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It obviously isn't to Chinese standards. China censors dissent and political opposition. The Australian Constitution protects freedom of political communication

It obviously isn't to Chinese standards. China censors dissent and political opposition. The Australian Constitution protects freedom of political communication. Therefore, any laws that restrict the ability of residents to discuss and criticise political decisions and issues would be unconstitutional. In regards to euthanasia, it is perfectly fine to discuss the philosophical and political arguments on each side. However, it is currently illegal to provide explicit how-to instructions on performing euthanasia. This has led to the disappointing decision to ban The Peaceful Pill Book, written by Australian euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peaceful_Pill_Handbook http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peaceful_Pill_Handbook The proposed Internet filter will limit access to extreme porn, excessively violent material and instructions on how to commit crimes. It's regrettable that the government is even proposing such legislation, but it doesn't help anyone to make inaccurate comparisons to countries like China and Iran. A more sensible comparison would be to Denmark, which already has an operational internet filter.

netcan 17y ago
My personal view is that it doesn't really matter what the intentions are now. It's a framework. Before, no one could enforce restrictions on speech in Australia. It's not a question of laws or policies, it was physically impossible. You could send police to shut down a TV station, but not a website. Now it is a matter of laws or policies.
Concours 17y ago
Quote: "Communications Minister Stephen Conroy referred to Google's censorship on behalf of the Chinese and Thai governments in making his case for the company to impose censorship locally." Well , this sounds like referring to chinese standards to me, and it seems to just be a first step, they already imposed censorship on other stuff, not quite sure what it is exactly,a kind of blacklist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australi... so if you give these Guys the power to filter everything they don't want you to see, they will use it, google has a search engine and this search engine help peoples " find what they are looking for " so I think maybe they should figure out how to educate people to not look for some kind of content and not ask google to do that, and maybe some parents to do their homework with their kids looking for porn and other sensitive content.
- pmccool 17y ago
  I imagine Conroy was making the point that it was technically possible. I don't think that bringing up Chinese internet censorship was the most politically astute way to make that point, mind you...
pmccool 17y ago
I think people will make it a freedom-of-political-communication issue, because that's the obvious way of getting the law declared invalid, or declared not to apply to political speech or what-have-you. There's no absolute freedom of political communication in Australia. Instead, there's a test of whether the law is appropriate and adapted to a legitimate purpose. It's not at all clear how internet censorship laws will fare under this test.
CWuestefeld 17y ago
It obviously isn't to Chinese standards. China censors dissent and political opposition. The Australian Constitution protects freedom of political communication. ...it is perfectly fine to discuss the philosophical and political arguments on each side. However, it is currently illegal to provide explicit how-to instructions on performing euthanasia. No, you're presupposing the answer. Specifically, you have already decided where the line is between political debate and illegal action. But I claim that this isn't an inherent line. For example, it's impossible to fully debate euthanasia without understanding how it's done. Yet your assumption implicitly bars introduction of that material. And China makes the claim that pr0n is inherently destabilizing to the country -- the very same argument you're making against how-to on euthanasia.

netcan 17y ago

My personal view is that it doesn't really matter what the intentions are now. It's a framework. Before, no one could enforce restrictions on speech in Australia. It's not a question of laws or policies, it was physically impossible. You could send police to shut down a TV station, but not a website. Now it is a matter of laws or policies.

Concours 17y ago

Quote: "Communications Minister Stephen Conroy referred to Google's censorship on behalf of the Chinese and Thai governments in making his case for the company to impose censorship locally." Well , this sounds like referring to chinese standards to me, and it seems to just be a first step, they already imposed censorship on other stuff, not quite sure what it is exactly,a kind of blacklist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australi... so if you give these Guys the power to filter everything they don't want you to see, they will use it, google has a search engine and this search engine help peoples " find what they are looking for " so I think maybe they should figure out how to educate people to not look for some kind of content and not ask google to do that, and maybe some parents to do their homework with their kids looking for porn and other sensitive content.

pmccool 17y ago
I imagine Conroy was making the point that it was technically possible. I don't think that bringing up Chinese internet censorship was the most politically astute way to make that point, mind you...

pmccool 17y ago

I think people will make it a freedom-of-political-communication issue, because that's the obvious way of getting the law declared invalid, or declared not to apply to political speech or what-have-you. There's no absolute freedom of political communication in Australia. Instead, there's a test of whether the law is appropriate and adapted to a legitimate purpose. It's not at all clear how internet censorship laws will fare under this test.

CWuestefeld 17y ago

It obviously isn't to Chinese standards. China censors dissent and political opposition. The Australian Constitution protects freedom of political communication. ...it is perfectly fine to discuss the philosophical and political arguments on each side. However, it is currently illegal to provide explicit how-to instructions on performing euthanasia. No, you're presupposing the answer. Specifically, you have already decided where the line is between political debate and illegal action. But I claim that this isn't an inherent line. For example, it's impossible to fully debate euthanasia without understanding how it's done. Yet your assumption implicitly bars introduction of that material. And China makes the claim that pr0n is inherently destabilizing to the country -- the very same argument you're making against how-to on euthanasia.