Andrew Thorpe

(Putting aside all the technical or ideological arguments I have against the filter) I'm sure that the Rudd government is pretty keen on keeping as many of their election promises as possible (an admirable goal, and also a way to avoid a possible line of opposition attack). However, this issue should be viewed differently in a number of ways: 1. Most people didn't know about the policy until after the election. I'm relatively well-informed about political issues and had no idea this was going to happen. 2. Consequently, there was no particularly strong mandate for the government to introduce this policy. Workchoices, climate change, Iraq, health and education spending, even Howard's age and the Republic were all cited by people I know as reasons why they voted against the Howard government; mandatory ISP-filtering never rated a mention. I'm aware that this is akin to calling it a 'non-core promise' but it's different because: 3. The overwhelming majority of not just stakeholders but also the general public DO NOT support the policy. Forcing it on us despite this is not democratic, it's just plain stubbornness. 4. It's a bad, inefficient, counterproductive, costly and stupid policy. Also, I'm baffled by what someone referred to in an earlier comment as the "scope-creep" of this policy. If the minister is looking to reach the point where there's enough backlash to be able to back away gracefully (as the Qld government has done on numerous occasions) then he should realise that he reached that point a while ago. Back away, Senator Conroy. You will be respected for it.