Chinese style internet censorship - coming soon to a computer near you.

The communist dictatorship of China has long been blasted by human rights organisations for its blanket censorship of the Internet but it seems Australia's Communications Minister Stephen Conroy thinks it is a wonderful idea.

This week he boasted to the Senate Estimates Committee of the Rudd Government's plans to impose mandatory internet censorship on all Australians - without any option for the once free citizens of this country to opt out and make their own decisions about what they wish to read on the net.  Initially touted as a voluntary "cyber-safety" measure for homes with children the 'Clean Feed' proposals will now see Government ministers giving themselves unfettered power to decide what adult Australians can and cannot gain access to, with any site or topic they deem unsuitable blocked to all users without debate or appeal.  Subjects such as euthanasia and anorexia will apparently be the first to be censored, presumably if our own 'Open Forum' discusses such ideas in the future this website will itself go dark at the flick of a bureaucrat's switch. 

The mandatory filter will greatly slow Australia's already laughable internet speeds, and be paid for by the very public whose access it is maiming, but the obvious technical drawbacks and international derision this will attract pale before the principle of tyranny which the Government is now wholeheartedly embracing.