Hooray! Australia's conservative coalition undertakes to block internet censorship

And even the Greens approve! So it's dead. It can't get through the Senate with both the Greens and the coalition opposed. The Labor party obviously has a tin ear to have kept insisting on this widely deplored scheme for so long. They obviously could not see past the great Leftist vision of ever-increasing control over the lives of ordinary people

The Liberals have finally spoken and it's music to most internet users' ears. Joe Hockey's public denunciation of Labor's controversial mandatory ISP filtering plan late yesterday was warmly welcomed by the Greens and others.

The opposition treasury spokesman late yesterday told ABC Radio's Triple J that if elected the Coalition would scrap the filter scheme. But even if Labor won the August 21 poll, the Coalition would not back the filter legislation. Mr Hockey said the policy was flawed and the technology doesn't work.

An Abbott government is likely to reintroduce NetAlert, a Howard-era program that offered parents free internet filtering software.

Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam said the Liberal party should be congratulated for finally declaring its hand. The Nationals had previously stated they would not support Labor's plan.

"The decision belongs to the huge number of people who contributed to a tenacious, self-organised campaign that stretched from online civil libertarians all the way up to the US State Department," Senator Ludlam said. "The ALP should drop the censorship proposal rather than fighting what now looks inevitable. "The Greens will work with any party in the parliament on constructive cyber safety proposals. At last that debate can start properly," Senator Ludlam said.

Influential lobby group GetUp declared the filter "dead, buried and cremated". "Regardless of who forms the next government, we know that mandatory internet filter legislation won't pass Parliament, with the Coalition, the Greens and independent Nick Xenophon all opposed to it," GetUp national director Simon Sheikh said.

GetUp was not alone in its crusade against the filter proposal. “This was a coalition campaign including groups as diverse as Save the Children, Australian Lawyers Alliance, National Arts and Culture Alliance, human rights groups including Amnesty Australia and online activists like Electronic Frontiers Australia. Everyone will be celebrating today,” Mr Sheikh said.

Labor wants ISPs to block refused classification (RC) web pages on a secret government blacklist but the policy has hit several roadblocks since first pledged in the 2007 election.

In early July Communications Minister Stephen Conroy ordered a year-long review into RC processes and said the filter legislation would not be introduced until the review was completed. The government has always said it would that at least 12 months after the passage of legislation to implement the filtering scheme. If Labor is re-elected, ISPs will be forced to start blocking RC content from 2012.

SOURCE