Oakeshott on broadband and the Internet filter

Georgina Swan

Georgina Swan is the Editor of CIO.

Ahh…the benefit of hindsight.

While Australia waits with baited (or should that be disillusioned) breath on the outcome of the election, CIO was reminded of a survey we conducted in July 2009 of local members regarding the internet filter proposed by Senator Stephen Conroy.

Among the replies, this:

Unimpressed by trial results so far and the amount of time and money spent on this compared with educating users on some practical safe internet use within the family home principles.

I am opposed to the concept of ‘safe’ internet filtering. It is oxymoronic and I am quite public in my views.

In regional Australia, we already have a filter of sorts — it is called slow access. I spend my working days trying to engage community to use the internet as a key resource in overcoming many of our structural disadvantage issues that our region faces (eg; low education rates, low income rates, high unemployment rates etc etc) and I also spend my days trying to convince government on the worth of spending time and energy on speeding up and opening up access to the internet. Therefore anything that slows down speeds or distorts access, even by a couple of per cent, makes a huge difference to life in our region. Government is wasting money on pretending to do something that software purchases and some basic home management of the computer can achieve already.

Good luck with your survey.

Rob Oakeshott MP Independent Federal Member for Lyne

I wonder if, when he penned his response, Oakeshott could have imagined the events that would lead him to hold an almost unprecendented level of power in the Australian government — even in his wildest dreams.

Now, as Tony Abbott will tell you, a politician has every right to change his or her mind. I doubt, however, that Oakeshott’s opinion is likely to have changed within the 12 or so months leading up to the election — although with the political jockeying going on behind closed doors at the moment, anything can happen.

And given the success of the Greens at the election and the party’s vocal stance against the filter, it’s pretty safe to assume the filter is no longer an issue. For the time being, in any case. I suspect whichever political party rises from the ashes of the election debacle will have bigger fish to fry.

Tags: broadband, Federal Election 2010, internet filter, Oakeshott