[MLB-WIRELESS] Government Internet Filter - proposed speech and meeting reminder.

[Tyson Clugg]

Dear Melbourne Wireless,

I came up with the following speech, but it has little to do with the
policies you have all so graciously contributed to.  I thought I should
share it all the same, as it takes quite a different tact than the technical
view that one might expect coming from Melbourne Wireless.  I have no
intention of giving the following speech unless widely supported by members
of the group - ie: you.  So once again, please let me know your thoughts and
opinions.

If you wish to discuss this matter with me in person before the rally on
Saturday, I strongly suggest you attend the Melbourne Wireless general
meeting this evening (Friday 12th December) from 7:30pm at the Hawthorn
Scout Hall, opposite the Auburn Train Station on Victoria Street in
Hawthorn.  Everyone is welcome to attend, please invite anyone you think may
be interested.

Regards,
Tyson Clugg.
President, Melbourne Wireless Inc.

----

I thank you all for this opportunity to address you all today as a fellow
citizen of this great land we all share and call our home.

It is of out of great concern and fear that I stand here before you today.
A concern that has gathered us together, and a fear that leaves us
questioning the very fabric of our society.  I fear we are at a fork in the
road, and that without proper guidance by our government the values we hold
dear to our hearts will be forever lost as we wander along a long and very
treacherous path.  The path I speak of is the path of censorship at the
highest levels and the loss of our privacy within the most intimate places
of our lives – the workplaces in which we toil, and the very homes in which
we live.  I'd like to cast a light down a different path today, but first
I'm going to start with a small poem I wrote.

    Without sex, we die.
    Without death, we age.
    Without age, we are innocent.
    Without innocence, we are mature.

    With maturity, we are consenting.
    With consent, we are responsible.
    With responsibility, we are empowered.
    With empowerment, we govern.

    In government, we trust.

We have bestowed our government with great powers.  We trust the government
should act in a mature and responsible manner to uphold the rights of all
decent citizens, especially those who cannot fend for themselves.  Our
children are especially important as we want them to enjoy the future of our
great nation just as we have enjoyed its past.  We cannot however allow
ourselves to forget our own life experiences while teaching our children how
to be model citizens of the future.

Learning how to cope with sex, sexuality, life and death are all parts of
the aging process.  Preventing access to material that is sexual or horrific
in nature in the name of protecting the innocent is indeed a noble concept,
but ultimately fails to teach our children how to cope when faced with such
scenarios later in life.  It is clear that our children will not stay
innocent forever.  Without proper guidance, children don't know how to say
no to drugs, nor do they know about stranger danger, nor do they know how to
deal with their first sexual encounter.  We must accept that there will
always be undesirable elements within our society such as paedophilia, and
that simply burying our heads in the sand is not going to make us effective
parents.  Having the government bury our heads for us through mandatory
content filtering is certainly no better.

The real solution to effective child rearing is effective parenting, in
combination with the excellent work being done in our schools by the
education sector.  Our teachers are obliged to report all suspected abuse
cases, and are well trained in various aspects of child psychology making
them effective at detecting when something is wrong.  Parents are empowered
with trust by the government to act responsibly and raise their children in
line with community expectations.  Should adults abuse or neglect this
trust, the government has means of removing affected children from harm and
placing them in the care of the state.  We trust the government to only
enact these powers in extreme scenarios where the trauma to a child of
continued abuse would be greater than the trauma of being forcibly removed
from the custody of their parents.  Fortunately even in this day such
extreme measures are rarely called upon.

The government has undermined the trust placed in us by seeking to play the
role of the parent directly, by selecting what content both we and our
children can access online.  Clearly the government does not trust ordinary
Australians to be responsible parents, and instead seeks to play the role of
protective mother for all citizens through the guise of Internet content
filtering.  Furthermore the government want to achieve this by
systematically abusing the privacy of all Australian homes and businesses,
where it will tap in at the heart of our telecommunications infrastructure
and monitor all our communications with family and loved ones, colleagues
and friends.  Australian families neither want nor need Internet filtering
Mr Conroy, and neither families nor business can afford to implement
Internet filtering in these harsh economic times.

I call upon the government to drop all plans for a costly and unmanageable
mandatory content filtering system and instead focus its efforts on
supporting the existing IAA family friendly ISP program.  By providing
additional funding and subsidies to family friendly ISPs which already have
experience in delivering content filtering services, concerned Australian
families could have access to effective content filtering at little or no
extra cost should they feel it is required.  With a much more manageable
customer base the cost to taxpayers will be greatly reduced, and Australian
families will be able to choose from a range of content filtering services
rather than being lumped with a one size fits all approach that can never be
a perfect fit for all Australian families and businesses.

The path of mandatory content filtering is a very treacherous one that I
hope we can avoid for the benefit of all Australians.  I trust our
government will see the light and lead us back onto a much brighter path,
where educating our children gives them the power to avoid the dangers they
may face in life and become model citizens of the future.

I thank you all for your time today.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wireless.org.au/pipermail/melbwireless/attachments/20081212/6b2fa8a8/attachment.html>