The internet censorship announced by Stephen Conroy is easily circumvented, breaks down for high-traffic sites, slows down internet access for users, and would block millions of entirely innocuous webpages.

That’s not the view of an internet libertarian, but of the Government’s own filtering trial report.

Disrupting the internet communication of pedophiles, terrorists and other criminals should be a priority for our law enforcement authorities, working in concert with those of other countries. No one disputes that.  But the Conroy-Rudd internet censorship regime has nothing to do with pedophiles or terrorists.  It’s a political stunt designed to burnish the Government’s middle-of-the-road credentials with mainstream voters who don’t understand how internet communication works, and nothing more.