"I can assure everyone who is participating in this debate that the Government is taking an evidence-based approach"

You and the government are doing nothing of the sort. Your cherry-picking the Tasmanian trial results and your deliberate ignorance of and refusal to listen to ISPs and the IT industry is hardly an evidence-based approach.

"We are happy to have an open debate about these technical issues"

If you're so happy to have an open debate why do you keep spouting lies and policy lines instead of directly answering people's questions?

Also, if you are so happy to have an open debate why did you attempt to silence Mark Newton?

"However, the Government does not view this debate as an argument about freedom of speech."

It IS an argument about freedom of speech as filtering infringes on that. Your wanting to block unspecified "unwanted content" is one reason why the free speech argument comes in because you refuse to specify what "unwanted" is.

"In this context, claims that the Government's policy is analogous to the approach taken by countries such as Iran, China and Saudi Arabia are not justified."

It's perfectly justified. Your behaviour and your and the government's refusal to specify exact details regarding the censorship scheme is why Labor's policy is being compared to that of China and Iran's censorship regimes.

I have some other questions I'd like you to answer. I'd appreciate actual responses and not policy or pro-forma responses like the ones you've spouted off on this site, in letters and in parliament.

1. Will you personally apologise to Mark Newton for attempting to silence him?

2. Given that part of the ISP-level trial will not involve any customers and that no benchmarks for success or failure have been set, how can any trial results be credible?

3. Why are you completely ignoring ISPs and the entire industry?

4. Will any sites recommended for placement on the blacklist be reviewed first?

6. Why are there no appeals processes in place to get sites unblocked should they wrongly end up on the ACMA blacklist? This is another reason why Labor's censorship policy is being compared to the censorship regimes in countries like China and Iran.

7. Why do you want to dictate your morals (or lack thereof) and beliefs upon us by dictating what we can and can't see on the 'net?

8. How on Earth did you come up with the conclusion that the previous government's Net Alert was a failure because it wasn't mandatory?! It was a failure because NO-ONE WANTS CENSORED OR IMPEDED INTERNET ACCESS!!!

As has been said already, net censorship will not work. It will not protect the kids as you so claim, and it will not prevent criminals from accessing illegal material. It'll just be one huge incovenience for Australians.

Just kill the censorship policy already. It's not doing you or the government any good, and it will most certainly cost Labor the next election.