Rachel

I, like many before me, am using this opportunity to air my concerns about the proposed Great Firewall of Australia.

And like the others, I also agree that the filter seems like a terrific waste of time and money. Australia's Internet speeds are, frankly, pretty dreadful, and from all accounts we pay some of the highest costs in the developed world, for some of the worst Internet. Why on earth would any sane government want to make it WORSE, when broadband speeds was one topic I recall hearing frequently about during pre-election campaigning?

Disregarding the sheer inconvenience of our Internet though, it is truly alarming that a nation like Australia, a country I've always been proud to say I belong to, is (potentially) stooping to the level of censorship we see in nations like Burma or China. While I agree that child pornography should be illegal, the potential for the filter to be extended to other controversial areas is too great. Indeed, there's already been talk that R-rated contended that is NOT illegal to be viewed is also on the black-list. Where does the censorship stop? I whole heartedly believe that once censorship on that sort of scale begins, it will only get worse. At what point will we look back and say '2008 was the point we began to lose our freedoms'?

I'm currently an overseas exchange student, and when I've talked to students from other countries (America, Japan, England, Taiwan, Germany and Czech, just to name a few!) on this issue, they've been amazed, because - in their own words - they never thought Australia was the sort of nation to do such a thing. If even the citizens of other nations are baffled and vaguely appalled by this 'net filter talk, try and imagine how the average Australian on the street who'll have it inflicted on them feels!