Federal IT minister senator Richard Alston has accused opposition senator Brian Greig of promoting pornography after he accused the government of fear-mongering to promote its Internet regulation policy.

Alston delivered the accusation against Greig during an attack on opposition parties' approach to Internet regulation in the Senate Wednesday.

Thrown a dorothy-dixer that gave him an opportunity to spruik the government's latest initiatives to combat spam, Alston said Greig had given his approval to research indicating pornography had a "therapeutic" effect on its users.

Alston was referring to research that Greig had cited during debate over the government's Communications Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2002 the previous day.

Greig had presented to parliament a 10-year study by Danish criminologists, linking the legalisation of sexually-explicit material to a reduction in sex-related crimes to address claims by Senator Brian Harradine that use of pornography could promote child sex abuse.

That prompted Harradine to accuse Greig of approving the use of pornography by minors.

Picking up Harradine's trail, Alston accused the Labor party of siding with "rabid libertarian fringes" on the issue before taking aim at Greig.

"I would have thought [the Labor party] should be at least very concerned to be associated with the Senator Greig's of this world who yesterday told the Senate he very much approved of research which shows that pornography can have a therapeutic effect," said Alston before ending his speech with a humorous swipe:

"[Grieg] may have been in therapy for many years but it does not seem to have done him any good".

Greig immediately demanded an apology from Alston saying it was a serious attempt to besmirch him and mislead the parliament.

Greig admitted that he did not believe that pornography -- produced and used responsibly by consenting adults -- was harmful, but said that presenting the Danish research in parliament did not amount to endorsing it.

The research was intended to balance against reports the government had used to defend its Internet censorship legislation which, claims Grieg, exploits fears and ignorance about the Internet among politicians and members of the wider community.

Greig was referring to research conducted by the Australia Institute and endorsed by Harradine. It found that 80 percent of teenage boys had seen pornography on the Internet and raised concerns that it may lead to an increase in violent sexual behavioured in young Australian males.

"The Howard government is largely about rhetoric; its largely about frightening people and then pretending that it will protect people from the bogey men it creates," said Greig.

Greig said parental concern about the availability of explicit material on the Internet was understandable, but that government's attempts to regulate the Internet had no hope of succeeding.

Drawing comparison's to the government's stance on terrorism, Greig said:

"It takes the same approach to the Net whether it's pornography or online gambling--it plays on the ignorance than many people have in terms of Internet technology and pretends to be a solution".

A spokesperson for Alston's office yesterday defended the government's position.

"The only ignorance on display was with Senator Greig, and the Democrats and the Greens and the Labor party this week, because they oppose measures that are purely designed to protect Australian families from offensive material," he said.

So far the regulatory scheme, administered by the Australian Broadcasting Authority at a cost of over AU$2.5 million since it was introduced in January 2000, has resulted in the removal of around 500 Web sites from Australian servers.

The government said yesterday it had not compiled statistics indicating how many sites containing objectionable or explicit material adult sites were still available to Australian Web users from offshore servers

The Democrats have called on the government to dismantle its Internet legislation and regulatory apparatus.

According to Greig, the only way to combat Internet pornography is through education. The Democrats' policy is to overhaul the government's Internet education body Net Alert, and substantially increase the group's current funding of AU$2 million over the next three years.

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