It’s worth noting that just for once, the Liberal Party has actually stuck up for Liberal principles and decided to oppose the internet filter. The decision, along with that of the Greens, ensures that the filter will be, um, filtered out by the Senate, pretty much whatever happens on Saturday. Another good reason to give the Greens your first preference in the Senate.
Bernard Keane, writing in Crikey today, gives credit to Joe Hockey, Jamie Briggs, and Christian Right political thug Alex Hawke, amongst others (Hawke did publicly oppose the filter in a joint select committee). It’s a strange day when I have to thank somebody like Alex Hawke for defending small-l liberal principles, but I’m glad, however it happened, that it happened.
As for Labor, the fundies are not your friends. Every time you flirt with them, you lose. Learn your lesson.
… or to any party other than the ALP.
SATP: or, ahem, Family First. Peacebeuponhim.
I would actually be a rusted on liberal/conservative voter if we had a liberal-conservative party. So this sort of thing just serves to remind me how poorly the Liberals do on liberal issues, and the self-named conservatives do on conservative issues. Excuse me, the vent in my spleen just tore.
Robert – whoever forms government after 21 August will have to deal with the existing senate until 2011. (The existing senate can still block the filter of course.) Your statement “another good reason to vote Green” doesn’t follow.
Alex – you are right to say that the existing Senate can – (and probably would) – block the filtering legislation, but Conroy has put back introducing the legislation to even the lower house until after the new Senate sits, to allow a “review” of the classification system. His plan was to hopefully get better Senate numbers, which was pie-in-the-sky stuff anyway.
It’s all about saving face, and giving them a “convenient” reason to drop the filter at the time, when the “review” reveals that the filter is unworkable.
Oh, sorry. The kicker is that Labor has decided to delay the filter until a review, which won’t be complete until the new Senate sits.
So, the drift leftwards to the Greens is finally getting through to Labor Central?
No doubt, after the election, it will found that the Filter is needed after all.
“As for Labor, the fundies are not your friends. Every time you flirt with them, you lose. Learn your lesson.”
Pretty difficult to flirt with oneself (unless one’s going to masturbate, I guess). Labor’s base ideology is that of CCTVs, filters, censorship, etc. It has very little to do with fundies as an external entity they may play with. As my ‘proof’ I offer up the UK.
Is there anyway they can introduce the filter without legislation? Eg they control the NBN and so have the NBN require that any ISP which connects to the NBN have a compulsory filter for all of their customers. With the libs opposed to the filter there’s little reason for the ALP to keep their filter proposal unless it really reflect their ideology.
Do you have a link for that Crikey article? I can’t find it.
@3 Alex, if the Greens candidate for an ACT Senate seat is successful then she (Lin Hatfield-Dodds) will take up her seat immediately.
Ash, it was in the Crikey morning email, which is not online.
So it is. I must have missed it this morning. Thanks.
Slightly off topic, but at least about internet stuff, Turnbull’s 7 point argument in today’s OO that Smugglesnet is far superior to NBN.
Here’s a theory as to why the Liberal knuckledraggers have discovered their inner civil libertarians: it’s a mixture of political pandering, fear of the media barons, and an uncharacteristic, farsighted desire to set a precedent that allows them to avoid future controversy over ‘net neutrality’ (i.e., they don’t ever want to have to adjudicate a regulatory fight involving ISP’s wanting the right to slow down content from the corporate allies of rival ISPs).
Those latter two points are things Labor should have taken into account this whole time. Instead the bastards thought they could wedge the Liberals with the socons. Stupid, stupid, stupid. It should have been obvious that the Coalition wouldn’t care about the the social issue, as all the worst wowsers vote for ‘em anyway.
So, Pete, you live in one of the six Australian states that have had Labor governments during this past ten years who’ve imposed as many CCTVs in our cities as there is in post-IRA, post-7/7, ASBO-infested Great Britain? No?
Then your proof of the ALP’s ‘base ideology’ being synonymous with UK Labour’s actions is a load of crap.
Better self-styled freedom fighters, please.
I should make it clear I’ve always opposed the Net filter, it’s just I’m cynically amazed that the Liberals have (finally) been more politically expedient in opposing it than the government ever was in creating it.
If little old me can figure this out now then the Conroys and the Gillards should have always predicted this could happen, and therefore decided to just put it on the backburner… like a certain other policy they’ve discovered won’t pass the sainted cross-partisan consensus litmus test.
Nickws – actually the libs policy has not really changed. The news really is essentially that their policy remains the same as what it was at the last election – subsidised filter installed in people’s homes.
Indeed Nickws. If you’re going to offer up the UK Labour Party as an identical ideological twin to the Australian Labor Party I look forward to the debates on Australia’s independent submarine-based nuclear deterrent.
Also, better BBQ pork laksa, Singapore noodles and crispy skin duck in London. That’s one thing Sussex St has over every other branch of the labour movement worldwide.
Liam, I thought comedian Al Murray on the BBC election night coverage made the best argument in favour of the Labour government being returned—Brown wants to build full-sized aircraft carriers! Who doesn’t love that?
By that standard all Australian pols are pacifists. Hell, LP regular commenter Razor is practically Bertrand Russell.
And for that matter I wonder where that scion of Labourist working class internationalism Ehud Barak would fit into Australian Labor.
So, Pete, you live in one of the six Australian states that have had Labor governments during this past ten years who’ve imposed as many CCTVs in our cities as there is in post-IRA, post-7/7, ASBO-infested Great Britain? No?
Do we have ASBOs? No. But we do have Move-On orders, a curfew and many other totalitarian laws here in WA, imposed by the last Labor regime that held power from 2001-2008.
The internet filter was the only good policy the ALP had.
Nickws@14, splendid spray.
Yes.
” Abandon hope,
All ye who
enter here “.
Then there was the poster so enamoured of big bros philter that he’ll be calling for cctv in peoples bedrooms to make sure there is enough breeding going on in a future where contraceptives are, no doubt, banned.
“Hawke did publicly oppose the filter in Senate committee”. It might be nitpicking Robert but it was actually a joint select committee (Hawke’s participation in a Senate committee would be a curiosity). The committee’s homepage is here.
Thanks Bismarck. Corrected.