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Saturday 6th July 1996
Saturday 6th July 1996
/\ *** Don't let the government ruin the Internet in Australia *** /\
The future of your Internet access hangs in the balance!
On July 11, Attorneys-General from every state will consider censorship laws which will seriously damage online environments in Australia. The laws, proposed by the NSW government for NATIONAL use, are similar to the Communications Decency Act in the USA, and would seriously affect your online freedom and your right to privacy.
For example, your Internet provider would have to read your email and it would become illegal to access films on the Internet which are shown in the everyday cinema, or books which are freely available in your community library.
In trying to stop criminal acts on the Internet, our politicians threaten to ruin the Internet for the rest of us, because they are ignorant of the way it works.
The STOP! Campaign is actively opposing the proposed laws and attempting to educate the politicians involved. It's important to make a big impact on the Attorneys-General before they meet.
But we really NEED YOUR HELP and there are only a few days left!
We must make our government understand the nature of the Internet and the impossibility of Australian legislation controlling information available on a world-wide network. It is clear that the authors of the draft legislation are not familiar with how the Internet works.
The EFA led Stop! Campaign supports the encouragement of responsible adult and parental controls to protect children on the Internet. Using filtering through software and third party rating schemes such as PICS, they can more effectively achieve that end and leave the Internet free of unworkable and largely unenforcable legislation.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
We are asking you to contact your state Attorney-General's office NOW, to tell them you do not support the NSW model for regulation. Please encourage others to do the same. Contact details are available from the STOP! campaign Web site.
You may wish to use the STOP! campaign's sample protest letter
We are asking you to tell your friends what is going on, forward this email to them, and point them in the direction of the STOP! campaign Web site. Details on other things you can do to help such as how to join our mailing lists are also available from the STOP! Campaign web site.
THANK YOU
The STOP! campaign appreciates your support. If we work together, we can get results, and give Australia a continued chance to be a world leader on the Internet of the future.
The July 11 meeting of Attorney-Generals is fast approaching - we must act quickly.
Please respond!
The Democrats, recognised in Australia as the "hidden" fourth arm of the Labor Party have been very obstructionist in the Senate, blocking bills and trying to thwart the passage of bills passed by Parliament.
Howard said that the Democrats were playing for "very high stakes" in opposing elements of the Coalition's program.
In a clear reference to the risk of a double dissolution, Mr Howard said that the Government had been elected with an overwhelming majority to implement measures now under threat in the Senate.
When the same bill is stopped twice in the Senate, the Parliament has to be dissolved and a new Federal Election called - this is called a double dissolution.
"The recent actions of the Democrats would suggest that their central preoccupation is not with honesty but with blind partisanship," Howard said.
The leader of the Democrats, Cheryl Kernot, later rejected the attack saying that it was counter productive and hypocritical contradicting the private approaches for talks from Mr Howard's office over the last 24 hours.
Senator Kernot said that she would now "rethink" whether there was any value in meeting the Prime Minister.
After increasing the intensity of his rhetoric on Senate obstruction over the last two weeks, Mr Howard used a prepared speech in Adelaide last night to reaffirm his determination to enact legislation on industrial relations, Telstra and the Natural Heritage Trust.
While endorsing the Government's plan to slash Au$8 billion from the Budget bottom line, he called on the Government to raise taxes as well as to reduce spending to meet the target.
The bank chief played down fears that the cuts in spending would slow down the economy suggesting that any negative aspects would more than be offset by gains through the private sector.
Their coach Michael Nunan is expected to resign this afternoon after the match against Essendon at the Optus Oval. He refused to comment on his position, but at least one other AFL team is known to be interested in taking him on next season.
The man claiming to have proof of a Dutch settlement in central Australia more than 100 years before the First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay is television's Bush Ticker Man, Les Hiddens.
The theory of the "lost settlement" has been around for a while, based on an 1834 English newspaper report in which a British lieutenant claimed that he had come across a 170 year old community of 300 Dutch people in the Tanami desert.
Hiddens' theory is that about 330 years ago, 90 survivors of a shipwreck on the West Australian coast trekked 1000km inland along the Fitzroy river between the Kimberley and the Great Sandy Desert.
Among existing evidence are reports that explorer John McDougall Stewart was given a Masonic sign by an Aborigine in central Australia and found white man's footprints. Sightings of an albino Aborigine were reported in the area and explorer Charles Winnecke claimed to have met an Aborigine who said "ja" (Dutch for yes).
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