The Labour government's proposed mandatory ISP filtering

Its common knowledge that the Australian government plans to filter our internet experience on an internet service provider level.
But what does this mean for us?...

here's the facts:
The Australian government, under the lead of the Australian Labor party is currently proposing that a mandatory web filter be applied on ISP level to ensure the blockage of sites blacklisted by the Australian government. The sites blacklisted will be sites which contain "any content that has been identified as prohibited by the Australian Communications and Media Authority“. (citation from Labour media release, March 2006)

Supporters of the filter are greatly of the opinion that the filter will help protect children from witnessing content that is inappropriate and help to stop the production/ spread of child pornography.

This is not the case. The filter isn’t a “cyber safety” measure to stop kids seeing inappropriate content such as R and X rated websites. It is not even designed to prevent the spread of illegal material where it is most often found (chat rooms, peer-to-peer file sharing).

Furthermore under this policy, ISPs will be forced to charge more for consumer and business broadband. Several hundred thousand dollars has already been spent to test the filter – without considering high-speed services such as the National Broadband Network! Who will pay for these changes?

The site at http://www.internetblackout.com.au/ (which I recommend you guys visit for more information) goes as far as to suggest that future governments will take the filtering even further. (making reference to the filters in China and Saudi Arabia)

As you can see there is obviously ample reasons why this filter is not a viable solution for us web users and citizens of Australia, which is why I would request that you sign the petition against the mandatory filter. The petition located at http://www.efa.org.au/epetition/ takes 30 seconds to sign and will help to express the feelings of Australians towards the filter in future when presented in parliament.

If you would like to further express your support, you can also "black out" your internet profile for the next week to help spread awareness.