Pirate Party Australia is bemused by the remarks of Senator Steven Conroy, Communications Minister, who recently remarked that he sees “a very positive outcome” for the future of Internet censorship in Australia[1].
Senator Conroy’s remarks come at a time when Australia’s telecommunications industry has become increasingly cautious of publicly commenting on any of the current regulatory issues being addressed, particularly any preliminary results from the Interpol filter testing underway by Optus, Telstra and a few smaller ISPs.
The Party maintains their stance that there should be no requirement to filter the Internet, but that families and private network operators should be given information on how to install client-end filters if necessary. They also reiterate the technical flaws that filtering has, particularly the ease with which it can be circumvented[2].