Report: Inquiry into the machinery of referendums

Inquiry into the machinery of referendums

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Report

The Committee’s report for the inquiry into the machinery of referendums, A Time for Change: Yes/No? was presented out of session on 10 December 2009.

Report accessibility:

• Single chapter version downloads
• Consolidated version download (PDF 1778KB)

via Report: Inquiry into the machinery of referendums – aph.gov.au

Here is a link to the Dissenting Report.

Somehow I think this report and proposed changes to the way that referendums are conducted (and that are yet to be made public) are linked to the proposed internet filtering scheme of Senator Conroy. Perhaps websites that are critical of proposed changes and the government might find that they have been earmarked for classification and – surprise surprise – there might be a small number of overworked bureaucrats who won’t be able to get through the backlog in a timely manner. Political pages on websites might just disappear off the net until the media cycle has found another diversion and the internet hivemind has  buzzed off to somewhere else, and the government would claim that it isn’t a form of censorship. I presume that the filter is for sites that would be deemed inappropriate AND that have been flagged to be classified but that would not yet have been classified.It is very convenient for a control freak PM to make his rhetorical points on the topic of the day and find no genuine critical voices in the media and internet AT THAT TIME to question his rhetoric. Two weeks later there are different stories in the media cycle and the criticism once it emerges on the internet would be fobbed off as being about ancient history. It’ll create a pop media cult of personality for a faux-nerd who’s ideas won’t stand up to scrutiny.

To deal with refugees in a backhanded way, the Howard government deliberately retarded the processing of refugees and kept the people in an indefinite administrative detention. The internet censorship regime may be set up in a similar way once it is established. They might hide behind a deliberately dysfunctional process.

Having glossy advertising and television ads for referendum changes is the good cop (good big brother with a friendly smile)  side of the equation and the nationwide internet filtering is for the bad cop routine. They would work together and no doubt the internet filtering public servants would keep a dossier of some of the most disgusting sites on the web to gleefully display to the public mass media whenever the internet filtering scheme and the way it operates is brought into question. They have standards.