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Australia's National Broadband Network To Go Ahead
angry tapir writes "After weeks of a hung parliament following the Australian federal election, the incumbent Labor Party has garnered enough support among independent MPs to form a minority government. Broadband was central to clinching the independents' support. Labor's victory means the $43 billion National Broadband Network will push ahead. The policy has generally been popular among ISPs and telcos — though some rebel operators preferred a policy that emphasized wireless technologies, similar to the proposals put forward by Labor's opponents. The primarily fiber-based NBN is set to offer Australians 1Gbps broadband."
It doesn't have to get through the house of anything.
The department will argue that any filtering on it's own network is an operational issue well outside of the purvey of the house and completely under the responsibility of the department and minister.
Understand?
Government departments don't need legislation to enable them to make decisions regarding the technical operations of their departments so unless the law that allows the NBN *specifically restricts* the implementation of a filter the department can and will demand the ISP implement filtering.
They will simply say "you don't have a right to download illegal material over the public network" if you complain.
I really wish people understood how the public service / executive and government work under our system, it really is very important.
Go here http://abc.com.au/ and then here http://www.comlaw.gov.au/ComLaw/Legislation/ActCompilation1.nsf/all/search/2E7F5179D6598E8DCA2574730019A00B. As for fibre broadband network legislation is required to enable it, and unless language stipulating censorship is included then it can't happen and that legislation is amended. Government departments can not act outside of legislation unless that legislation incorporates that out of bounds operation, as for freedom of speech in Australia that is more complex http://www.aph.gov.au/LIBRARY/pubs/rn/2001-02/02rn42.htm.
The biggest threat high bandwidth internet has politically, is an end to campaign contributions to pay for commercial broadcasting purposes. Every politician and every political party will be able to upload their message, speeches, supporting performance (on permanent record) to government hosted web sites (local, state and federal) which every citizen can freely access. No more for profit political commercials now that cripples the influence of the rich via mass media and promotes independent politicians as well as enabling smaller political parties to gain access to the electorate upon an equal basis. Additional every single sitting of any legislative body can be recorded, uploaded and accessed by anybody at any time.
Plus think of fun stuff it will enable, web hosted multi site parties, were web cams and big screen TV's can link together multiple locations around the world, for that family reunion Christmas (many sleepless day/night opportunities in there) etc.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I think the argument is in the sense that the Menzies Liberals represent the "true Liberals", and that Turnbull upholds this tradition more so than Abbott et al., who are far more in the Howard-post-9/11 Liberal mould.
The veracity of this judgement is left to your own political views as to what represents "true Liberal" and how closely Turnbull matches it.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
Lol very naive, legislation creates the basic outline of an area that the government may move into. Anything reasonably in that area of responsibility if not specifically denied in the legislation is completely up to the department and minister, ceo / executive and minister *until the government says otherwise*.
The legislation doesn't mention the technical setup, the topography the subnets, how many switches, which brand of switches and servers, anti-virus policies and spam policies or anything else to do with the technical runnings of the network.
That's because it will be up to the department to come up with those policies and implement all those in the normal course of its operation.
Are you saying the ISP will offer no inline anti-spam, anti-virus measures because they're not specifically outlined in the legislation?
No?
The department can do anything it likes regarding the day to day operations of its area of responsibility, and I can well assure you having been employed in three federal departments, brother, sister in-law, ex-wife, father in-law, mother in-law and various friends currently employed by the Commonwealth Government, policy decisions far bigger than implementing anti-childporn filters on public networks are made by public servants in The Nations Capital every single day.
There will be a policy decision made to implement filtering on the public network, that's how these things work, they will justify it in front of the Senate the same way they justify most of the things that government departments get away with that they have no authority for, if the Senate doesn't like it they will ask the government to implement legislation to stop it.
That's way the Australian Federal Government operates.
As stated on Q&A, the vast majority (at least 80%) of legislation is passed through the House of Reps unanimously. Only the contentious legislation is held up for debate.
The ignorant masses need to watch quality current affairs and quality interviews once in a while rather than Today Tonight "OMG the Murdoch media empire said something bad about Labor so it must be true we're all going to die thanks to Labor now lets see how Masterchef is doing".
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