Unfortunately, given the serious nature of the subject matter, Chris is right on target with his assessment. The government has persisted in putting on the statute books another meaningless but corrosive piece of legislation without the faintest idea how - or even whether - it can be implemented, enforced or policed. The best (!) they can hope for is to drag some unfortunate company before the court, who will then be publicly vilified, and forced to spend a ton of their own money defending themselves against charges that are founded upon untenable premises. And given the political content, the defendant is more likely to be a SME than Telstra.

Legislation deserves to be better researched and more carefully formulated. One of the contributing factors is that this government seems to go out of its way to put individuals into ministerial positions who have no talent or experience in their portfolio. The last Minister for Information Technology, Senator Alston, was known internationally as being out of touch with IT. If you were to Google "the world's greatest Luddite", all 62 references cite Alston, which has to be some kind of record.

This legislation bears all the hallmarks of Senator Alston's wilful ignorance on the topic. Let's hope that not too many people are hurt before this misguided law quietly disappears.

The absolutely saddest part of it is that having made their law, the government will now be inclined to make less of an effort to address the real issues.

Agree with your views Chris. The only way to stop this vile trade is for the mind of mankind to change.
Having said that we are total hypocrites actually. Have you seen the soft porn in the many advertising brochures putinto our letter boxes by large stores? Pages of children as well as young women in their undies. Now for many of us - no or little problem but for many others legal titivation, legal porn.
Then we have the base (cannot use capital letters as 'Ringtail' will get her knickers in a twist)and foul hypocrites in Canberra trying to stop on line porn, including child porn. Yet these same wonderful and decent Christian, in many cases, pillars of society allow and tax the well known video (now probably DVD)and print or magazine porn in Canberra.This scungy material is sent througout Australia by post to adults and minors. This same material was shown in the halls of shame er halls of power some time back. This was so our erudite and so clever politicians could have a buzz? or perhaps to explain to them what filth or pornography is - ha-de-ha-ha. A couple of pigs just flew over our house. Regards, numbat

Although not part of his central thesis, Chris Abood perpetuates a misunderstanding that is resulting in that worst form of censorhsip - self censorship.

There is nothing about the definition of child pornography in the legislation that suggests that material depicting naked children is proscribed by law. The definition of "child pornography material" is long, but a common requirement is that the material is portrayed...

"...in a way that reasonable persons would regard as being, in all the circumstances, offensive."

So pretty much anything goes as long as it upsets no more than the willfully hypersensitive self-appointed guardians of public morals.

Sylvia Else
Naturist Lifestyle Party (NSW).

Chris has highlighted, for me, the inadequacies of government legislation to control child porn.

Like so much of this federal government it is another band aid approach. I find it astounding that the Australian Computer Society, the Australian Industry Association or the Internet Industry Association were not consulted with regard to controlling this problem.

This government prefers to appear to be doing something rather than actually spending the time and putting in serious thought about the problem of loathsome child porn. My blood chills at the thought of it and I despair at the lack of thought by this federal government.

We have had unprecedented prosperity during the past ten years and what do we have to show for it? Very little is put back into the community – just these ‘claytons’ solutions which achieve nothing.

The problem as I see it is we are trying to legislate for attitude with laws which work to regulate the rational mind.


Reasonableness and rationality has no influence on people with a fixation on child sex or peodophilia.
Making ISPs responsible for the actions of their clients is unpractical and unworkable, just as a landlord is not responsible for a client who pursues any criminal activity in a rented property.
The approach is similar to the freight carrier who innocently shipped a sealed consignment of illegally produced tobacco (chop chop) and had his vehicles confiscated.
Bad laws do more damage than no laws - I agree with the article - greater thought and consultation with experts is needed.
Further - using the UN for what is one of the few institutions which is truly beyond national governmental control would give some benefit from what seems to be an otherwise pointless "talk and defer" shop.

Countries with legal child pornography very quickly establish domestic consuming bases measured in millions. The predators do not have horns, they are judges, doctors, police officers.

The interest in the sexual abuse of children cannot be conveniently defined as the behaviour of a few individuals, it is part of a wider 'normality' in relation to male sexuality.

The movement to end slavery in the British Empire had no business succeeding, the struggle against child exploitation presently faces the same entrenched and difficult prospects.

The internet should not be a resource for paedophiles and monsters who can prey on the innocent and vulnerable.

A movement to ban child sexual slavery and torture may have the same prospects of success as a project to eradicate private automobiles, the moral imperative despite the difficulties is abolition.