Australia's prime minister John Howard and opposition leader Kevin Rudd revealed the Australian government's sweeping new $189 million anti-pornography initiative on Friday at an event hosted by the Australian Christian Lobby. During the presentation, which was broadcast to over 700 Australian churches, Howard discussed Christian values and described the government's latest costly plans for preventing pictures of naked people from clogging The Tubes.

Approximately $89 million will be used to establish Australia's National Filter Scheme, which will impose burdensome filtering requirements on ISPs and provide Australian citizens with free* access to PC-based Internet filtering software. The filtering systems will leverage the Australian Communications and Media Authority's official Blacklist, which is based on the country's National Classification Scheme. According to a statement issued on Friday by communications minister Helen Coonan, the Australian Communications and Media Authority is also evaluating plans to extend the Blacklist to include "terrorism and cyber-crime sites upon prescription by the Attorney-General."

Approximately $22 million will be spent on a broad "public awareness and education campaign" to inform parents of Internet safety issues, and another $11.7 million will be used to establish community outreach programs that will push "the Internet safety message" into thousands of schools. Additionally, the government plans to establish a consultative working group to find a "workable solution" to combat "the use of social networking web sites by predators to contact and groom children via the internet."

Only last year, the Australian government spent $116 million on a similar initiative, $93 million of which was used to provide free* Internet filtering software to families for a three-year period. At the time, Coonan said in a statement that the government's three separate studies on the efficacy of ISP-level filtering found "significant problems with content filter products operating at the ISP-level," and Coonan cited ease of circumvention and limited filtering control when arguing that ISP-level filtering isn't as effective as PC-based filtering. It is ironic that Australia's latest costly anti-pornography initiative leverages the same kind of ISP-level filtering technologies that were dismissed as inadequate only a year ago. One wonders what kind of improvements have been in the filtering technology field since then.

Proposal would impose jail sentences for possessing five or more pornographic movies

In related news, the Australian Parliament is evaluating a legislative proposal introduced by indigenous affairs minister Mal Brough that aims to impose extreme restrictions on pornography in the Northern Territory. The proposal is inspired by the Australian government's "Children Are Sacred" report, which discusses instances of child sexual abuse in the Northern Territories. Mal Brough's proposal, which is described as "draconian" by the New Zealand Herald, would implement a broad ban on X-rated films in the Northern Territory, and impose jail sentences for porn "trafficking" on those who are caught with five or more X-rated films even in instances where the pornographic products are not being distributed.

Although Mal Brough only aims to impose the restrictions and "trafficking" penalties on the Northern Territories, groups like the Australian Christian Lobby are calling for the proposed directive to be expanded nationally. "The Australian Christian Lobby, along with many other Christian and family groups is asking why the ban on X-rated pornography should only apply to Northern Territory indigenous communities," the Australian Christian Lobby said in a statement. "The problems of pornography aren't confined to these communities and the ban needs to extend Australia-wide. Don't all children need protecting?"

When did the family values lobbyists give up on parenting?

Australian political action groups like the Australian Christian Lobby that claim to promote family values undermine their own platform by calling for government intervention that usurps the most basic family value of all: parenting. No government-sanctioned filtering solution will ever be a reliable replacement for direct parental involvement.

In light of the failings of the government's previous filtering program, and Prime Minister Howard's decision to present his new anti-pornography initiative at an event sponsored by the Australian Christian Lobby, it seems likely that this has more to do with appeasing a powerful faction of constituents than with protecting children. It's too bad that ISP-level filtering will get dragged into this, because unless Australia has found the perfect system (and we're sure they haven't), this means that plenty of headaches and false positives await. 

Wouldn't it be more practical and effective for groups like the Australian Christian Lobby to use its resources to mobilize a grass-roots open-source software development project to create truly free filtering software that could then be broadly distributed to the public on the Internet and through community churches? 

* Contrary to common belief, government services aren't actually free, they are provided at the expense of the taxpayer.

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Michel Morinà michel.morin25@videotron.ca