We already have religous fundamentalist infiltrating government,and now they want it escalated to mind control.
Much as been said of late re rememberance day "Australians died to ensure our freedom", it appears that comment is used loosely by those who would censor and attempt to control the minds of the Australian public.

if microsoft can know what's on your harddrive, so will the government.

you can evade blocks, but you can be prosecuted for evading blocks. you deserve it. a people content to submit to politicians will be as free as a sheep in a paddock. deliver up your tax fleece and do as you are told.

i'm not sure there's too much to worry about. conroy's plan should buckle under the weight of its own stupidity. and, we have populist demagogs such as fielding and xenophon exposed as the authoritarian nightmares that they truly are.

Another set of pollies led by the nose on this one. It is some public service gnome's brain wave to increase his/her department and the proposal re-surfaces as an 'initiative' for each new minister. The proposal was originally suggested and drafted by an IT contractor, guess why?

Child porn is illegal, so is shoplifting.

The new filter is for the net what compulsory bag searches at every shop is for shopping.

Expensive,
Intrusive,
Incovienient
And above all only partially effective.

For both these crimes the deterrent is that if you get caught you get punished. For God's sake don't punish everyone for what a handful of people might do.

Excellent article by Antony Loewenstein and some very good comments. One point that hasn't been touched on is how the censorship is likely to spread. What worries me is the following scenario: Initially, only the really egregious sites are blocked, such as child pornography sites and hate sites advocating violence. Then the censorship is gradually extended further and further to political, economic, and religious opinions that irritate our masters, perhaps even Runner's brand of Christianity or an environmental site that criticises massive coal exports. As mentioned, there is already pressure to extend it to gambling.

One example where this sort of extension happened comes from the 19th century. Some reformers, some working class themselves, were concerned that very large families among the poor in Britain and the US were contributing to their poverty. They therefore printed and distributed pamphlets with family planning information to give ordinary people some choice. The elite were often against contraception for religious reasons or because they were worried that their workers might go on a reproductive strike. They therefore classified birth control information as obscenity and passed laws calling for it to be suppressed (the so-called Comstock laws in the US).

It is incredibly dishonest that this censorship proposal was not put up before the election. At least for the time being, though, we can put those who vote for it last on the next ballot paper.