[LINK] RFI: Joint Select Ctee on Cybersafety

[rene]

On Fri, 11 Mar 2011 10:52:20 +1100, Roger Clarke wrote:

> Thanks to Stephen and Irene for their heplful comments and sources.

Also, since last posting on this topic, I've looked at the past hearing 
programs and who appeared. 

I see that, imo quite strangely, the group "Family Voice Australia" 
appeared twice, at a C'tee hearing in Melbourne and at a hearing in 
Adelaide. "Family Voice Australia" is the relatively recently re-named 
"Festival of Light" (Fred Nile etc) and is (unsurprisingly) extremely keen 
on mandatory ISP filtering/blocking and any other form of increased 
censorship. 

The reps who appeared in Adelaide have been FOL reps for over 10 years 
(probably more like 15-20 yrs). The rep who appeared in Melbourne for FOL 
made clear that his home state is WA, and a person of the same name was 
(possibly still is) the WA rep for the so-called "Australian Family 
Association", another radical religious right/"moral reform" group (which 
is an offshoot of dec. Bob Santamaria's Catholic-right-based National Civic 
Council). It's not unusual for these type of groups to 'share' 
spokespeople.

I've no idea how "Family Voice Australia" got to appear twice, but I 
speculate that it might have something to do with Sen. Guy Barnett (Lib, 
Tas), who is the closest equivalent to Harradine on the Committee, in terms 
of being very pro-censorship and also sharing other views of radical 
religious right groups. 

Hence, regardless of what Alex Hawke MP says has been the majority of views 
presented to the C'tee about mandatory filtering, I would not be in the 
least bit surprised if e.g. Sen. Guy Barnett says to you something like: 
"Family Voice Australia has told the Committee that they consider mandatory 
ISP filtering is the most important thing that can be done to protect 
children - do you agree/disagree with them?".

Probably obviously, but just in case not, my point is that I'm suggesting 
you be prepared to deal with any such question, rather than 
perhaps/possibly being caught off-guard by questions/s that may on their 
face, imply that "families" want mandatory because that's what "Family 
Voice Australia" wants. The latter is not representative of families or 
parents in general, at most it represents the views of people who share the 
views of the Festival of Light (Fred Nile etc) - almost certainly a very 
small % of AU parents.

Irene