Conroy cans Coonan's free net filtering scheme

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 13 January 2009 10:22

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

The Australian Labor Government has closed the programme established by the previous Coalition Government which gave all Australian families access to a free PC-based Internet content filter under its NetAlert initiative. The filters were available through the NetAlert web site either by download or delivery on CD-Rom. The site now says simply that "The free availability of internet content filters from this website under the National Filter Scheme ended on 31 December 2008." However, free technical support for filters previously obtained under the scheme is available until 30 June 2010.

Shadow minister, Nick Minchin claimed that the Rudd Government had "quietly closed the programme...under the cover of the festive season on 31 December." However, a spokesman for communications minister, Stephen Conroy, told iTWire that plans to close the scheme had been revealed in the May 2008 budget. He said that free filters were now widely available from ISPs so provision by the Government was unnecessary.

The spokesman also claimed that the scheme had been a huge waste of money. "The previous government spent $15.5 million on promoting PC filters. 163,000 filter licences were issued, and as at end of November 2008 only approximately 26,000 of these were still in use. Extrapolated, that means that only about two percent of households with dependent age children and an internet connection are using the filter."

However, despite Conroy's passion for the need to protect Australian children from the perils of online porn and other nasties, his preferred alternative closure of the service means there is no longer any government-provided filtering: Conroy's preferred option - mandatory ISP level filtering - is months away from being implemented.

The free filter scheme was announced with great fanfare by the Coalition's communications minister, Helen Coonan, in June 2006 as part of "a $116.6 million comprehensive package of measures to crack down on the scourge of Internet pornography."

Coonan claimed that, overall the package of measures was "the single biggest commitment to protecting families online in the history of the Internet in Australia." The bulk of this - $93.3 million over three years - was allocated to the filter scheme.

The scheme took over a year to implement when it was announced afresh by Coonan as "The Government's world leading $189 million programme to protect Australian families from online dangers in the increasingly complex internet environment." By this time it had been expanded to include the provision of free filters to all public libraries in Australia.