A word from your local MP....

From one anonymous and bitter Federal MP:
"Let's face it, as far as the public are concerned, they won't be happy until politicians are paid nothing, walk to Canberra and sleep in a tent,"
Just a little bit worried that voters feel that a large pay rise at the end of June would be excessive, when so many blue collar workers are losing their jobs?

Underwhelmed by the thought of digital televsion

The Federal Communications Minister may have overdosed on happy pills when praising the national introduction of digital television by 2013 starting with rural Australia in 2010, but I am less than impressed.
In fact I almost gagged when I read People need to know what equipment is digital-ready and that upgrading can be as simple as adding a set-top-box to an existing television set," said Senator Conroy, who announced a labelling scheme in-store to assist consumers with their purchases.
The television I watch is so old it doesn't even have a video jack, which of course means it's so ancient that it cannot be adapted for a set-top box.
Renting on a pension with no extra income of any kind, there's no way that I'll be able to save enough for a new digital TV in the next three years (and I'm not alone in that).
Hells bells, I don't even have a lousy dollar left the night before the fortnightly payment goes into my bank.
When you're old and poor there's not much room to manoeuvre, so how am I supposed to invest in new technology?
Answer that Senator Conroy.

Turned Off
Grafton

Urge to filter gets Conroy into trouble

PERTH-headquartered ISP iiNet said it has sought legal advice on Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy's public commentary on its legal defence in a high-profile copyright case before the NSW Federal Court.
IiNet managing director Michael Malone said that the comments were a form of retribution against the ISP for pulling out of the Department of Broadband Communications and Digital Economy’s controversial internet filtering trial.
“We have sought legal advice on this. It's unheard of for a crown minister to try to influence the outcome of an active case,” Mr Malone said.
IiNet’s concerns orbit comments that Senator Conroy is reported to have made at a high-profile communications forum in Sydney.
Several media outlets reported that Mr Conroy ridiculed arguments in iiNet’s legal defence that it was not aware of what was being downloaded on its network as “stunning”.

NSW Aboriginal Land Council North Coast representative on her way to the UN

Proud Yaegal woman Patricia Laurie, a North Coast representative on the NSW Aboriginal Land Council, is soon on her way to the United Nations in New York as part of a delegation to the eighth session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

The permanent forum is an advisory body to the U.N. Economic and Social Council and this session commences on 18 May 2009.

Patricia and other members of the Australian delegation will be facing a full agenda and I'm sure that the Northern Rivers wish them well in their endeavours.

April 2009 NSW North Coast flood pictures

Heavy rain on the NSW North Coast in the last few days resulted in everything from minor nuisance flooding in the Lismore area to major innundation in the Coffs Harbour and Belligen region.

Local residents are reminded that this type of weather often sees snakes trying to find dry ground in or around buildings.

Photographs are from The Sydney Morning Herald, ABC News and The Northern Star.

When you can't even believe what you read about the Internet censorship debate

On Tuesday 31 March 2009 the SBS TV program Insight ran a debate/group discussion called Blocking the Net.

Whirlpool forums in their turn have been discussing this program with surprising results:

Conroy, McMenamin and Pillion simultaneously popped arteries and started shouting when I pointed out that Norway, Denmark, Finland, Thailand and Australia had all had their lists leaked and the UK had been shown to be vulnerable to reverse engineering; then asked what kind of idiots would take that data then say, "I know! Stunning idea! Lets make an extra-special-uber-bad list of the worst of the worst child porn material! This time we'll be able to keep it secret for sure!"

I think they edited it out because Insight likes to present reasoned debate and the debate became distinctly unreasonable for about ten seconds after that point. Total meltdown from the "pro" side.

– mark (Newton)

It was an unfortunate and rather ironic lapse on Insight's part to censor the discussion on Internet censorship.

However, it was sheer idiocy for Senator Conroy (probably the most monitored federal minister in the Rudd Government right now) to blank out parts of his CommsDay Summit 2009 speech as delivered and post an amended version on his ministerial website.

This is a ZNet report on what Senator Conroy decided to omit:

"I saw iiNet's defence in court under oath ... they have no idea if their customers are downloading illegally music or movies," he said today at the Commsday summit in Sydney. "Stunning defence, stunning defence," he continued in what appeared to be a sarcastic comment.

"I thought a defence in terms of 'we had no idea' ... belongs in a Yes Minister episode."

As for the Minister's assertion reported on Monday:

Senator Conroy said other forms of technology could be used to crack peer-to-peer pedophile rings.
"If I stood up anywhere and said 'hey, this filter will block peer-to-peer' then rightfully I should be ridiculed,'' he said.
"I've never said that ... it is not designed to deal with peer-to-peer.''

That flatly contradicts what he said officially on the short-lived official DBCDE blog:

The Government understands that ISP-level filtering is not a 'silver bullet'. We have always viewed ISP-level filtering as one part of a broader government initiative for protecting our children online.

Technology is improving all the time. Technology that filters peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic does exist and it is anticipated that the effectiveness of this will be tested in the live pilot trial.

On Insight Senator Conroy complained that he was misunderstood and his intentions misrepresented.
If that were to be the case he would only have himself to blame.

Sadly, the fact of the matter is that the Minister is erratically surfing a strong public opinion wave and desperately trying to avoid a wipe-out.
He tweaks his narrative whenever it suits or whenever the debate becomes politically uncomfortable for him.
There is no truth reliable information coming from his office.