Australian IT Minister Alston Replaced

srouvray writes "The Australian is reporting: In a re-shuffle of the Australian Federal Cabinet, current Communications Minister Richard Alston will be replaced (Alston is going to retire) with Attorney General Darryl Williams. Alston is 'credited' for introducing tough anti-spam laws into parliament... Although it will be interesting to see if Williams will be branded a 'Luddite' as well!"

Comments

hallelujah

[Unominous Coward]

Let's not forget that this is the minister who said that broadband was only for games and porn.

I for one welcome his replacement.

Re:hallelujah

[alien_blueprint]

And *I*, for one, welcome our *new* luddite overlord! :)

Yeah, it's lame, but I'm so happy right now, I just don't care. I didn't think anything could better the news of Doctor Who returning, but here it is!

Actually

[The Tyro]

It sounds to me like he's got his finger on the pulse of the geek community (or at least the /. community).

I, for one, give him +1 insightful.

Notable Achievements of Alston's

[lks_aus]

• Initially dismissing broadband as a gaming platform
• Calling a country-wide broadband rollout a "costly waste of time"
• Decreeing that consumers should be kept in the dark about their phone line
• Linking the takeup of broadband to pornography
• Allowing his department to spend $4,000,000 on a small and poorly developed website

Re:Notable Achievements of Alston's

[goonerw]

You may want to fix up your links so that they refer to Whirlpool.net.au rather than the non-existant coldfusion pages on Slashdot.

Decreeing that consumers should be kept in the dark about their phone line = http://www.whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm?id=765

Allowing his department to spend $4,000,000 on a small and poorly developed website = http://www.whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm?id=1107

Linking the takeup of broadband to pornography =
http://www.whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm?id=956

Initially dismissing broadband as a gaming platform = http://www.whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm?id=566

Re:Notable Achievements of Alston's

[alien_blueprint]

Now, let's not forget the acceptance of kickbacks from Telstra in the form of a $10,000AU plasma television.

Hoo-fucking-ray

[The Fanta Menace]

At last, the cretin has gone. And despite the media claiming he left of his own accord, everyone in politics knows that he was pushed, due to his own ineptitude.

Of course, Williams is just as much of a wanker, and probably won't fix anything.

Wishlist

[fastdecade]

* Stop the Telstra Bulldozer in it's tracks -- support broadband. Canada proves it's possible in a big country
* Sensible censorship
* Sensible copyright
* Serious commitment to anti-spam
* Keep investing and committing to open source

Alston's policies have left Australia as an international IT joke. So much local telent, and so many opportunities in the Asian and global markets have gone to waste. More importantly, every Australian business and consumer has suffered from the 1950s attitudes of the present Aussie govt. Step into the 80s guys, the economy is not all agriculture and textiles!

First naming as "World's Biggest Luddite"

[alien_blueprint]

I just submitted this most excellent news item to /., but spent so much time digging up links to his inglorious past that someone beat me to it.

However, I found the original Register article that named Alston as "The World's Biggest Luddite".

Not a good thing.

[Marlor]

Oh dear. This is bad news.

The worst thing you could say about Richard Alston is that he is an incompetent luddite.

Darryl Williams is much worse. He is cunning and intelligent, but with some truly awful political views.

He is well-known for:

trying to destroy the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission

Being the force behind Australia's equivalent of the Patriot Act

Refusing to defend a homosexual judge, despite being bound by his position as Attorney General to act as an advocate and protector for the judiciary

Refusing to accept UN reports on racism in Australia

Lobbying for increased intellectual property rights

Lobbying for laws allowing Australia's spy agency, ASIO, to read domestic emails

Supporting the increase in the rate of phone tapping

And generally trampling on human rights and civil liberties wherever possible.

This is definately not good news.

Re:Not a good thing.

[mister_tim]

Agreed.

While Alston may not be as much of a Luddite in his attitudes towards technology, he certinaly appears to present more of a 'danger' to Australian's rights, given his views on censorship and privacy. Only this year, the Australian Privacy Foundation gave him their Big Brother Award for Lifetime Menace to Privacy.

While this award wasn't linked to Williams' views or actions in relation to technology it still doesn't bode well for us Aussies given his new role.

Re:Not a good thing.

[thirdrock]

Being the force behind Australia's equivalent of the Patriot Act

The ASIO bill was much worse than the Patriot Act. Among other things it
1. Removed habeus corpus from common law.
2. Made refusal to give testimony a crime (5 years)
3. Denial of legal counsel
4. Denial of ANY counsel (incommunicado)
5. Strip search without justification
6. Only avenue of complaint via letter, which you have to give to your interrogators, who will pass it on to the ombudsman (without 'misplacing' it, yeah right ...)

The press goes on about Guantanomo bay, but at least the Americans had to invent a term 'illegal combatant', and it is still being challenged. With the ASIO bill, we signed 'Guantanomo Bay' into law!

Now the Govt. can pick you up off the street hold you incommunicado, without counsel, without any rights under common law, and then imprison you for 5 years even if you don't know anything.

And now we want this nazi motherfucker to be overlording our communications as well, reading our e-mails and listening to our phone calls.Sheesh .... we are so fucked.