Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Australian Politician Caught Viewing Porn

Posted by samzenpus on from the stiff-opposition-party dept.

destinyland writes "An Australian Parliament member has resigned after admitting he'd used government computers to access porn and gambling sites. McLeay 'gave an uncomfortable press conference outside Parliament House,' notes one technology site, 'during which he admitted he had acted in a standard not expected of cabinet ministers.' Paul McLeay was also the Minister for Mineral and Forest Resources as well as the Minister for Ports and Waterways. In resigning, he apologized to his constituents and parliamentary colleagues, as well as to his wife and family."

26 of 150 comments (clear)

  1. What I care about by Sonny+Yatsen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't care if a politician was caught watching internet porn. A lot of people (if not most) do it and politicians are no exception.

    I do care if a politician was caught paying for internet porn. That tells me a lot about whether he's able to spend money wisely.

    --
    My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
    1. Re:What I care about by DaMattster · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, we know the CEOs, CIOs, and CFOs have admitted to it. Yes, it is a misuse of taxpayer funded systems but I don't think it is really that bad. It would be worse if said politican were railing against pornography all the while engaging in it. Nothing pisses me off more than a hypocritical politican so I guess I hate most, if not all politicans.

    2. Re:What I care about by xtracto · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I do not care if a politican is caught watching porn, or if he buys porn.

      I DO care if a politician watches porn DURING HIS WORK TIME or using his workplace resources. Mainly because he is wasting our hard earned tax money of which they get a helluva lot.

      --
      Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
    3. Re:What I care about by DrgnDancer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What I can't figure is: what's so hard about "don't watch porn on work computers"? No is saying "don't watch porn", just don't use company/government resources to do it. It's not a hard concept. It's not a foreign concept. Hell most of us carry around portable, largely untraceable Internet devices in our pockets these days. If you GOTTA have a fix, get some head phones and use that.

      Personally I've never seen the draw of porn at a time when I can't really conveniently... eh.. use it. So to speak.

      --
      I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
    4. Re:What I care about by c++0xFF · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I care if he watches porn if he then votes for internet pornography filters. I can't stand hypocrites.

      Note that I don't know if this is the case, but it wouldn't surprise me at all.

    5. Re:What I care about by Kilrah_il · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If he was caught updating his personal Facebook account during work, would you be upset? And if he checked his personal mail? Or maybe just browsed a shopping site for half an hour, looking for a new oven (because his wife was pestering about her wanting a new one)?
      Actually, for people who are not paid by the hour, this is less of an issue. If I pay you X$ (AU$) an hour to do a job, I want you to be working during that hour. If I pay you Y$ a month/year to do a job, I don't care how long you are in the office. Do whatever you want, just get the job done.
      If you don't have a problem with the above scenarios, but you have a problem with him watching porn in his office, then we have a different discussion. I myself think porn is perfectly OK, and if no one is around while you do it, I don't care (If other people are around, they might be offended because of their personal beliefs, so I wouldn't open a porn flick near them). Of course, this is my opinion, and everyone is free to have his own opinion... although I am sure that I am correct and you are not! :)

      --
      Whenever in an argument, remember this.
    6. Re:What I care about by ljgshkg · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Agreed. I don't care if he's watching internet porn or not during any time. I only care if he's doing his job well. A politician spending all of his time working for his own benefit (or for his next election? hence doing "his job", or so it seems) might well be doing a worse and less useful job than a politician watching a bit of porn using tax payer funded systems.

    7. Re:What I care about by darthdavid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Anon.Clown was a little ham-handed is his phrasing, but to say it better, anyone who builds an entire career based on publicly decrying something which is seen as immoral by some but not all of their constituents has a pretty good chance of having skeletons of that nature in their closet. The phrase "Methinks the lady doth protest too much" springs to mind. It's a well known psychological phenomenon that people trying (incompetently) to hid embarrassing personal habits are often the loudest voices shrieking about how awful those habits are.

      That doesn't mean that every person who speaks out against something is guilty of it, it just means that you should look carefully at the people with nothing better to do than talk about how immoral someone else is, because they might just be trying to divert attention from their own indiscretions.

    8. Re:What I care about by sycodon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Because if you can't find free porn on the internet, you're an idiot and have no business running the government.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    9. Re:What I care about by teh+kurisu · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I do care if a politician was caught paying for internet porn. That tells me a lot about whether he's able to spend money wisely.

      What if he (or she) is caught trying to claim it on parliamentary expenses?

    10. Re:What I care about by godel_56 · · Score: 2, Informative

      I care if he watches porn if he then votes for internet pornography filters. I can't stand hypocrites.

      Note that I don't know if this is the case, but it wouldn't surprise me at all.

      This guy is in the NSW state government, the Internet filter is a federal matter.

    11. Re:What I care about by linzeal · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Who cares, unless it affects his work duties?

      --
      An Education is the Font of All Liberty
  2. No, it can't be... by the_one_wesp · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Oh no!!! A human being doing things that human beings do! I demand that government officials be MORE robot like, not less!

    1. Re:No, it can't be... by Farmer+Tim · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That would be a good point, except this guy is a member of the state branch of the same party that proposed the internet filter. Besides, using a work computer for looking at porn and gambling on company time would get you fired from any other job, so it's a matter of being held to the same standards as everyone else, and as a New South Wales resident and taxpayer I don't see why I should be subsidising his personal habits.

      There's another example of the same kind of hypocrisy from the same state parliament, this time a Christian right politician. 200,000 sites is research? Yeah, right. Resign you wanker!

      --
      Blank until /. makes another boneheaded UI decision.
  3. never more appropriate by roman_mir · · Score: 4, Funny

    it's the most appropriate response to this 'story'

    --
    You can't handle the truth.
  4. Not for the reason you'd think... by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The reason why they're making such a fuss over his porn and gambling is that he had to bypass the Great Firewall of Australia to access them. When it comes to accessing sex and gambling on the internet, that's where Australia draws the line!!!

    1. Re:Not for the reason you'd think... by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's the Great Firewall of China and the Great Barrier Router of Australia.

      Get your jokes right.

  5. What Percentage Of Internet Users View Porn? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's basically the same as masturbation, guys. Yes, we all do it, but that doesn't mean that you can do it at work. Especially if you work at McDonalds. Please.

  6. Just a simple mixup ... by daremonai · · Score: 2, Funny

    The guy is from New South Wales, and was trawling the Internet, looking for NSW-related information. Somehow, an 'F' slipped into his search string.

  7. The internet is for porn-Jon Gnarr Mayor Reykjavi by youroldbuddy · · Score: 2, Informative

    When asked about what he used the internet for recently, the mayor of Reykjavik (Iceland) Jon Gnarr said he mostly used it for porn. Two feminazis got mad but no one noticed. http://whatson.is/icelandreview/daily_news/?cat_id=16567&ew_0_a_id=367354 Different standards.

  8. Re:Obama by Sonny+Yatsen · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If this was about Obama, you'd probably be one of the loudest voices criticizing him.

    How do I know? Because this article isn't about Obama, but you managed to bring him up anyway.

    --
    My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
  9. Not his fault! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Paul McLeay was also the Minister for Mineral and Forest Resources as well as the Minister for Ports and Waterways.

    He's minister of all those things... the guy's surely got a professional reason for googling the following phrases:
    "rock hard"
    "water sports"
    and
    "sporting wood"

    Come on people, he probably clicked the links because he thought they were studies related to his ministership!

  10. What a horrible, horrible man! by multipartmixed · · Score: 3, Funny

    Man, that's disgusting.

    He's so gross, he probably sticks his penis in his wife's vagina!

    --

    Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
  11. Re:Trust /. to miss the point entirely by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2, Insightful

    t's that he was doing it using government funds and on government time

    No, it's the porn. People do personal stuff at work all the time - call their doctors' office, make a photocopy, answer personal e-mail. In fact, I'm sure other Australian government workers do those things all the time, and nobody really cares.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  12. "porn site" survey inaccurate and unauthorized by dthomas2 · · Score: 2, Informative

    while it would appear the minister may have had some guilty consience,
    and there wa irony that Christian MP Fred Nile was "involved"
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Nile

    * the audit was unauthorised
    http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/woman-behind-nsw-parliamentary-porn-inquiry-quits-20100906-14y1i.html
    * the audit did not properly identify "porn sites"
    "instances of inappropriate access were registered by the audit if parliamentary staff accessed sites that contained links or advertisements to pornographic or gambling material."
    http://www.zdnet.com.au/reports-of-nsw-mp-internet-misuse-flawed-339305748.htm
    the "porn sites" with by far the biggest number of hits were local newspaper ones, apparently because they included on-line dating ads
    http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/09/03/nsw-parliament’s-flawed-prn-hunt/

  13. Or in the Doctor's office by digit1001 · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...A man goes to see his Dr. and the Dr. says, "sir you're going to have to stop masturbating". The man says, "Why" and the doctor says, "Because I'm trying to examine you"