Minister under fire: IT Professionals say net filtering won't work

Stuart Corner
Monday, 27 October 2008 10:11

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

"A policy advisor for Senator Conroy is reported to have expressed "serious concern" about Mr Newton's comments to a board member of the Internet Industry Association (IIA) and requested that this concern be passed to his employer, an IIA member," SAGE-AU claims.

However, it is not all one-sided. In his more recent Whirlpool posts on the filtering question, Newton has taken to attacking Conroy personally, accusing him of being 'dumb' and of having a violent temper.

For example: "...what you've described is the inevitable result of putting the dumbest people in the room in charge of something important. I mean, really. Take a look at Conroy's record. What on Earth possessed Mr. Rudd to put him in charge of one of the ALP's crown-jewel departments after the last election? Look at the communications policy things that they campaigned on, they've all cratered. What, exactly, does our Broadband ministry actually do for us?"

He has also written an open letter to Conroy's press officer, Tim Marshall, complaining that: "Yesterday I asked you to join the debate, in your position as the official public representative of the Commonwealth Government of Australia. I note that you haven't. In fact, I haven't heard anything from your department whatsoever! Imagine that! It's as if your whole operation has gone completely dark, totally shut down. Why might that be?

And answering his rhetorical question by having another go at Conroy: "I happen to know that Conroy has a world-famous temper, and I have this mental image of him seeing the SMH on Friday morning and hitting the roof so hard that you and Belinda [Dennett - Conroy's digital economy advisor] had to spend the rest of the day peeling him off the ceiling with cheese knives."