clarencegirl

So now the Rudd Government is into online community consultation and, moderated consultation no less. Now if I were to avail myself of the usual methods of government-community consultation, I would write a submission and send it by email (with embedded references) or surface mail with attachments. It would be received by whichever parliamentary committee or departmental agency was conducting the consultation, duly recorded and the entire submission list published at a later date. In fact both a hard copy and a digital record of my opinion would last far into the future. Here, Minister Tanner is lauding a method of consultation which might see all "moderated" submissions disappear as though they never existed. Much the same way as various information will disappear from view once the Rudd-Conroy mandatory national ISP-level Internet filtering is imposed on the Australian nation. Minister Tanner talks about this government blog as a "learning process". Somehow I doubt that the ultra conservative Rudd Government needs to learn anything about either the suppression of information or massaging the medium to limit dissent. I will certainly be changing my vote in 2010 if this national mandatory censorship scheme is introduced. There will be no support for 'Kevin in 10' in my household. Nor will there be support for a form of community consultation which allows for opinion received to be erased. NO CLEAN FEED!!