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The thing I find so surprising about all of this is that I would never expect a "normal" country like Australia to have censorship issues. China, North Korea, I

The thing I find so surprising about all of this is that I would never expect a "normal" country like Australia to have censorship issues. China, North Korea, Iran... Australia? Is the Australian government simply too powerful for its people's own good?

zmmmmm 16y ago
Australians are very apathetic about their rights. Many people think it goes back to our roots. Most countries have some kind of founding story that involves revolution, violence, some kind of struggle for freedom (even if it is more myth than reality). Australia doesn't. We were handed a cosy democracy by the British and it's been all rosy ever since. So while most people easily conceive of the government as incompetent, misguided or even corrupt, almost nobody ever even conceives of government as potentially evil.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
philk 16y ago
We are "blessed" with a two party system where the two major parties are both headed up by religious conservatives.
- adrianwaj 16y ago
  Someone goes to Rudd and gives him a folder of 'objectionable material.' Also gives Rudd stats on how frequently it's accessed. And it's been on Rudd's mind ever since and he's trying to disinfect Australia and himself from it.
pmccool 16y ago
I'd answer "No". 1. A lot of these creepy proposals never get past the proposal stage. Take the Australia Card. 2. Australia's legal institutions have proved reasonably effective in dealing with such creepy laws. E.g. laws banning the Communist Party were struck down in the '50s. 3. This latest proposal is about law enforcement, not censorship. Creepy anti-terrorism laws aren't a peculiarly Australian vice. 4. The government doesn't have a majority in both houses; it needs the complicity of non-government members to make laws. None of this is to say that this is a good thing. It's creepy and embarrasing and I wish they'd stop.
- jlangenauer 16y ago
  The Australia Card was very nearly law - the Hawke Government went to the 1987 double dissolution election on it, and won, and the scheme was only defeated because of a small technical error in the pre-dissolution legislation which deferred the commencement date of the legislation to regulations (which can be disallowed by the Senate, where the coalition had a then majority). Because the legislation couldn't be changed when it was presented to a potential joint sitting, this technicality is what killed it. Not popular opposition.
  - pmccool 16y ago
    My mistake. Thank you for the correction. I certainly agree that popular opposition to creepy laws isn't an area where Australia has covered itself in glory over the years. That's not a specifically Australian failing, though.
JacobAldridge 16y ago
Not too powerful, just overly conservative. This has its advantages - our financial crisis experience was mild because regulations in the banking sector (plus our small size plus our mining industry, but let's avoid that discussion here) helped us through. But sometimes that conservative need to protect is combined with ignorance of reality, technical reality in these instances. That's a bad thing. (Some side notes on conservatism - we're a country who didn't have it's own national flag in practice for 50 years post Federation; one of our first national Acts of Parliament was the 'White Australia' policy which lasted until 1975; the Prime Minister we had when Hitler invaded Poland was the same guy we had when Kennedy was shot 25 years later; and we call Football 'Soccer'.)
- mos1b1 16y ago
  our financial crisis experience was mild because reglations in the banking sector Those were liberal financial regulations. Seriously.
  - nl 16y ago
    Um.. what do you mean by liberal? It is true that the Liberal government supported them (as did Labor). But they were conservative in that they restricted financial institutions in a number of ways (high capital requirements, strong(er) regulation of loans, etc etc)
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - mos1b3 16y ago
      I used the terminology in the same way you did. It's disappointing that you feel the need to pretend this is confusing to you.
- math 16y ago
  I doubt our banks are as safe as everyone says. Our housing market, by many measures is in a much bigger bubble than where the US got to and I'm convinced this is not due to supply demand fundamentals (as most people have been brainwashed into) - plenty of research out there as to why. We haven't seen bad times for 20 years. When we finally do (and there are people like Jim Chanos out there right now shorting China Property, i.e. Australian resources), that is when the swhtf. Our banks have massive exposure to mortgages. Not that many need to go bad before our banks are in trouble.
brc 16y ago
No I would say the Australian government is inventing policy without consultation to what it's citizens actually want. Nobody is really sure where all this (plus the internet censorship) is coming from. It's rather embarrassing. Add this to the mineral-tax grab announced without consultation by the government like some African dictatorship and it looks like the country is being run by a bunch of amateurs with no real experience and heads in the policy clouds. Probably a bit partisan for HN but I have had it with their ineptitude.
- jonny_noog 16y ago
  Nobody is really sure where all this (plus the internet censorship) is coming from. In a word, it comes from fear. Fear that the badies are going to blow us up while we sleep. Fear that the sexual deviants will molest us, or more likely just that they will have more fun than we can allow ourselves to have (being good religious folk). Fear that if someone holds an opposing viewpoint, this may make me feel like my own ridged, black and white outlook is not adequate to address the complexities of reality. A lot of people know where it's coming from. That doesn't really make anything any better though.
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    Are you sure it's coming from there and not just leveraging it? Seems more likely to me that it's a power grab. The world took notice about what happened in Iran. I didn't hear any governments being thankful for internet anonymity when that broke out. In fact I've mostly been hearing about plans for "filtering" since then.
    - jonny_noog 16y ago
      I do think that it originates from there, yes. Although I'm sure there are also those who may not believe in the cause and are only using these issues for their own political purposes. I suspect for example that one of the main reason's that the "clean feed" idea just won't die despite massive opposition is that the government is courting the favour of Xenophon and Fielding in the Senate.

zmmmmm 16y ago

Australians are very apathetic about their rights. Many people think it goes back to our roots. Most countries have some kind of founding story that involves revolution, violence, some kind of struggle for freedom (even if it is more myth than reality). Australia doesn't. We were handed a cosy democracy by the British and it's been all rosy ever since. So while most people easily conceive of the government as incompetent, misguided or even corrupt, almost nobody ever even conceives of government as potentially evil.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

philk 16y ago

We are "blessed" with a two party system where the two major parties are both headed up by religious conservatives.

adrianwaj 16y ago
Someone goes to Rudd and gives him a folder of 'objectionable material.' Also gives Rudd stats on how frequently it's accessed. And it's been on Rudd's mind ever since and he's trying to disinfect Australia and himself from it.

pmccool 16y ago

I'd answer "No". 1. A lot of these creepy proposals never get past the proposal stage. Take the Australia Card. 2. Australia's legal institutions have proved reasonably effective in dealing with such creepy laws. E.g. laws banning the Communist Party were struck down in the '50s. 3. This latest proposal is about law enforcement, not censorship. Creepy anti-terrorism laws aren't a peculiarly Australian vice. 4. The government doesn't have a majority in both houses; it needs the complicity of non-government members to make laws. None of this is to say that this is a good thing. It's creepy and embarrasing and I wish they'd stop.

jlangenauer 16y ago
The Australia Card was very nearly law - the Hawke Government went to the 1987 double dissolution election on it, and won, and the scheme was only defeated because of a small technical error in the pre-dissolution legislation which deferred the commencement date of the legislation to regulations (which can be disallowed by the Senate, where the coalition had a then majority). Because the legislation couldn't be changed when it was presented to a potential joint sitting, this technicality is what killed it. Not popular opposition.
- pmccool 16y ago
  My mistake. Thank you for the correction. I certainly agree that popular opposition to creepy laws isn't an area where Australia has covered itself in glory over the years. That's not a specifically Australian failing, though.

JacobAldridge 16y ago

Not too powerful, just overly conservative. This has its advantages - our financial crisis experience was mild because regulations in the banking sector (plus our small size plus our mining industry, but let's avoid that discussion here) helped us through. But sometimes that conservative need to protect is combined with ignorance of reality, technical reality in these instances. That's a bad thing. (Some side notes on conservatism - we're a country who didn't have it's own national flag in practice for 50 years post Federation; one of our first national Acts of Parliament was the 'White Australia' policy which lasted until 1975; the Prime Minister we had when Hitler invaded Poland was the same guy we had when Kennedy was shot 25 years later; and we call Football 'Soccer'.)

mos1b1 16y ago
our financial crisis experience was mild because reglations in the banking sector Those were liberal financial regulations. Seriously.
- nl 16y ago
  Um.. what do you mean by liberal? It is true that the Liberal government supported them (as did Labor). But they were conservative in that they restricted financial institutions in a number of ways (high capital requirements, strong(er) regulation of loans, etc etc)
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - mos1b3 16y ago
    I used the terminology in the same way you did. It's disappointing that you feel the need to pretend this is confusing to you.
math 16y ago
I doubt our banks are as safe as everyone says. Our housing market, by many measures is in a much bigger bubble than where the US got to and I'm convinced this is not due to supply demand fundamentals (as most people have been brainwashed into) - plenty of research out there as to why. We haven't seen bad times for 20 years. When we finally do (and there are people like Jim Chanos out there right now shorting China Property, i.e. Australian resources), that is when the swhtf. Our banks have massive exposure to mortgages. Not that many need to go bad before our banks are in trouble.

brc 16y ago

No I would say the Australian government is inventing policy without consultation to what it's citizens actually want. Nobody is really sure where all this (plus the internet censorship) is coming from. It's rather embarrassing. Add this to the mineral-tax grab announced without consultation by the government like some African dictatorship and it looks like the country is being run by a bunch of amateurs with no real experience and heads in the policy clouds. Probably a bit partisan for HN but I have had it with their ineptitude.

jonny_noog 16y ago
Nobody is really sure where all this (plus the internet censorship) is coming from. In a word, it comes from fear. Fear that the badies are going to blow us up while we sleep. Fear that the sexual deviants will molest us, or more likely just that they will have more fun than we can allow ourselves to have (being good religious folk). Fear that if someone holds an opposing viewpoint, this may make me feel like my own ridged, black and white outlook is not adequate to address the complexities of reality. A lot of people know where it's coming from. That doesn't really make anything any better though.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  Are you sure it's coming from there and not just leveraging it? Seems more likely to me that it's a power grab. The world took notice about what happened in Iran. I didn't hear any governments being thankful for internet anonymity when that broke out. In fact I've mostly been hearing about plans for "filtering" since then.
  - jonny_noog 16y ago
    I do think that it originates from there, yes. Although I'm sure there are also those who may not believe in the cause and are only using these issues for their own political purposes. I suspect for example that one of the main reason's that the "clean feed" idea just won't die despite massive opposition is that the government is courting the favour of Xenophon and Fielding in the Senate.