lot's of opinions, but what are you going do do about it?

nothing. that's what you can do about it, and you're satisfied with that. saves having to be responsible and informed citizens. so much easier to whinge about the pollies, and turn to the celeb pages.

DEMOS,

I look forward to reading your announcement that you are running as a candidate. Obviously you want to do something constructive.

For a government that goes on endlessly about personal responsibility, they're certainly keen to remove it at every possible opportunity.

I was under the impression the government's job is to run the country and leave the micro management of individual lives up to individuals. Wrong, apparently.

"Filtering the Internet" has a great deal in common with burning books.

In the first place, someone has to decide what books are to be burned.

Whether or not you agree with the underlying rationale - that burning books is necessary to protect the citizenry from corruption - it is a racing certainty that you will disagree with many titles that they select for destruction. Inevitably, therefore, far more books will be burned than is necessary to carry out the initial purpose.

Furthermore, burning books is not the end of the story. You would have to destroy all the printing presses too. Because sure as eggs, someone sees the lack of a particular book as a market opportunity, and finds a way to publish and distribute.

The only conclusion therefore is to ban the internet completely.

Unfortunately, that is as impracticable as destroying printing presses. Because anyone with a computer and a telephone line, or a wireless connection, is able to make contact with another computer and lo! the key ingredients of the internet still exist.

So, who has the guts to ban computers...?

The answer, as always, is to delegate the responsibility to protect the children to their parents or guardians, safe in the knowledge that they are far better placed than the government to discover what the kids are up to, and perform local rectification (you and your computer are grounded) where necessary.

I think we are giving the government far too much of our money. They simply cannot find enough places to spend it, so they have to invent new ones.

As the great Christopher Fildes was wont to say: they're like a drunk with a skinful - it's not a matter of what they will do, the question is simply which wall will they use.

I’m inclined to think that the motive for the article has more to do with anti-Howardism than anti-censorship:

Government directed censorship is pervasive in Aust society, has long been so…
All of what you read in the media has been run through a filter.
What you’re ‘aloud’ to say at your work place is censored.
School texts have been moulded so as not to ‘offend’ select interests groups.
Advertising agencies have been coached to accentuate the ‘positive’ aspects of select groups .
This very site is heavily censored …

The offence seems to stem from the personage making the filtering proposal(s) rather than the principal of censorship.