Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Fielding for the question and for his interest in what is a significant issue for all parents in the community, indeed all families and the community more broadly. I am not sure that Senator Fielding’s information is correct but if ISP providers wish to provide filters at server level that is entirely a matter for them. What is the case, and I think I can say this without contradiction, is that there is simply no government in the developed world that has mandated, insisted on or endorsed server-level filtering. I think I am correct in saying that. If Senator Fielding can provide other information, I am very interested to hear it.

As I have said, the difficulties with server-level filtering are quite significant. This government has looked at it on three separate occasions: in 1999 in a CSIRO technical trial; in 2003-04 as part of the review of the online content scheme; and in late 2005 in a trial conducted by NetAlert that involved the RMIT and ACMA, the regulator. Indeed, there is another trial going on in Launceston and I will look very critically at that. Each report has found very significant problems with content filter products operating at that level, such that they tend to overblock all forms of content, including quite innocent content that needs to be accessed for quite legitimate purposes. They have been unable to effectively scale up to a larger network. These systems have been known to have problems on a smaller network in a very controlled environment, and the ability to scale up to a large network is very difficult to achieve.

They have been unable to analyse and block websites based on more sophisticated techniques such as skin tones. Many have provided no protection at all for children using chat rooms. Children are totally vulnerable under this arrangement to predators approaching them on chat rooms through peer to peer, through file downloading or through email traffic. None of the ISP filters that have been tested will block that kind of trash that affects our kids. Many do not allow the ability to customise filtering levels so that parents can do something to control the level of content that they get so that different members of the family can have different access arrangements. They do not allow parents to log children’s activities so there cannot be any parental monitoring. We think the drawbacks are significant and that PC based filters, if properly understood and installed, provide the best opportunity to effectively address this very pernicious pornography and to enable parents to take control and to make the right decisions on behalf of their children.