive range of cyber-safety measures, including law enforcement, filtering and education. Measures include:

• Australian Federal Police (AFP) Child Protection Operations Team – funding to detect and investigate online child sex exploitation;
• Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions – funding to help deal with the increased activity resulting from the work of the AFP to ensure that prosecutions are handled quickly;
• ISP level filtering – funding to develop and implement ISP filtering, including undertaking a real world ‘live’ pilot;
• Education activities – funding to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to implement a comprehensive range of education activities;
• Websites / Online helpline – funding to ACMA to improve current Government cyber-safety website resources and to make them easier for parents to use, and to provide up-to-date information. ACMA will also develop a children’s cybersafety website to provide information specifically for children, and improve the online helpline to provide a quick and easy way for children to report online incidents that cause them concern;
• Consultative Working Group – funding for an expanded Consultative Working Group. The Group will consider the broad range of cyber-safety issues and advise the Government, to ensure properly developed and targeted policy initiatives;
• Youth Advisory Group – funding for a Youth Advisory Group which will provide advice to the Consultative Working Group on cyber-safety issues from a young person’s perspective; and
• Research – funding for ongoing research into the changing digital environment to identify issues and target future policy and funding.

These initiatives will tackle the issue of cyber-safety from a number of directions to help clean up the online environment and protect Australian children from the dangers of the internet now and into the future. This approach acknowledges the key role parents and carers have in the online safety of children, and provides them with the necessary information to assist with this task. This initiative also recognises that there is no single solution to ensure children can access the internet safely.

A key part of the Government’s plan to make the internet a safer place for children is the introduction of ISP level filtering. The policy reflects our community’s growing belief that ISPs should take some responsibility for enabling the blocking of illegal material on the internet. Filtering would cover illegal and prohibited content using an expanded ACMA blacklist of prohibited sites, which includes images of the sexual abuse of children.

Consideration is being given to more sophisticated filtering techniques for those individual families who wish to exclude additional online content in their own homes.

The Government wants to ensure that Australian parents can access a ‘clean feed’ internet service. This will be informed by the technology adopted in countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Canada where ISP filtering, predominantly of child pornography, has been successfully introduced without affecting internet performance to a noticeable level.

The Government’s ISP filtering policy is being developed through an informed and considered approach, including industry consultation and close examination of overseas models to assess their suitability for Australia.

ACMA recently completed an extensive laboratory trial of available ISP filtering technology. The trial looked specifically at the effect of a range of filter products on network performance, effectiveness in identifying and blocking i”egal and

inappropriate content, scope to filter non-web traffic, and the ability to customise the filter to the requirements of different end-users.

The laboratory trial indicated that ISP filtering products have developed in their effectiveness since they were last assessed in 2005. The Government wll now proceed with a ‘live’ pilot in the second half of 2008 which will provide valuable information on the effectiveness and efficiency of filters installed in a ‘real world’ ISP network. An Expression of Interest will be released in due course seeking the participation of ISPs in the pilot.

The Government is committed to working closely with internet industries to address any concerns, including costs and internet speeds. These concerns will be carefully considered during the pilot and will further inform the Government’s cyber-safety policy.

Thank you for bringing your concerns to my attention. I trust this information will be of assistance.

Yours Sincerely,

Anthony Albanese MP
Federal Member for Grayndler
Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development & Local Government
Leader of the House

28 October 2008

Further Reading

21 December 2008: In the weeks since this post was written, I’ve written more on this issue, as have others.

If you have time to read only one article, make it Irene Graham’s incredibly well-researched Australian Gov’t Mandatory ISP Filtering/Censorship Plan. What Irene doesn’t know about this issue wouldn’t even cover half the head of a pin.

If you like my style of writing, then you might like these pieces:

• The lies of the internet censors: Your. Filter. Won’t. Work.
• My radio interview on 2SER FM’s Diffusion
• Clive Hamilton doesn’t quite win “Cnut of the Week”

There’s some earlier material, listed here newest-first:

• Conroy thoroughly tangled in his own Rabbit-Proof Firewall
• Cheap tricks not the right response on internet filtering
• Internet filters a success, if success = failure
• Labor’s dream of kid-friendly internet is flawed
• Angry geeks: “Don’t waste money on internet filters”
• Why government internet filtering won’t work

Gosh, this really has been my Issue of the Year, eh?

More than a million Australians signed 900+ petitions during Howard’s final three-year term. A grand total of 2 were responded to in some way. The other 99.8% were tabled and ignored.

My local MP Anthony Albanese, the “manager of government business” in parliament, says petitions won’t need to be sponsored by an MP any more. He reckons citizens have a basic right to petition parliament. And they’ll look into electronic petitions too.

That, and Julia Gillard’s announcement that NGOs receiving government funds would no longer be prevented from making political statements, are clear sings that maybe Kevin Rudd actually means what he says about strengthening the parliamentary system.

However, thanks to Andrew Mathas, I’ve discovered that my very own federal MP Anthony Albanese said it all for me — and he said it more than 9 years ago. I couldn’t possibly match this invective! Read on…

From the Hansard, 6 April 1998.

In the Grievance debate on 6th April Mr ALBANESE (Member for Grayndler) said:

Today my grievance is against the Prime Minister (Mr Howard) for his failure to provide leadership. You can trim the eyebrows; you can cap the teeth; you can cut the hair; you can put on different glasses; you can give him a ewe’s milk facial, for all I care; but, to paraphrase a gritty Australian saying, “Same stuff, different bucket.” In the pantheon of chinless blue bloods and suburban accountants that makes up the Australian Liberal Party, this bloke is truly one out of the box. You have to go back to Billy McMahon to find a Prime Minister who even approaches this one for petulance, pettiness and sheer grinding inadequacy. I read the late Paul Hasluck’s description of Billy McMahon, and I cannot find a thing that does not describe this Prime Minister equally well:

I confess to a dislike of McMahon. The longer one is associated with him the deeper the contempt for him grows and I find it hard to allow him any merit. Disloyal, devious, dishonest, untrustworthy, petty, cowardly — all these adjectives have been weighed by me and I could not in truth modify or reduce any one of them in its application to him.

In John Howard, here also is a man, small in every sense. Some have said that he is the worst Prime Minister since Billy McMahon. That is unfair to Billy McMahon. I am one of the few people who have opened up and read David Barnett’s biography of John Howard. I have to admit I have not read it all, because it is impossible to stay awake. I did, however, get to page 17. Here Barnett outlines Howard taking six weeks off work to campaign for the McMahon government. Was Billy McMahon grateful? Barnett outlined:

An appointment was arranged with McMahon in his office in Parliament House. Howard was ushered in, and Bill McMahon jumped to his feet. “No” he said. “I don’t want to see him.” Then McMahon, who also had an appointment with a Japanese delegation, stopped himself. “I thought you were Japanese” he explained.

Barnett goes on to explain what John Howard’s incredibly crucial and high-powered job was in the McMahon campaign; he was given the job of rolling the manual autocue built into McMahon’s podium. How appropriate. In this book Howard is quoted as saying of McMahon “he arrived in the job too old and too late” — this from a man who was born old and for whom time has stood still.

But the gulf, Mr Deputy Speaker, between the man in his mind — the phlegmatic, proud old English bulldog — the Winston of John Winston Howard — and the nervous, jerky, whiny apparition that we all see on the box every night. When he looks on the box he gets to see what we see — not the masterful orator of his mind but the whingey kid in his sandpit. Spare a thought for us, Mr Deputy Speaker, because we have to watch this performance every day — the chin and top lip jutting out in “full duck mode”.

This prime ministership is not about the future of our nation. It is about John Winston Howard’s past. We do not hear about the future of this nation when we listen to this Prime Minister. In every performance all we get are his life’s grievances. All we get is the accumulated bitterness and bile of 13 long years in opposition and the people he blames for keeping him there.

John Winston Howard grew up in the inner west of Sydney. His father owned a service station on the corner of the street where I now live. These were the halcyon days of little Winston’s life — when the working classes knew their place and when all migrants were British. Lucky John Winston Howard moved further north across the harbour. He certainly would not be comfortable living in the inner west of Sydney any more. A bit too much change for his lifetime.

John Howard has always been proud to call himself a conservative. The problem I think is that he has confused this with preservative. He probably wishes good old Ming had dosed the country with formaldehyde when he had the chance. Because it all started going wrong in the late 1960s. Here is a man who lived at home until he was 32. You can imagine what he was like. Here were young Australians demonstrating against the Vietnam War, listening to The Doors, driving their tie-died kombi vans, and what was John Howard doing? He was at home with mum, wearing his shorts and long white socks, listening to Pat Boone albums and waiting for the Saturday night church dance.

Yes, it all started to go wrong back in the 1960s. Radical and sinister notions of equality for women, world peace and, dare I say it, citizenship rights for indigenous Australians. So what do we hear when we listen to John Winston Howard today? We hear the hatred and resentment in his voice — the sort of hatred and resentment we saw at the reconciliation conference last year — hatred and resentment from a man who was never part of the scene, who was not accepted, for whom a different life was too big a leap and who took refuge in a previous generation. You can see it in his instinctive hatred of any progression, and he sees it everywhere — policies of social inclusion, multiculturalism, women’s liberation, Aboriginal reconciliation. In all of them he only ever sees the jump he was too weak to make decades ago. Now he wants the whole nation to stay back and keep him company.

Try an interesting little exercise some day. Punch “Howard” and “multiculturalism” into the Hansard database. You will find he has never mentioned the word. When you punch in “Howard” and “multicultural” you do get it nine times but each and every time he is referring to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs. This is the man we have leading the country — a man who is so instinctively petty and so bitterly obsessed that he could craft an entire parliamentary career without mentioning the word “multiculturalism” and what that represents, because it is an idea he is opposed to. He is positively Orwellian in his pettiness. This is a smallness of mind, a meanness with breathtaking scope — I can just imagine his enormous pride at this aspect.

It is a small thing really but remember when the Spice Girls came to Australia at the beginning of the year? Everyone said it was just the silly season that the Prime Minister’s refusal to meet with them got so much press. Well it was and it was not. What did he say? He said it would not be “appropriate” to meet with them. That is vintage John Winston Howard. If he really did not want to meet them he could have just said he was on holiday at Hawks Nest — same place, same flat every year for decades — with the family and that would have been fair enough. People would have respected that. But he could not resist. He could not resist telling the youth of Australia that he thought they were infantile and stupid and therefore it would be inappropriate to meet these people who, after all, are Tory supporters from Britain.

We have a man leading this country who is prepared always to go out of his way to insult people he does not like, but not with the courage to come out and say it but do it sneakily. Weakly and sneakily. Weaselling around the point. Remember when he decided to give Jeff Kennett a blast? He does not do what anyone else would do — go into parliament or outside and do a doorstep. He tells the coalition party room and then organises for one of his mates to leak it. No wonder Jeff thought it was so funny.

This is the man we have leading this country — yesterday’s man, a weak man, a little man, a man without courage and a man without vision. Billy McMahon in short pants. This is the man who has brought the full force of his personality to bear on Australia. Australia is now learning what it is like live life through John Howard’s eyes. This is the man whose only aim in the end — forgetting the prime ministership — was to pay back all those who had tried to stop him along the way. Australia is a better country than that and Australians are better people than that. Australians are, if we are anything, courageous people.

So steeped in conservative values and fear of what is new is John Winston Howard that, if he were born before the Wright brothers, he would have organised a campaign against air travel of any description on the grounds that it was new and potentially dangerous. He is an antique, a remnant of the past that should be put on display, but not in government and certainly not in a leadership position, for anachronisms belong in museums and historical texts, not in parliament. Australians deserve a courageous leader; they do not deserve the kind of leader that used to dob on them in the schoolyard. They do not deserve John Winston Howard and in time they will put him out to pasture. Roll on that day, come the federal election.

But it won’t happen. And here’s why…

Earlier tonight, my post-gym dinner-and-drinks led me to the Carlisle Castle Hotel. It was a quiet night, and my gym partner and I were almost alone in the front bar until Fiona Byrne and her entourage turned up after a candidates’ forum at the Newtown Community Centre.

I thought I recognised her. Despite The Greens being all for the environment, they’re always the first to visually pollute the neighbourhood with posters of their candidates’ photos . And I heard someone introduce “Derek” as “the campaign manager”. So I figured I was in the company of The Candidate and Her Team.

Here’s what I noticed, as they debauched themselves on two schooners of Cascade Light:

• Derek reckons they only need to convince 3000 more voters to mark The Greens as first preference, and Fiona’s in. I reckon that’s probably right, but does Antony Green agree?
• Despite me mentioning that I was once a media producer (and therefore election-savvy) and a local voter, Derek didn’t even bother introducing The Candidate. They all seemed more interested in talking to each other than the voter sitting in front of them.
• I read every single piece of paper that comes through my mailbox, and I hadn’t even heard of this candidates’ forum.
• They simply didn’t look hungry for victory. They didn’t have the body language and demeanour of winners.

Way back when I worked for the ABC (yes, the 1980s), I happened to meet Michael Dukakis, the former Governor of Massachusetts and the Democrats’ candidate for President of the USA against Bush I.

When I was introduced, Dukakis looked me straight in the eye, grasped my hand, smiled — and for a moment he made me feel like the most important person in the universe. I knew I was in the presence of a professional, and I wanted to hear what he had to say.

Sure, a moment later the spell was broken, and we got on with recording the interview. But he was good, very good. And while I don’t expect the local candidate in an Australian state election to have the same charisma as a potential POTUS… Jesus, people, at least try!

And while you’re at it, look like you could actually run the state of New South Wales, instead of a being just another whingey lobby group on bicycles.

You’ve got six weeks. Focus, focus.