This is the full text of a speech to be given by Morgan Jaffitof Netizen at an EFA-organised rallyagainst Internet censorship in Melbourne on May 28th 1999.
Let be honest here. There is pornography on the internet. Thereis illegal material on the internet. And most of you here couldfind it, should you wish to, within a matter of minutes. This isnot the issue we are addressing today. It would however be unfairto simply ignore the issues of porn, something must be done regardingkeeping our children safe from the big bad wolf.. oops, I mean thenet porn. I think encouraging parental supervision is a good thing.I think raising community awareness is, in the end a positiveoffshoot of the bill. The main point, however is one of censorship,and the destruction of a prime resouce, in both simple researchterms and business terms.
Today we are on the brink of a radical change in the nature of theinternet. We are not merely looking at the possibility of censorship,although that is the main reason that we are all here. We arediscussing the terrible, evil precedent that is being set with thisbill.
We are talking about legislation through ignorance.
Alston is not only ignorant about the internet and issues relatingto it - he is proud of his ignorance. Harradine on the other hand,is too ignorant to realise just how ignorant he is. These two men, with theassistance of Mal Colston, whose ignorance I won't comment on, have managed topush this bill through. A draconian, unfair, unreasonable and mostimportantly ignorant piece of legislation.
We know that the bill is not technically viable. We know that itwill not, under any circumstances achieve it's stated goal, thatof protecting our children from pornography, smut and 'unacceptable'material. In fact, I dare say that any single individual in thisgroup could write a better (and certainly more realistic) proposalin minutes. So what happened?
Greed happened. Political expiediencey happened. Individual needswere placed ahead of the wishes of the great majority of Australians.Those least qualified to discuss the issue set the rules. Democracybroke down. Why and how?
Easily, quickly and with no substantial opposition.
Surely we elect our politicians with the belief that they willrepresent us - that they will prove to rational, reasonable humanbeings elected because we believe they have the knowledge and wisdomto make the correct decisions for us. Or perhaps I'm simply beingnaive in the extreme.
I'd suspect at least part of the problem was that we did notcommunicate our thoughts, opinions and criticism to the government,were I not involved in making the situation clear, had I not seenthe efforts of others and the true commitment to banishing thisoppresive piece of legislation from the books. Had I not seen thatthe opposition, at least had a firm grip on the reasons thislegislation is technically infeasible and practically unworkable.
I'm struck by the similarities in style between this legislation and theanti-gun legislation passed hastily last year. The HowardGovernment, in its hurry to appear to be goody-goody, rams through anill-considered and unworkable piece of legislation, despite huge protestfrom anyone involved within the industry, listening instead to the fewtiny wowser voices whispering in their ears.
There's a saying, stemming from discussion of the rise of the Nazi regimein Germany... along the lines of "First they came for the gays, and Ididn't say anything. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't sayanything. And then they came for ME, and by that time, there was nooneleft to say anything."
This applies to what the Howard Government is doing... First they camefor the guns, then they came for the internet. Next, they'll come foryou.
I'd like to make clear, here, in as public a forum as I'm likelyto get - that I have every intention of breaking this law. Notonly because it's a draconian law. Not only because it opposesmuch that I believe heavily in. Not only because I belive thislaw was drafted with no intention of being put realistically into practice. I will break this law in every sense. I will do mysingle handed best to shatter it into as many pieces as possible,because I honestly belive that is the only way to ensure that it is disposed of as quickly and finally as possible.
By demostrating the blatant unworkability of the laws, hopefullywe can demonstrate the idiocy of their implementation. I recommendthat each and evey one of you submits as many sites as possiblefor rating on a daily basis. I spoke on Tuesday to the ABA. He was loathe to give any figures on how many sites the ABA could process per day, on the basis that the necessary studies had not yet been done. This does make me wonder on what basis the ABA requested 5 new staff and $1,000,000 funding, however.I guess they are working on the basis of grab people now while theycan.
I can however, make a rough guesstimate. Lets be generous andassume that everyone at the ABA has nothing else to do with theirtime. Let's also assume that they have all been sent to earth fromKrypton and can move at superspeed. Lets assume that none of thesites they are looking at are on geocities. So lets give them thebenefit of the doubt, and say 100 pages, per person per day.
That means, with the mammoth five extra staff they have asked for,they'll be in the position of dealing with 500 complaints per day.And this is supposed to stop our children seeing porn? A few hometruths here.
At this rate, it will take the ABA over a thousand years to processenough pages to begin to make an impact on what our children willsee.
A thousand years.
Gosh. Looks like todays internet will be ready for consumption bythe beginning of the Y3K problem.
So what will this bill do in the short term, if it's going to take over athousand years before we're 'keeping our children safe'? I can tell you. Itwill embarass us on the international scale. It will destroy many of thesmall internet businesses that have appeared over the last five years. Itwill kill our position in the global business market.
This law will never work. It's that simple. However, it's implementation will shatter the australian internet industry. Well done.
So the real question is what to do now. We can panic, we can runaround waving our hands in the air and we can petition our politicians.Mayhap that will work.
However, In my opinion, the most important thing we can do iseducate. It is crucial that we point out to the general populacethat ignorance is no excuse. It is necessary for everyone tounderstand what it is we are attempting to destroy here, beforetheres nothing left to see.
Make sure that the internet gets informed, well constructed converage.Complain to your local radio station when they get things wrong -explain where their errors lie, offer to be interviewed yourself,as an informed individual with an opinion. Make yourselves heard.We have six months to ensure that everyone understands this billand it's implications. We have six months to ensure that the billis destroyed before it can do any damage. We have been blessedwith the time to make things right before the bill goes into effect.And lets make no mistake - this bill will never do what it isintended to. I'd expect it to fall down in a high court challenge.But despite that, I expect this bill to do damage to the australianinternet industry if it goes through. Damage to our access, toour ISP's (I hope you like bigpond and ozemail, cos thats all thatcan afford to hang around) and to our reputation on the globalscene.
I ask all of you to do what you can, while you can. Do not think that thislaw will go away on it's own, although it will. Understand that we are indamage limitation mode. This bill will do damage. It's up to you and I tomake sure that damage is as small as possible, and as brief as possible. Goodluck, and thank you.