Shadow Comms Minister Nick Minchin has a well-crafted opinion piece about Rudd’s filter plan in SMH today.  Minchin writes:

There is no technological substitute for adult supervision and it’s irresponsible and misleading to infer otherwise. Mandating a so-called “clean feed” has the potential to create a dangerous false sense of security, leading parents to believe ongoing supervision and vigilance is no longer needed.

The minister must start listening to the experts, who have repeatedly made the point that most predatory risks to children lurk in those areas of the online world this kind of filtering will do little to combat. Technical advice suggests chat rooms, email and peer-to-peer networks are the most dangerous. Law enforcement agencies around the world have revealed that pedophiles use peer-to-peer networks to exchange explicit videos and images outside the world wide web.

No decent Australian would argue against the broad aim of making the online world as safe as possible. But Labor’s fixation with compulsory, centralised filtering – which tells parents they are incapable of protecting their children – is not the answer.

Minchin can’t ease off. The Liberal party pussy footed around the issue towards the end of last year until they were sure which side they needed to be on. Now they know how many people are against the plan Minchin needs to move in hard.  Scott Ludlam can’t do this by himself.