Jonathan Scanlan

The most important factor in the digital economy is bandwidth. Networks are just like oil - they offer expansion opportunities when service are cheep, but we don't reap the full benefit without making our engines (i.e. service providers and computers) more effecient.

Now, what the internet filter is going to do is drastically slow speeds, bloat telco and gov. bottom lines, and drive away those companies seeking cheeper bandwidth. Raising our network's bandwidth capactiy prior to the filter will not cancel the effect out either - it will mean more power is needed to filter vaster quantities of content.

Furthermore, if anyone here has read The Porn Report (published by melbourne uni press), you'll recall that the actual impact of pornography on adults and young people is between non-existant and positive. And pornography has historically driven the uptake of technologies, so allowing it to exist serves us economically also.

Finally, what we really need, if we are to fully benefit from the digital economy, is to deregulate intellectual property. This protectionism is not in our interests, and prevents us from setting up enterprises that make better use of ideas than the original holders.

If we deregulate it beyond all other OECD countries, investment in otherwise locked up ideas/designs would flood into Australia, and turn us into a technological production hub.