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Conroy receives 174 filter submissions

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has received 174 submissions on transparency and accountability measures to consider when implementing its mandatory internet service providers level filter which will block "refused classification" content hosted on overseas servers.
Written by Ben Grubb, Contributor

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) has received 174 submissions on transparency and accountability measures to consider when implementing its mandatory internet service providers level filter which will block "refused classification" content hosted on overseas servers.

Stephen Conroy

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy
(Credit: NBN Tasmania)

"The department will now work with other government agencies to consider the submissions and examine whether the ideas can be used to enhance the proposed accountability and transparency measures," said Conroy in a statement.

Yesterday, ZDNet.com.au revealed the consultation process had delayed the Bill from being introduced in parliament.

Conroy said on 15 December that the Federal Government would go ahead with its plans to block "refused classification" material on the internet after he considered an independent report conducted by Enex TestLab.

The report said that filtering would have negligible impact on the speed of the internet. The minister also released a public consultation paper requesting accountability and transparency measures the government could consider with implementation.

At the time, Conroy said the government expected to "introduce legislation during the Autumn 2010 parliamentary sittings". The Autumn parliamentary sittings finished last week.

Conroy's department said public submissions relating to the transparency and accountability measures were stopping the Bill from being introduced.

"The government is ensuring it gets the legislative framework right, including by taking into account the submissions in improvements to transparency and accountability," a spokesperson for the DBCDE told ZDNet.com.au on Friday. "The Bill will not be introduced until these processes are completed".

The spokesperson said the government would not be introducing the Bill until it had "carefully considered the issues raised in the consultation process".

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