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Hooray - an American (I assume) that actually understands what the word 'liberal' means.

Explaining why the major conservative party here in Australia is called the Liberal Party to visiting Americans is always a nightmare...

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OK, go here: http://thechoice.liberal.org.au/assets/js/scripts_a525ba27d7083afd6698e2641babf7ff.min.js

Find the bit that starts: decodeURIComponent((new RegExp("[?|&]"+a+"=([^&;]+?)(&|#|;|$)").exec(location.search)||[,""])[1].replace(/\+/g,"%20"))||null}var _0x8ece=["\x68\x74\x74\x70\x3A

How exactly do you describe it?

This was alluded to in the summary but in case people just read the headline and make a knee jerk post about it ... they have already back tracked from the plan. In fact they said they never had such a plan and it was a mistaken statement in the first place.

Whichever it was, the correction certainly occurred in record time. Seeing the whole thing go down on Twitter there was barely a few hours between news outlets picking up the story of the filtering plan and Malcolm Turnbull responding and saying the whole thing was incorrect.

Official Liberal Party press release clarifying that they do NOT intend to introduce filtering: http://www.liberal.org.au/latest-news/2013/09/05/coalitions-policy-enhance-online-safety-children

There's various other reasons that you shouldn't vote for the LNP this election. But thankfully this isn't one of them.

The timing of this post on the front page is a little too timely. The prime minister Kevin Rudd today announced the date the federal election is to be held. It will be September 7th. Me thinks the poster is quite possibly a card carrying Australian Labor Party (ALP) member.

There seems to be a lot of scaremongering going on in regards to the Liberal National coalition's NBN policy. The ALP is promising fibre to the building in all cases except for where it is completely infeasible (e.g. remote towns out in the desert etc.). Sounds great but it will be expensive. Probably somewhere well over $50 billion. The coalition is promising fibre to the node with fibre to the building available at cost to the user for those that need it. Coalition's will be a fair bit cheaper as it won't be funding fibre to every building.

The ALP's NBN policy page

The Liberal National coalition's NBN policy page

Debate over which of the two policies is superior is healthy but blatant biased scaremongering is not.

Please read the opposition policy on national broadband access and get back to us. That's likely what we will get come the September election.

Here it is.

But it's junk. The Lib/Nat coalition are talking about improving the copper system, maybe going from ADSL2+ to VDSL, so from 20Mbps to 40Mbps.

The Lib/Nat coalition are idiots sometimes. Tony Abbott refused to believe NBNCo when they changed their maximum available data rate from 100Mbps to 1Gbps. But even that is nothing. 100Gbps optical Ethernet is commercially available, and researchers have managed 26 terabits per second with a single laser, and 100 terabits per second with multiple lasers. And that research limit is not in the fibre itself, but in the endpoints. So they are talking about spending $6B over six years on a twofold data rate increase. And pooh-poohing a $40B plan to increase the data rate by 5,000,000. Oh and how often does the national data rate double? About every two years! So they get two years of data growth out of a $6B investment over six years, instead of about 45 years of data growth from a $40B investment.

Read Nick Ross's take.

Care to point to the Google policy which you claim is being breached by The Sex Party? Some other parties in Australia also have donate buttons on their websites, and there is no sign of Google refusing their election ads.

If it wasn’t for Tasmania, Tony Abbott would have been your PM for the last 2 years.
Check out: http://www.tas.liberal.org.au/default.cfm?action=people&type=1
(For those who don’t get it, no, that page isn’t broken - there are no Tas Liberals in the House of Representatives – we supply 4 Labor and 1 Independent. Without them, Abbott would have had a majority in 2010.)

It's a bit of a shock, I know, but those strange and barbarous foreign people are allowed to use words in a way that is different than their use in the US. I'm not sure why Jesus allows it; but it happens.

In this case, the Tasmanian Liberals are more or less similar to those American 'Conservatives' who are still pretending to endorse the 'compassionate conservative' label.

Note key phrases such as "We believe in the importance of the family and that the standards of a free society should support family ideals.", "We further believe government should not compete with an efficient private sector", "We believe that Australia has a constructive role to play in maintaining international peace in alliance with other free nations", and "We further believe that competitive enterprise, the free choice of consumers in the marketplace and individual effort will maximise economic growth and national prosperity.".

You'd need a local observer to say to what degree these reflect genuine classical 'Liberalism', in something resembling the 19th century sense, and to what degree they reflect the rhetorical coating of a group of privatization-crazed crony capitalists with strong ties to local extraction industries and an enthusiasm for foreign policy adventurism; but these are not the 'liberals' in the American sense of the term...

In Australia, we have a situation similar to that of the US. We have 2 major parties one of which is a coalition, but that is irrelevant. Both parties are right of centre and have a secular façade. Both parties have the same contributors, the same policies (albeit a difference in approach), just different 'friends'. The incumbent has few friends in the media and has been raked over the coals continuously for most the term, ever since they attempted to tax the rich. The opposition does not really advertise their policies and simply plays 'the no game' - and they play it well.

The mainstream media in Australia supports the two-party system of voting and government, thus Australians are led to believe that an independent vote or minor party vote is a wasted vote. The media create such a brouhaha involving these major parties that people vote AGAINST the major party they don't want elected instead of considering all parties policies or their leaders reputations. This is the system that keeps these parties in power.

My vote will be wasted in the sense that the party I vote for will not be elected. My vote will not be wasted in the sense that I will be on record as preferring another parties policies. Come next election, there is a chance that the major party that is down in the polls MAY adopt some of the policies from these minor parties in order to secure votes. The outcome being that the people I wanted in are not, their policies are.

Voting is mandatory in Australia and as such is viewed as a chore or a burden. A lot of people don't take it seriously. It doesn't help that it is very difficult to get information on each of the candidates policies. The only real campaigning is tacky flyers with 'Vote #1' in beg red type and a spiel about why the other guy is so horrid.

To highlight my point compare the opposition to a minor party that most people are unaware of. The oppositions website uses the entire banner and the right half of every page attacking the incumbent. Policies are split across dozens of PDFs across several pages. The minor party makes their policies very clear with a headline, summary and major point of each area of issue on a single page.

Now in answer to you questions,

Any idea when the next elections are in Australia?

By Nov 30, 2013. Possibility of an early election but the incumbent won't call it because they are around 30% in the polls and the opposition won't challenge because they have a chickenshit leader.

What are the chances that Australians will vote for the same party that is doing this to them?

Very small - but not because of this issue. The other party would and will do exactly the same thing

They can't be that stupid, can't they?

Unfortunately, yes

Harden the F up, Australia!!

We are following in the footsteps of the US, except out citizens don't have the right to bear arms. Everyone wants change but votes the fucking same.

I have a legitimate question for any Aussies on /. Here in the US, the title "Liberal" refers to spineless douchebags who act like conservatives with their own money, property, etc., but who love to micromanage other people's money, property, and selves. Are Aussie Liberals the same as US Liberals?

Find out from the Liberal Party website. They have an overview of their party covering their beliefs, history, and party structure. They're conservatives who like liberal economics.

I have a legitimate question for any Aussies on /. Here in the US, the title "Liberal" refers to spineless douchebags who act like conservatives with their own money, property, etc., but who love to micromanage other people's money, property, and selves. Are Aussie Liberals the same as US Liberals?

Find out from the Liberal Party website. They have an overview of their party covering their beliefs, history, and party structure. They're conservatives who like liberal economics.

That's not true. The liberal party (the opposion in Australia) believe in non-manditory filtering should be available to those who want it, but not manditory.
http://www.liberal.org.au/news.php?Id=2155

“The Opposition firmly believes that adult supervision, supported by optional user-end filters, effective law enforcement and education should be front and centre of any efforts to keep children safe online,...”

“The Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has further fuelled concerns with his talk of filtering not only illegal content, but also unwanted and inappropriate content. This policy proposal is also causing Australia embarrassment internationally, with comparisons to the world’s most repressive regimes,” Senator Minchin said.

You realise Australia is a multi-party system? As in any political party as an opportunity to create a majority in the lower House and form government? The Greens and Family First (In addition to the two major parties; Liberal and Labor) both field candidates in every seat, so if enough people vote for them they can form government. Instead of complaining "Oh no The Liberal Party and the Labor Party or both the same, it's not my fault if the country goes downhill" how about you do some research.

Australian Greens Policy on Science and Technology.

#24 encourage government use of open-source software, and require the use of open and publicly documented file formats.

#25 regulate to ensure that network neutrality is maintained on the internet.

The only thing I can find about Family First's policies on the Internet

Family First will work to achieve Government commitment to establish a Mandatory Filtering Scheme at the ISP Server Level in this country. (These are quotes but I haven't figured out how to use quotes in Slashdot properly yet)

Liberal Party policy platform which has no mention of the word "internet"

Labor Party "Plan for Cyber-saftey"

A Rudd Labor Government will require ISPs to offer a 'clean feed' internet service to all homes, schools and public internet points accessible by children, such as public libraries. (Mandatory ISP filtering).

I should mention I am a member of The Greens, partly due to their policies in areas of science and technology.

By 'Environmental types' I meant the self-described environmental activists. The people who push their cause at the expense of all others. In Australia we have people blocking wind farms because it will hurt birds. I am not kidding. See the onshore section of this for a pointer. Here is another article for you. Google is good.

Even in Australia, I know that dailykos is known for it's fair and balanced reporting. You point me there and tell me to read it "before posting your rightwing talkradio gibberish." By right-wing do you mean the Liberals or the Nationals? They're our right-wing parties.

How do answer this quote? "The industry, like others, has suffered from rapidly increasing costs in recent times" (From your linked article) How about "Offshore wind is still more expensive than onshore" Onshore is the one people are complaining about, right.

There, are you happy now, or would you like some more attention?

The site was hosted on Yahoo and the domain name registeres with Melbourne IT. The site is still on Yahoo's servers and can be downloaded using an IP address and an absolute URL (so their virtual server knows which website you want. By way of explanation, here is something I previously submitted as a story:

At the request of the Australian government, domain name registrar Melbourne IT has removed DNS entries for a political opponent of a ruling political party and its policies in Iraq.

Richard Neville created a parody of one of the Australian Prime Minister's speeches and posted it on a the website www.johnhowardpm.org. After a day the website mysteriously disappeared from the Internet. Melbourne IT, domain registrar for johnhowardpm.org, and Yahoo, the website host, both denied knowledge.

Tim Longhurst has been investigating. After two days two anonymous Melbourne IT technicians have come forward and told him that "johnhowardpm.org" was removed from DNS at the request of representatives from the Australian government, without the knowledge of the domain owner. Normal proceedure is for the domain owner to at least be notified.

Australian Internet users can no longer read www.johnhowardpm.org. Yahoo's DNS server (yns1.yahoo.com) still resolves johnhowardpm.org and the pages still exist on Yahoo's server (premium7.geo.vip.re4.yahoo.com = 216.39.58.74). They may be retrieved by sending a http GET request using telnet, or by setting one's HTTP proxy to 216.39.58.74 and typing "http://www.johnhowardpm.org/" into a browser address bar.

Given that the parody was not obscene, and its facts were well backed with references the only justification seems to be political censorship by Melbourne IT and the Australian government. The Internet equivalent of a political assassination to shut someone up.

If "The Net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.", what is the future for Melbourne IT as a registrar? The High Court of Australia has also ruled that the Australian Constitution contains a right to freedom of political speech.

well could someone please tell the webmaster in charge of the governing party to fix their website!

The incumbent Liberal party (which is actually very conservative) uses IIS. The opposition Labor party (which is slightly less conservative) uses Apache.

The Greens (progressive) use Apache on Linux for all their websites (including the one I built) and have a pro-F/OSS policy in general.

Yes, this is shameless self-promotion.

That's not entirely true.

In the land Down Under, Telstra is the dominant telco, and it's currently 51% government owned. The current Liberal Party (think: nice Republicans)-National Party (think: farmers) coalition government really wants to flog off the rest. The problem is that Telstra provides many services to the underpopulated areas (aka "the Bush", who are generally represented by the National Party half of the Coalition) that really don't make much economic sense but make a lot of political sense. Also, it's sort of halfway decent that the outback farmers get at least a phone service. Anyway, every man and his dog knows that if Telstra gets fully privatised, *bang* there goes any semblance of service to the bush, since it is just not econmical.

To that end, the government has brought in a Service Guarantee (including Universal Service Obligations) that says (amongst other things) Telstra must provide certain minimum standards to all subscribers, and if they don't they get smacked. The government hopes that after a few years we'll all see what a good corporate citizen Telstra is and give the Libs the OK to flog off the other 51% of Telstra.

Now, one big complaint from the bush is that they get bugger all access to broadband. Even getting net access at all can be tricky for them. Satellite (if available) is very expensive. This would almost certainly not improve under a toally privatised Telstra. However, if Telstra could provide near-broadband to the bush without having to string up hundreds of miles of cable, things would again be looking promising for the privatisation thing to be on the agenda again.

Speaking from a purely Australian voter/taxpayer POV, the keyphrase is the National Party might be the junior member of the coalition but they can wield a fair amount of power over the Libs when they want to.

Posted by Paleolithic on Tuesday February 12,

>Do some research and you will see that Australia is run by the right -- Conservatives not liberals.

Just to be more confusing - the Conservatives are called the Liberals. http://liberal.org.au

• Legislation they cannot realistically enforce. Banning Internet gambling, attempting Internet censorship, making web caching illegal, making PlayStation mods illegal. Censorship laws have so far been a complete failure, with people circumventing them. Internet censorship is said to have cost $2.5 million, while providing no benefit. It's genuinely frightening that the people writing these laws have no knowledge of what they are trying to control.

• Partially privatising the previously Government-owned telco (49% so far) for political purposes, which has made them give clear priority to profit and share price over service. Access to affordable telecommunications in rural areas is getting gradually worse (though the private sector is helping). They restrict their broadband net access to 3Gb/month after selling it as unlimited, while ensuring they are the only available broadband provider for many Australians. They were force to give other carriers access to their DSL network, so they now sell wholesale network access at $69/month, while selling broadband DSL net access to consumers at $70/month (line + access + equipment), and placing limits on the service. Just today, they are refusing to give any rebate to a broadband customer who had a 13 day outage. Somehow the government don't see any of this as a problem, and still plan to sell the rest of Telstra.

• Various laws with no regard for the privacy of citizens, like allowing spies to crack systems, and remotely tap and alter data.

For what it's worth, even Microsoft realise they are hopeless. Hopefully they'll be voted out at the next election (probably later this year?), and this insanity will end.

but doesn't it seem eerie that this is following so closely behind Australia's virtual complete elimination of private rights to firearm ownership?

As an Australian, I think... well, I don't know. Probably not. IMHO the correlation is more between the election of a conservative party with a very conservative prime minister (socially conservative I mean, although the Liberal Party is economically onservative as well). Our prime Minister, John Howard, is most often painted as a 1950s throwback - pushing policies that promote the nuclear family and so on.

But the attitude towards guns is different in the majority of the Australians. That's why the Prime Minsiter (the same one) pushed through the anti-gun legislation - once the Port Arthur massacre gave him enough political support against gun lobbies, he knew he was making a decision approved of by the populace.

We have no 'right to bear arms' (in fact, Australia doesn't have a bill of rights - a non-legally enforceable preamble to our Constitution stating our country's ideals was in fact voted down with the bill to make us a republic in the recent referendum).
And, as I see it, there is less overlap between people who believe in freedom of speech and those who believe there is a right to bear arms. I doubt many of the Internet-using populace bore arms before the legislation (which doesn't disallow all firearms btw).

Offtopic, just amusing myself:
Just a note on some of the 'Nazi Germany' arguments in this thread.
In the recent campaign before the republic referendum, certain monarchists, notably the MPs Tony Abbott and Bronwyn Bishop, invoked a scare campaign along the lines of "it was a republic you see..." They were very serious too. :)
The US is a republic. Bad. Obviously very bad.

Sorry. Just trying to show it's a difficult argument to sustain - there were a lot of things that were wrong with Nazi Germany - I don't believe it was predominantly the removal of personal firearms, or the fact it was a republic.

Here's my suggestions as to who to contact if you want to: (I'm going to give you websites, not email address - you'll have to click through. I really don't want to instigate the /.-ing of my government :) )

You can find email addresses for ministers on this page. The Prime Minister's page is here. The Leader of the Opposition's page is here. The email address of every member of the House of reps is here. Senate addresses here. Be careful please :)
If nothing else, they're not all of the party in power...

Ministers in the government:
Hon John Howard MP, Prime Minister of Australia.
Senator the Hon Richard Alston, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts.

Shadow ministers (ie in opposition - not of the party currently in government!):
Hon Kim Beazley MP, Leader of the Opposition.
Hon Bob McMullan MP, Shadow Minister for Industry and Technology.
Senator the Hon Kate Lundy, Shadow Minister Assisting the Shadow Minister for Industry and Technology on Information Technology.

Some web pages for Australian political parties: the currently governing party (strictly, the party with a majority in the federal House of Representatives) is the Liberal Party of Australia. The party in Opposition (next greatest in numbers) is the Australian Labor Party. The party with the balance of power in the Senate is the Australian Democrats.