http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,12245990%5E15318%5E%5Enbv%5E15306,00.html
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Filter plan to net Christians
Simon Hayes
FEBRUARY 15, 2005
THE West Australian Democrats have accused the Liberals of chasing
"conservative Christian voters" with a promise to examine state-wide
internet
filtering.
Colin Barnett's Liberal Party - which has already delivered a widely panned
idea for a 3700km canal to move water from the Fitzroy River to Perth - is
planning to seize control of cyberspace in the state.
The promise came in the midst of a hard-fought election campaign, with the
state due to go to the polls on February 26.
Opposition children's services spokeswoman Barbara Scott has promised to
establish a state children's commissioner to examine the options for
internet
filtering if Canberra refuses to re-examine national mandatory filtering.
Plans
for a national filtering system were abandoned after a study by the federal
Government found it technically infeasible.
WA Democrats state campaign director Mark Reynolds, who owns an ISP, has
labelled the idea "completely stupid".
"The Liberals are out to grab conservative votes, and that means religious
Christians," he said. "They don't understand the internet, but in their
ignorance they'll vote for this.
"It would be a mistake to ignore this. People need to be told that what is
being proposed is idiocy."
Mr Reynolds said the Liberals were ignoring studies that found filtering
would
slow access.
"That's why the likes of Telstra have said they can't do it," he said.
"That doesn't stop the Liberals from flogging the issues in a grab for the
conservative right vote." Democrats east metropolitan region candidate Robyn
Danski said filtering was unnecessary and existing laws already protected
internet users.
"As we have seen recently there are already laws to deal with people abusing
the internet," she said.
"Australian internet service providers will simply drive up costs and slow
down
web browsing and email while not stopping banned material from getting
through."
The Liberal proposal has been criticised by ISPs, with major service
providers
warning a state-based system would have no chance of success.
Michael Malone, managing director of Perth ISP iinet, said: "Given the
cross-jurisdictional nature of the internet and the difficulty in
determining
where an offence has occurred, this should be addressed at a federal level,
with support from all the states."
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