Shadow Minister Tony Smith on ISP filtering

Unfortunately Tony Smith is a lightweight with little expertise in the area and at this point in time his views are worthless.

He doesn't maintain a credible online presence - his staff even let his website domain lapse and it went offline for a week. That demonstrates that he really has no grasp of how to effectively manage online channels.

He certainly won't win any votes based on his conduct and approach so far.

To send a protest against Conroy's deplorable attempt at locking down the internet for Australians - which will not catch a single producer of child pornography or protect a single child, but instead make every Australian guilty simply by choosing to use the internet - I'm forced to choose the Greens as the Liberals, other than Hockey, have refused to take a policy position reflecting the US approach.

What a shame about the Libs appearing to support a filter. The only option appears to be to vote for the Greens.

This guy doesnt sound much better than Conroy unfortunately. Anyone who argues the splitting of Telstra is bad because mum and dad investors will loose out and the current regulations arent so bad for competition. Telstra has been abusing their grip on key infrastructure for years now and I dont see that changing any time soon. And he hasnt addressed any of the issues with this stupid filter. Who can I vote for to do the right thing? Neither the Libs or Labour by the looks of things.

Tony does sound as if he has a reasonable grasp of the situation, but how about he attacks the outrageous blackmail and threat that has been put on Telstra to force Telstra to self-destruct and remove itself as a competitor to the Government NBN Co.

One of two things can happen here. One is that the Government can, with Telstra approval, buy the assets of Telstra and obtain the transference of Telstra customers. Two, Telstra can be allowed (by the removal of the blackmail) to operate as a competitor of the NBN Co. thereby removing the need to split Telstra.

If neither of these things happen I think Telstra would be duty bound to, by a massive advertising campaign, to educate the Australian people of the Government intention to destroy an Australian company with 1,400,000 Australian owners and with 34,000 Australian employees to assist a Government in its re-election strategy.

I don't understand why this interview was even posted. Nothing was even said. More and more as these politicians open their mouths they show their lack of knowledge in their own portfolios

While claiming to be waiting for the legislation might look wise, it is actually a weak and spineless stance. Conroy has thrown his cards down on the table already and we know what is in store; mandatory internet censorship with a secret blacklist under the flimsy guise of "protecting the children". The question on many IT savvy votes or even just those interested in protecting their civil rights is "Will the Liberals support such an undemocratic proposal?".

Sadly, after reading this the answer seems to be "Yes, if the price is right."

Weasel much? So in other words the Liberal party are almost completely in support of Internet censorship... they just want to make sure its technically possible first!

@Sydney Lawrence.

Dude you say the same Telstra rubbish eveywhere.

Come on spill the beans, which part of Telstra do you work in or how many thousands of Telstra shares do you have or how much do Telstra pay you for cash for comments?

No one can support any business like you do Telstra, without such a reason.

Darren, it shows that lack of understanding as well as political bias in politicians when it comes to politics (especially election time).

They push for points, rather than go for objectives (completion of those objectives).

If Tony/Liberals elects the removal of the NBN, and allows the Filter, than he is no different from Conroy who when labor was elected, of removing of Howard's OPEL Deal and initiating ISP Filtering.

Even if they just block the Filter, they are no different to Labor.

I think the emphasis from this story should be on 'SHADOW' and not much more.
If you understand Politics and how it works, he is working towards the same goals being advocated by the same lobby groups except he wears a slightly different badge on his lapel.
Please remember in a Class Structure this bloke is supposedly superior to us Working Class Mortals.
I think it's funny as hell (pun implied).

Oh no! Yet another computer illiterate politician put in charge of a portfolio he would not have a clue about.

Time and time again, Labor and Liberal keep putting absolute dills in charge of the IT/Telecoms portfolio.

There must be some-one in both parties who has some idea, surely.
On the Labor side Kate Lundy and on the Liberal side Joe Hockey both made some intelligent mutterings about the stupidity of the filter but their opinions apparently don't count with their Leaders.
Looks like the Greens get my vote in the Senate.

@Darren Walsh, on the contrary, Senator Smith stated very clearly that he, and by extension, the Liberals, would dearly love to censor the internet and lacked only the technical skill to do so. In this he differs from Senator Conroy merely by not being in power.

Sadly, this confirms that the Liberals are not a suitable alternative to Labor in this area. Both parties are infested with dribbling lunatics and neither deserve to govern.

Who can I vote for now? Drawing a picture of a duck on my ballot would do me more good than picking either of the hopeless options presented.

I'm sorry, but if you believe in High Speed wireless as a technology that is comparable to FTP you have been listening to snake oil salesmen.

Even considering it loses you all credibility within the industry, Presenting it as your policy is just stupid.

I will be voting first whoever opposes this draconian legislation and last all those who don't. You had a chance to get my vote Tony and you blew it.

So many people are crying out for someone for vote for to get rid of this unworkable policy. The Liberals give the impression they just want to stay sitting on the fence. This isn't good enough for me. Who do I vote for? The Greens?

So just who CAN we vote for? The godbotherers appear to have a scrotal grip on the Internet policies of the two major parties, and the Greens are dancing around the issue so that they can trade off Net censorship (remember Clive Hamilton? He seems to think it was his idea) for some greenie abstraction.

All fluff and no substance.

1) He failed to admit that selling Telstra as a whole was a mistake. It's obvious to everyone in the industry, and most other people that this is the case.

2) Shareholders have only ever lost value on Telstra. More isn't exactly going to surprise them. But that's what happens when you sell a monopoly into a newly set up competetive market. There is only one direction for them. Down. This should be obvious to anyone. If you have a monopoly, and more players come to compete, any customers by definition HAVE to leave the monopoly.

3) Filtering the internet is a technical impossibility. Where there's a will, it can be bypassed trivially. So, for something that cannot work, we should pay for hundreds of new staff at the ACMA? Why?
Might as well put them on work for the dole. At least picking rubbish off of highways actually results in the place being cleaner and nicer looking when they're done.
It's futile, will have a net zero result so therefore it is pointless.
Spend the money on police to coordinate international hunts for the real problem; the content creators. Paedophilia is universally regarded as illegal. No need to filter it. Prosecute it.

4) The NBN is possibly the only thing Krudd has got right. Given the millions spent each year on the Australian Broadband Guarantee, the TIO, and every telco in the country fighting Telstra in court and elsewhere, and overall, $40bn doesn't amount to that much.
Yes, the pace is appaling. But the goal is worthy.

In short, I think I'm going to have to encourage everyone I know to vote for the least likely independant in their electorate.
Both the parties are stupid

Maybe we need the Australian democrats to return. We don't really have a democracy with just the ALP and Liberals. Pun intended.

When you look at the Coalition's record on online censorship its marginally worse than Labor's. Both major parties are now led by Christian ideologues so what else can you expect? For both of them, porn represents something that is akin to a nuclear war and they will do anything to try and smash it. In their God-delusion they see online porn as something that has the power to destroy families and nations. Conroy was made to look silly for his attempt to ban porn by the Australian Sex Party President ,Fiona Patten, on the SBS Insight program on this issue nearly a year ago. After this debate Conroy started to change his mantra and say that only Refused Classification material would be banned rather than X rated stuff which is what he was previously saying. When people ask who they can now vote for it wouldn't be the Greens, They preselected Clive Hamilton to contest the by election for Peter Costello's old seat of Higgins last year. Hamilton was the architect of Conroy's internet filter so why would you vote for the Greens on this issue? Fiona Patten will be standing against Conroy for a Victorian Senate seat and her Sex Party will be standing candidates for the Senate in all states. I'll be voting for them.

Tony Smith seems like the type of chump that is trying to not give a position on the filter and if elected would introduce it himself.

I'm so over you cry-babies. Any man that doesn't openly support the filtering is better than the one we've got.

Plus I'm over everyone supporting the stupid NBN. It's $43 BILLION dollars!!! That sort of money can fund a ton of hospitals and school but instead it's getting lightning fast Internet to Lightning Ridge and a bunch of other nowehere whoop whoop towns with 6 people.

We can get decent stuff at a lower cost with other tech. Plain and simple.

A lot of words with almost nothing said. The only thing Tony Smith confirmed was he wouldn't break up Telstra. He lost my vote with that one.
Telstra's monopoly has been the biggest restraint on broadband in the country. they have used their position to bully and delay. Sol openly stated they had the fibre in place to increase broadband in metro areas but refused to do so until there was a competitive reason. That means as soon as a competitor puts up their hand we are ready to kill them off, because we can jump on them aggressively.
Telstra believes it is in their best interests to slow down technology and to retain full control of the network. The responsibility for this lies with the Liberal Party and their (deliberate) failure to realise they created a monster when they sold Telstra.
Tony Smith is declaring they are happy with their offspring, and want to maintain the Status Quo.
So many shareholders heed the Telstra Mantra. they fail to realise they and their shares would be better off if Telstra worked with other isp's and telco's instead of so aggressively against them.

Pursuit of naked power seems to be the main driver for these issues.

Telstra have never got over their govt dept/monopoly mindset, and as DC says above, they seem to believe it is in their best interests to slow down tech and retain full control. After many years of this, we have tech retardation and excessive charges, with innovation in both areas coming from other companies and mostly opposed by Telstra in various ways.

The Krudd/Conboy filter is just one big power trip to impose secret censorship on all of us. The politicians and the fundamentalists are united in their desire to control what information we can hear and see, and impose their views on everybody else.

Reading between the lines I can only surmise this guy is an idiot. He has no idea what he is talking about and seems to take the same stand as Minchin as far as the NBN - he wants to scrap it because they did not come up with the idea so it must be bad. The Liberals dithered and dothered for many many years on how to do this and came up with nothing but an endless waste of money and meaningless studies and committees. The Liberals sold Telstra as a monopoly thereby relegating Australia to the technological boondocks forevermore. Despite overwhelming evidence from other countries that Telstra needs to be separated, that this has been done before, that this can work, he seems to think he knows better and it should not be done.
And wow oh wow if the Liberals were still in power 900,000 people (probably in Melbourne or Sydney) would have faster internet. What about the rest of the country? How fast is faster?
Lots of dribble here and very little specific detail.

The Greens did themselves a serious injury by allowing the censorious Hamilton to run under their banner. Fortunately he didn't win - more likely he cost them a seat that they'd been tipped to take.

However they have announced that their policy is to oppose the filter, on civil liberties as well as technical grounds. Greens senator Scott Ludlam has been vocal in his opposition and has been holding Conroy's feet to the fire, asking him pointed questions in the Senate. Conroy's response was to insinuate that Ludlam was pro-paedophile, so you know he hit a nerve.

Hamilton fell into line on censorship, putting out a statement that he will follow the Greens policy to oppose it. However his credibility is shot, I don't trust him and he's a liability to them.

Right now though the Greens are the only party with a straight-out policy opposing net censorship. If they didn't have Hamilton on board I'd vote for them happily. As it is I'll vote for them unhappily.

@viveka and others - the Greens DO NOT have a policy to oppose the filter, only rhetoric. The day a policy appears on their website is the day that you can start to believe them that they will in fact oppose the filter. To date the only party with actual policy on the subject is the Australian Democrats (policy circulated in march is currently in member ballot).