One Step Ahead

It's an election week, and child pornography has been in the news, so it's not surprising that both major parties are having their say on blocking child pornography on the Internet. As usual, there's a lot of rhetoric.

The Liberal/National coalition government started Internet censorship in Australia in 1999, in an effort to block child pornography. But this has been a dismal failure, as the recent nationwide arrests show. The Coalition is now reluctant to commit itself to future legislation in this area, though Prime Minister John Howard said he would consider anything the Australian Federal Police recommends.

The Labor Party is sending mixed messages. On the one hand, Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has vowed to look into mandatory blocking at the ISP level.

But the federal Labor Party isn't so committed. Labor Communications Spokeswoman Kate Lundy declined to comment, except to refer to Labor's policy of committing money to Internet safety education. Now that's a sensible policy!

However, Senator Lundy doesn't have full support of her colleagues, some of whom prefer a technical solution, which - in my opinion, given the current technology available - is doomed to fail.