No Smut Please, We're Australian

If passed into law as expected, the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Bill 1999 would require Australian Internet service providers to block or remove adult Web content, or face heavy fines.

But critics say the bill wouldn't even have been introduced if the government wasn't trying to placate Senator Brian Harradine, who holds the deciding vote for another bill the government wants passed.

"We've got a situation where it is highly embarrassing for Australia to be so far out of step with the international community," said Kimberley Heitman, chairman of Electronic Frontiers Australia, an Internet civil liberties group.

Australian Internet advocates were still reading the bill late Wednesday, but its intentions are clear.

It is aimed at protecting children using the Internet by giving the nation's broadcast regulator, the Australian Broadcasting Authority, the power to investigate consumer complaints about Net porn. The authority would order takedown notices to those ISPs found to be hosting adult content.

Critics worry that the law might even compel ISPs to adopt a Chinese-style national Web proxy that would try to deflect foreign Net porn from Australian shores.

Regulators would apply the guidelines of the country's National Classification Board, which currently rates films, books, and videogames. Any ISP found to be hosting X-rated material, or R-rated material not protected by an adult verification system, would have to remove it within 24 hours of being notified.
ISPs ignoring the order will be fined the equivalent of US$17,748 for every day the material remains online. A fine that large would hit smaller ISPs especially hard, one observer said.

"It places an extra level of administration on an ISP that some won't be able to cope with, and at the end of the day I don't think it would be effective," said Kim Davies, an Internet consultant who maintains a roster of the nation's ISPs.

Richard Alston, Australia's minister for communications and information technology, introduced the bill and used it as a platform to attack the opposition Labor Party.

"Labor must now stop its stupid political posturing on this issue and confirm that it will support measures to stop pedophiles, drug pushers, bomb makers, and racists from using the Internet to spread their poison," Alston said.

Australia's constitution does not contain any freedom of speech guarantees.

According to Heitman, however, the bill has little to do with protecting children. He called it an act of political influence peddling.

Australia's governing Liberal coalition cannot secure a majority in the Senate without the support of Harradine, an independent senator from Tasmania. As a result of this precarious balance of power, the conservative Harradine can tip the scales to pass or kill a bill all by himself.

Meanwhile, the government is keen to introduce a federal goods and services tax, but cannot get that law passed without Harradine's support. And many believe the censorship bill was introduced to get that vote.

"[Harradine] is anti-pornography. He believes the Internet is rife with pedophiles, drug pushers, and bomb makers," said Heitman.
Several Australian Internet industry leaders and free-speech advocates accused the government of introducing the anti-smut bill to gain Harradine's support for the tax law.

"It is embarrassing to deal with a minister for communications who is prepared to sacrifice the Net for a short-term political gain," said Heitman.

"The Liberal government is bowing to [Harradine's] whims on censorship -- particularly TV and Internet -- to buy his vote for the goods and services tax," said one source familiar with the situation.

The bill would also compel Internet service providers to join a national trade association, most likely the Internet Industry Association, which represents the country's largest ISPs.

"We have got a good solid working relationship with the government," said Peter Coroneos, the IIA's executive director.

"They have come to us and looked at the leadership we have taken," Coroneos said. "We have been developing the Code of Practice [self-regulation program] and they recognize that they can't make any regime work without our cooperation."

He added that the IIA sought to balance the interests of the Australian economy with those of concerned parents. "We have got to try and find that balance point. We are confident that we can find that common ground."

But one IIA director said that the bill targets adults who wish to view adult material, and losing this audience would seriously hurt the budding electronic commerce industry.

"The demand from adults for adult material easily accounts for 30 percent of Internet traffic," said Vic Cinc in a statement. "If such efforts to eliminate this traffic coming into Australia were to be successful, the resulting collapse in ISP revenues would flow on to end users in terms of increased charges, reduction in services, increase in small-player bankruptcies and an increase in unemployment."

Heitman said that if the bill becomes law, all of the nation's ISPs -- there are more than 650 -- will probably be required to use blocking technology such as proxy filters to ensure that overseas Web sites won't be accessible in Australia.

Specifically, the bill requires ISPs to take "to take reasonable steps to prevent access [to foreign sites] if technically feasible."

"We are in terrific company," Heitman said, comparing the situation to China's so-called great firewall. That state-sponsored proxy attempts -- with mixed success -- to block Western news and information Web sites.

The Liberal coalition wants the anti-porn bill passed by 30 June, which happens to be the day Harradine stops holding power under the country's "expiry of service" regulations.

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