Filter 'no' vote guaranteed: Greens
The Australian Greens Party today vowed that it would vote against Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's plans to filter the internet of "refused classification" material, calling on the Opposition to publicly state how it would vote when "push comes to shove".
"I have ... held back from declaring the Greens' voting intentions on this issue in the faint hope that by the time we saw legislation the minister might have accommodated at least some of the concerns that have been put to him by a huge range of stakeholders," Greens communications spokesperson Senator Scott Ludlam said in parliament today.
"But, on the back of the Four Corners piece the other night, it is pretty obvious that this is a false hope — so let me remove that ambiguity once and for all. If the government presents its mandatory internet censorship scheme to the parliament in the form that the minister has been describing to us, the Australian Greens will vote against it."
Greens MP Lee Rhiannon had said in March that her colleagues would vote against the filter.
Senator Ludlam's full speech is available on the Australian Greens website.