AUSTRALIA—Responding to the Australian government’s awkward about-face the other day on the issue of opt-out internet filters, The Australian Sex Party has issued a clarion call warning not to trust any pronouncement on the issue emanating from the coalition, whose “embarrassing back flip on its plans to filter the internet should serve as a warning to voters that the issue of censorship was alive and well in both major parties,” it said in a statement issued Thursday.
Fiona Patten, the party's president and a candidate for the Victorian, added that neither party in the coalition could be trusted to hold to their policies oninternet censorship, and warned that the coalition’s new policy meant nothing in terms of what they really want to do, noting, “The Coalition has repeatedly stated that they favor the online censorship policies of UK Prime Minister David Cameron."
Patten also called on Tony Abbott to agree to implement the recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission’s (ALRC) enquiry into classification in Australia. The ALRC recommended sweeping changes to classification with reference to the online environment. Both the Rudd and Gillard governments refused to implement or even respond to most of the recommendations.
“The Sex Party was founded as a result of Labor’s proposals to censor the internet,” she said. “Putting the Sex Party in the Senate is the best way to ensure that the internet remains free and open and not vulnerable to tampering by Christian right parties.”
Patten added that if the balance of power in the Senate was held by Christian right parties, like the DLP and Family First, the Coalition’s initial draconian ‘opt out’ policy would again be put forward and likely enacted.
“Their initial proposal is not dead,” she cautioned. “It is still the Coalition’s preferred option. People should not be fooled by Malcolm Turnbull’s rhetoric on this. Government’s are notorious for going back on their promises on internet censorship.”
She said the best guarantee that Australians had against internet censorship was to put the unaligned and anti-censorship Sex Party in the Senate, more information about which can be found here.
In related news, opposition leader Tony Abbott today claimed victory in the federal elections, saying, "Australia is under new management."
