Stop mandatory filtering by ISP's in Australia

Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
Suite MG70
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

We, the undersigned, hereby express our condemnation of the forthcoming legislation to implement mandatory, blanket filtering of web pages by ISPs in Australia.

The free expression of ideas and opinions is cherished by Australians, and we hold this to be a fundamental human right. We condemn all efforts by governments and telecommunications firms that attempt to implement restrictions on the free exchange of speech and ideas.

We believe that having all Australians' internet access subjected to a secret and unaccountable government blacklist is completely unacceptable in a liberal democracy such as Australia. The public servants who would monitor such blacklists will in no way be morally or intellectually superior to anyone else in Australias population of internet users. Such a lack of moral or intellectual superiority would undoubtedly render them incapable of making sound judgements of behalf of the entire Australian populous.

We believe that Australia already has laws in place preventing the possession or viewing of child pornography, and other materials found objectionable by the vast majority of Australians. Filtering objectionable web pages will not stop those wishing to view such materials from obtaining them. These individuals are ALREADY committed to breaking the law when they access and view such materials over the internet. Filtering objectionable web pages will not miraculously make these criminals more law-abiding.

We believe that there are numerous effective, low cost, commercially available software packages that give parents the power to filter the internet web pages that their children can view. Parents already have the technology available to prevent their children from viewing content over the internet that they (the parents) find personally objectionable. Imposing mandatory, blanket internet filtering upon the public, in order to protect the children of parents that fail to filter content in their own homes is objectionable to the majority of Australians.

We believe that the highly vocal, religious minority that supports mandatory filtering of web pages are not representative of mainstream Australia. Australia has a long and proud history of secularism, whereby the state remains free of religious interference. The fact that some of Australias current political leaders hold dear some personal religious beliefs, does not give them the right to impose their values upon their fellow Australians that do not share those values.

We respectfully request that you withdraw your support for mandatory filtering of web pages by Australian ISPs.