Peter Dutton MP are you for or against the filter?

It’s an election year.

I am the consumer. My single vote is meant to count.

I want to know where politicians vying for my vote stand.

I want them to earn my vote, or accept the consequence.

I want politicians the country over to step out from the shadows of their mighty parties and their leaders, and stand for something.

Yes, maybe I am living in an alternate reality.

One of the topics I will be voting on this year (and there are a few) is the proposed Internet Filter.

I live in the Federal Seat of Dickson, in Queensland. Peter Dutton MP is my current member.

I tweeted late last year to get Peter’s opinion on the #nocleanfeed debate and where he stood. (@peter_dutton)

He asked me to email him, which I had to do via  a form on his website.  I sent off my relatively simple request to find out where he stands on the issue. I wanted to know what his stand on the internet filter was.

His reply is below:

Hi Darryl,

Thank you for taking the time to email me.  You may have read my columns in local papers, in which I encouraged Dickson residents to contact me with their views on this issue. Your email, along with many other similar letters I have received, has helped to confirm in my mind that this is a significant and important issue. In particular, letters such as yours have helped demonstrate that the Labor Government is severely out of step with the wishes of the community in relation to this issue.

I am willing to support any feasible measures to protect children from inappropriate online content and am of the firm belief that appropriate adult supervision and guidance should be front and centre of all online safety efforts. That is why I supported the previous Coalition Government’s actions in providing all Australian families with access to a free, optional PC-based content filter, which could be specifically tailored to assist parents in protecting their children. (The Rudd Government cancelled this program at the end of 2008 without putting in place any alternative).

However, IT industry experts are suggesting that most predatory risks to children lurk in those areas of the online world that are largely immune to filtering, such as chat rooms, email and peer-to-peer networks.  If that is true, the Labor Government is set to waste millions of dollars on its internet filter plan – money that could be better spent boosting the resources of our enforcement agencies to tackle threats in more sophisticated ways.

Dickson residents have also expressed concerns that an internet filter of this kind provides too much potential for a government to censor opposition and free speech. No other Western democracies operate a similar scheme – only countries like China.

I am therefore yet to be convinced that the Government’s mandatory filtering plan will be effective.

What are your thoughts on this issue?

Kind regards,

Peter Dutton

*YAWN*

Peter – seriously if you cared what I thought you would notice I am not overly interested in a stock standard response letter. I get that from my bank and let me tell you I don’t like them much.

Yes, it contains all the nice stock standard, I don’t really feel this is right, we did this back some time last decade and nasty Mr Rudd stole our toys etc.

What is actually missing is what you really think.

A letter to me. Personal. Individual. With what you really think.

So I propose a simple two part question for you. This is the crux of the matter for me, and it may also be for a number of other voters.

My Questions:

Peter, do you support the introduction of any form of mandatory internet filter in Australia?

And if the answer to that question is no, will you push to have it removed if and when you next get into government?

I hope you get around to reading this Peter; I will make footnotes to keep my tiny speckle of readers informed on what you feel. Two quite simple questions, which in fact I believe could be answered with Yes or No responses.

I don’t need spin. I just want to know which team you are on.

I want a personal answer to a personal issue for me a resident in your electorate.

I hope you have time to give me one.

Well that’s what ireckon anyway!

Leave a Reply