The Christian lobby wants to take us back to the dark ages where "wise men" sit around and decide for the rest of us.
These "wise men" are always corrupt, hypocritical, ignorant fools.
Conroy is a fool for supposing Australians will take this blow to freedom. Rudd is a fool for letting the wacky Christian Power lobby have a large say in government.
Labour supporters don't like arrogant churchy types dictating what they can read or write, especially using their sneaky back-room "boys club". Only religious groups would consider corrupting government, misleading the press and lying to children an OK thing to do. Their childish selfishness is justified by invoking God, but really it is just immaturity: "I don't like it so you can't do it!".
These folks think freedom is a suspect hippie concept, not a proven necessity in the way society needs to be run!
Once again the church is trying to commit evil on a population whilst claiming they are doing good. Sorry guys, you are not fooling anyone.
For social divisiveness, the Christians are getting pretty hard-core. First there was Howard's "culture wars", largely based on Christian Values...now we have Conroy's attempt to redefine the internet and "freedom of speech", again due to Christian egos.
These folks obviously need an education in history, or perhaps just a rap across the knuckles and a firm "pull your bloody heads in". Either way, soon their aggression will have to be dealt with.

I don’t know anything about the Australian Christian Lobby – never heard of them in fact. But I would have thought that Red Rudd, a socialist oligarch is the problem here. He likes the way his Chinese counterparts block certain internet information, and the Chinese can’t be accused of listening to any religious groups.

As a socialist oligarch, Rudd is power crazy; he wants to control everything in Australia. Rudd doesn’t listen to anyone, including minority pressure groups. He is the big cheese, the boss. He doesn’t care what a few religious nuts think. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself.

Democracy went out the door when Rudd became Prime Minister of Australia. His ministers and the Labor Party are nothing to him. He is determined to dictate, and dictate he will until enough of the stupid Australians who put him in wake up to the sort of person he really is.

Conroy’s only part in censorship of the internet is as the patsy: the slow talking, slow-witted stooge for Rudd.

So, if only 4% of Australians want the Nanny State ‘protecting’ their children, why aren’t the rest screaming and shouting about socialist censorship? Because they are the same idiots who put Rudd into power and anything was better than Howard, so they told us.

Yeah!

Google got it wrong when it said that an internet filter would the first of its kind “amongst Western democracies”.

Thanks to Rudd the Red, Australia is no longer a Western democracy or any other democracy.

Rudd has kept the details of illegal immigration into Australia quiet; he has refused to reveal the details of just how his huge taxation grab would help reduce greenhouse gases, often abusing and disparaging dissenters; and now, he wants to interfere with the internet information (against the will of users, it appears) under the veil of ‘protecting’ children. If he gets away with that, it will just be the beginning of Australia being engineered along the lines of China or any other totalitarian state.

Don’t blame a few religious loonies. Look at the real threat: Kevin Rudd.

I refuse to believe that Conroy is contemplating Communist-Chinese-style Mandatory Internet Filtering just to please the extreme moral wing of the Christian lobby.

I believe that this only a smokescreen to conceal a far more sinister purpose, that is, to take away from ordinary citizens, the right the Internet now gives us to tell the truth and expose the lies of Governments and the corporate newsmedia.

Thanks to the Internet, it is now possible for ordinary citizens to be politically effective in spite of their comparative lack of money and resources in relation to the corporate sector. We stand a chance of defeating the Queensland 'Labor' Government's despicable attempt to undemocratically sell off $15 billion in publicly owned assets. We stand a chance of stopping the rotten North South Pipeline or the massive Desalination plant on the Bass Coast, and, of course, we stand a chance of defeating this rotten legislation.

But nearly all of that will go if that legislation gets through.

Any web site that the Government feels threatened could easily be added to the black list before most of us become aware.

In a period of crisis, whether real or contrived, that ability would be magnified. Where there may be outcry, it would be easy to see that such sites could be proclaimed as sites advocating terrorism, or, if not that, then, with some superficial degree of plausibility, as guilty of advocating somewhat lower levels of violence as happened to Scott Parkin (http://www.scottparkin.org/)

The fact that this rotten law has got as far as it has, in the face of overwhelming public opposition, shows just how little actual content there is in Australia's supposed democratic system.

This is only one of almost countless examples where, in recent years, our supposed political 'representatives' have imposed laws that are harmful to our best interests.

Our only safeguard against such abuses of power by the likes of Conroy are laws that enable Binding Citizens Initiatives.

I have written a letter to the Greens to ask that they introduce such legislation into Parliament at the earliest possible opportunity at http://candobetter.org/node/1725

>> Don’t blame a few religious loonies. Look at the real threat: Kevin Rudd.

right on! the liberals would never ever tighten censorship laws, or cave into religious loons!

>> Thanks to Rudd the Red, Australia is no longer a Western democracy or any other democracy.

your pills, leigh. don't forget to take your pills.

honestly, i loathe rudd more than a little, and this internet censorship is dumb and abhorrent. but how hard is it for you to admit that this kind of authoritarian censoriousness is hugely popular in australia, always has been, and is manipulated by all major parties?

Why is it that both Australian main parties just love to copy the US except when it comes to free speech? I will not be voting labour at the next election for the first time in my life. I will be handing out how to vote cards to get rid of Conroy.

Sorry Nina, this contribution to this topic, is as worthless as a letter to the editor in the the paper from whence it came.

You may well be right that the letters to the editor writing fraternity may see it in your framework; superficial, biased and self interested,in sensitive and politically negative.

First of all you fail to address either the need or the targets preferring to go off on some idealistic journalistic self interested justification.

Most telling you didn't even consider any, let alone easy modifications and alternatives, preferring to snipe than attempt to be constructive.

The article is about is money (yours), not being constructive or objective isn't it?
How much research into the *need to do something* did you do?...two cents worth of none.

For an alleged *thought piece* this article is remarkable for its year 10 perspective. I expect more from you and OLO thought pieces.