Australia's Internet Filter Postponed?

Post by trog @ 12:03pm 09/07/10 | 62 Comments

The leading story on the 12.00pm Triple J news announcement was that the Labor Government's Internet filter plan has been postponed, with Stephen Conroy apparently announcing that it is awaiting an "independent review" about which sites will be blocked.

The news is now published on the ABC website:

Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy says the filter will not be put in place until an independent review can be carried out into what content would be banned.

This press release from Conroy's office has some new details about the "transparency" process that they're going to be following as well.

internet australia filtering refused classification

Latest Comments

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TicMan
Posted 12:06pm 09/7/10

Who would have thought that would happen coming up to an election!

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Eorl
Posted 12:09pm 09/7/10

Haha, look at it all work now. And nice to see a review to the Classification Board, we may just have ourselves and R18.

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tequila
Posted 12:15pm 09/7/10

he's such a retard, what kind of idiot doesn't listen to such vocal outspoken industry leaders telling him how he's f*****g wrong about everything he says

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reso
Posted 12:25pm 09/7/10

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/09/2949220.htm

didn't read

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simul
Posted 12:52pm 09/7/10

Hmm, torn. Still think I'll vote liberal in the hope that it stops the filtering bulls***, even though they will probably kill the NBN and its run by a preacher.

Really need a "common sense" party.

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Nerfosaurus
Posted 12:58pm 09/7/10

and welcomed support from the major Internet Service Providers

I think iinet's ceo and another have already asked his office to stop saying this once.

At least it sounds like some steps in the right direction. Though there's still no point in pissing away all that money on something that won't achieve anything and will create several new problems, but that's politicians for you. (or perhaps most of the older generations when it comes to buying snakeoil IT products it seems)

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NoLogic
Posted 01:09pm 09/7/10

Hmmm good news. What is going on here? Julia has decided to steal Conroys thunder a bit and put it on the back burner. She da man!! Up yours Conroy

This will prolly take a long time now to resolve .. lol @ Conroy and his f*****g mental Christian supporters..

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trog
Posted 01:17pm 09/7/10

ta reso

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neffo
Posted 01:21pm 09/7/10

Gillard seems to be having some trouble finding her feet as PM. She only just confirmed this as a goer by the end of the year.

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FaceMan
Posted 01:23pm 09/7/10

but wait !

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/telstra-optus-and-primus-agree-to-block-child-porn/story-e6frfku0-1225889782626

What does this mean ?
We are told filtering is postponed then told "some" filtering will now take place ?

Looks like its only Child Porn but when you get to the bottom of the article it then mentions RC content.

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trog
Posted 01:24pm 09/7/10

Gillard seems to be having some trouble finding her feet as PM. She only just confirmed this as a goer by the end of the year.

yeh. I am honestly wondering if ABC got this one wrong because there's no quotes I can see from Conroy saying that it has been postponed because of these new accountability measures, and especially in light of what Gillard just said (yesterday?) that the filter was an EOY proposition it makes me wonder.

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NoLogic
Posted 01:40pm 09/7/10

for Victorians - you ppls can help get rid of this fool at the next Election...

Stop the Filter or sack the Senator..

http://filter-conroy.org/index.html

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ravn0s
Posted 01:45pm 09/7/10

especially in light of what Gillard just said (yesterday?) that the filter was an EOY proposition it makes me wonder.

she also said she was working with the east timorese about the whole boat people situation, which she clearly wasnt. seems she doesnt know wtf is going on.

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neffo
Posted 01:47pm 09/7/10

It's Labor policy, not just Conroy's. It goes back a long way, to Beazley even. It'd probably be Coalition policy too, if it wasn't Labor's.

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NoLogic
Posted 01:50pm 09/7/10

True Neffo but it is obvious that Conroy has made it his baby, he was/is pushing it with venom.

He wants it to be his legacy.

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trog
Posted 01:52pm 09/7/10

True Neffo but it is obvious that Conroy has made it his baby, he was/is pushing it with venom.

He wants it to be his legacy.

well, I assume he has to tow the party line regardless of how he feels about it personally, if he wants to keep his job

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NoLogic
Posted 02:02pm 09/7/10

well, I assume he has to tow the party line regardless of how he feels about it personally, if he wants to keep his job

I am not sure they are doing so well as a party at the moment, do they even have a party line?

Krudd, Tanner and Faulkner gone. A wobbly Julia in charge with an election just around the corner.

She must have pulled the pin on Conroy, I can't see anything developing on the internet filter until well into 2011. They may have given themselves a way out with some of the ISP's coming onboard to block child porn and other sites that meet to the more hardcore end of the RC list.

Interesting days ahead anyway.

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NoLogic
Posted 02:18pm 09/7/10

lmfao at that nuke !!

Damn my workmates looked at me funny then :)

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gamer
Posted 02:46pm 09/7/10

awwww i like faceman's posts, they add crazy non-confirmable end-of-world thinking to factual events and the occasional lolz to threads.

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FaceMan
Posted 02:48pm 09/7/10

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Trauma
Posted 02:48pm 09/7/10

Postponed... till after the election.

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Mantorok
Posted 02:49pm 09/7/10

Really need a "common sense" party.

It's called the Australian Sex Party.

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gamer
Posted 02:50pm 09/7/10

if they said the filter was off or opt-in i would give them my vote again but not if they are just going to postpone it untill after :-/

how the f*** am i supposed to make up my mind on my vote now... when they play these silly mindgames

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NoLogic
Posted 02:59pm 09/7/10

ABC national radio reported that Conroy has indicated that it won't be considered again until at the earliest this time next year ....

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thermite
Posted 03:01pm 09/7/10

Conroy put protecting children from being raped on the backburner? What a monster!

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eski
Posted 03:04pm 09/7/10

So they delay it until after the election so we won't vote against them?

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bLaZe
Posted 04:51pm 09/7/10

so conroy is extending the countries exposure to the spams and scams through the portal?

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reLapse
Posted 05:10pm 09/7/10

If you can't make up your mind on who to vote for just don't vote, there's absolutely nothing wrong with not voting.

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Nerfosaurus
Posted 05:13pm 09/7/10

I reckon Conroy would be the type of person to fall for internet scams, given his complete lack of IT cred or apparent understanding. I feel safer sleeping at night wondering if our defence department could be just as unqualified.

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thermite
Posted 05:20pm 09/7/10

Technology is great. It was really easy to pass off the stupidity of officials as being a subjective thing, they might be stupid - they might not be - we might just disagree with them, but with a politician bulls***ting their way through a job like the telecommunications minister, you can actually benchmark their stupidity and measure their wrongness.

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Mattressi
Posted 05:41pm 09/7/10

@Mantorok: the Sex Party won't get in because they only have policies on a few issues (essentially any issue involving sex or discrimination) and nothing on important issues like finance or general direction of the country.

Look into the Liberal Democratic Party (not to be confused with the Liberal Nationals, commonly known as simply 'Liberals'). The Liberal Democrats have policies on all aspects of government and all of their policies are common sense policies with the one core value; everyone has equal rights and are responsible for themselves, meaning everything is legal so long as it does not infringe on the rights of others. For example, while I am opposed to drug use, I still believe people should have a choice, so long as they don't infringe on other peoples rights. This is what the Liberal Democratic Party is about. Obviously they are opposed to filtering, censorship and everything else as well.

Sorry if this came off as a political rant, but this party seems reasonable to me in every aspect (it does not impose any beliefs on anyone; neither left nor right wing beliefs) and I think it deserves more publicity.

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Mantorok
Posted 12:45am 10/7/10

Err, take a look at some results from recent by-elections (Bradfield and Higgins). The Australian Sex Party has been getting more than 3 times as many votes as the LDP.

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StrangeRash
Posted 06:52am 10/7/10

conroy is no different to the admin who nuked faceman's post

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Nerfosaurus
Posted 07:56am 10/7/10

This is the admin's personal site, he/they can choose the rules, and you can choose to be a part of that or not.

I never invited Conroy into my life, nor elected him as grand ruler of all personal spaces. He's not even targeting illegal material, which would at least be tolerable. (though recording instead of blocking so that the matter can be taken up in court instead of being swept under the rug would be infinitely more preferable as well)

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Willberforce
Posted 03:57pm 10/7/10

The problem lies in the right wing Christian Lobby, I say we nuke the bastards..... Online ofcourse ;)

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Willberforce
Posted 04:00pm 10/7/10

correction, Problem=Issue

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Twisted
Posted 04:07pm 10/7/10

What does this mean ?
We are told filtering is postponed then told "some" filtering will now take place ?

Pretty sure quite a lot of child pornography sites are already blocked and have been for years and years. That was what I understood.

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CHUB
Posted 04:15pm 10/7/10

and all of their policies are common sense policies

Including the one where standard rifles don't need registration right? Plus the awesome policy reintroducing semi-automatic guns to the average citizen.

Common sense, yeah.

They get my thumbs up for cannabis legalization though :D

last edited by CHUB at 16:15:30 10/Jul/10

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reLapse
Posted 06:54pm 10/7/10

Common sense definitely goes right out the window when it comes to the LDP's firearms policy.

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Mattressi
Posted 09:18pm 10/7/10

Their firearm policy is one of the reasons I vote for them. Before you start b****ing about how 'guns kill people' take a look at the murder per capita and violent crime per capita of Australia before and after each new gun law. The difference; they either didn't change or even slightly increased when guns were banned. Hell, look at how much violence due to knives there is now. When you ban guns, knives or anything else, only criminals will have them.

Also, CHUB, do you really think that a semi-auto kills THAT much more than a bolt or pump action? The difference in rate of fire between a Remington 7600 or 7615 (a pump action centre fire rifle) and an AR-15 (semi-auto) is minuscule, yet 7600's and 7615's are legal here to any person without a criminal record. I'm not sure what you class as 'common sense' but maybe you should look into the statistics (look into Russia, Switzerland, and individual US states, don't just say "but look at the US, heaps of people are killed there") and find that murder and violent crime rates have been shown to either be unaffected by anti-firearm laws or to slightly increase due to anti-firearm laws.

People that want to kill other people will always find a way to do so. If guns are completely banned and a mass killing is desired, a bomb can be made (or a gun can be illegally obtained; it's not like they will be concerned about the law). At least if guns are legal you'd have a chance at stopping them.

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reLapse
Posted 01:50am 11/7/10

Percentages on their own tell far from a complete story, don't establish cause and effect and context is everything.

People seem to forget that we are a growing country and you're always going to see an increase in crime with an increase of population.

We've never had a constitutional right to own firearms and the average citizen didn't even own a firearm prior to the buyback scheme to begin with.

I think we're better off with the gun laws we have now than, in part, reverting.

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Mantorok
Posted 08:17am 11/7/10

Before you start b****ing about how 'guns kill people' take a look at the murder per capita and violent crime per capita of Australia before and after each new gun law. The difference; they either didn't change or even slightly increased when guns were banned.

I really didn't want to discuss gun laws, but you're completely f*****g wrong here.

Gee, what do those first two graphs show? Homicides went down after the 1996 gun laws. I suggest you read this.

...murder and violent crime rates have been shown to either be unaffected by anti-firearm laws or to slightly increase due to anti-firearm laws.

More BS. In 1994, the US introduced the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (which meant that everybody who would own a gun would have to go through a background check). Violent crime rates dropped:

source

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StrangeRash
Posted 08:25am 11/7/10

I never invited Conroy into my life

but didn't the majority of the public help elect him into your life?

look i see your point this forum is private and the admins can do what they want. if i don't like it i should just f*** off. but similar things can be said to the minority that opposed conroy :P

anyway, if labor are elected (and they won't be) i'm betting the filter is going to be active mid next year and will be part of the NBN

PS: nuking faceman's post was a bit harsh

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euphoria
Posted 09:16am 11/7/10

Hi everyone! Just arrived in this thread. Don't know how it evolved to gun laws, but whatever.

Interesting graphs, Mantorok. I suppose the question could be asked - if the death rate was decreasing prior to the 1996 gun laws, were those laws a considered solution or a knee-jerk reaction? Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of living in a society with extremely tough gun laws. I grew up in a country where I saw gun related violence first hand and so am obviously not a fan. Simply asking the question, is all.

On topic with the actual thread (now that I've read it), I also think this is purely an election thing. As soon as (assuming it happens) they get voted in for another term, hey presto, welcome to interweb lockdown.

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Mantorok
Posted 09:31am 11/7/10

if the death rate was decreasing prior to the 1996 gun laws, were those laws a considered solution or a knee-jerk reaction?

Take a guess: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australia)

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FaceMan
Posted 12:57pm 11/7/10

oh Gun Law Debate
My favourite topic.

Nice graphs but the rates of difference are very small in a very small population. Unfortunately bad people do bad things.
No gun was needed for the rape and murder of Anita Cobby.
Pedophiles dont need guns.
Rapists dont need guns.
Good Free Men do not commit these crimes so why should they be penalised ?
Not unlike filtering our internet because of what bad people do on it ?

People who cant kill themself with a gun will use something else.
Death by Cop, Train, car accident, drug overdose. I wonder if those rates rose ?
If I want to kill myself I have a right to use a gun.
Its fast and painless.

I wonder how many people, who used to own a gun but had to surrender it, actually wound up becoming a victim of a crime that their gun could have prevented. People who live in isolated areas.

Gun Education and people growing up with guns and learning how to be responsible around them is whats needed. Police have access to guns 24hrs a day but when was the last time a copper shot and killed someone in anger ?

Anyone who is a good free man should be entitled to own a secure firearm.
Man has only those rights that he can defend.

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Mattressi
Posted 03:05pm 11/7/10

Mantorok, take a look at this link: http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide.aspx
Your data is wrong: the data I posted contradicts it and is from the Australian Institute of Criminology (a government agency), yours is from a bunch of anti-gunners. You can clearly see that despite the 1996 ban the murder rate still remained steady and then slowly began to decline. Below that graph you can see that the homicide incidents were always slowly decreasing. Hell, you can even look at a news article talking about how the AIC says there's been no decline in murder rate: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/25/2753327.htm.

FaceMan is correct too; the data is small so it is heavily affected by many things - whether gang wars are going on in that year or not, whether there was a massacre (that could have been stopped is just one of the victims had a gun) and simple chance. Despite that, you can see that the murder rates were unaffected by the gun bans from the data I linked to, although it probably is improper to draw conclusions from such a small amount of data. If that's the case, it shows our murder rate is too low to get reliable statistics from, meaning we've always had a low murder rate with and without guns.

As for your data from the US; you are talking about a law being introduced that prevents proven violent criminals from purchasing firearms - it stopped over 1.8 million criminals from buying guns between 1994 and 2008! Of course it lowered crime! Do you honestly think I would be opposed to preventing violent criminals from possessing guns?? Criminals have less rights than law abiding citizens because they do not care for the rights of law abiding citizens; that's why they get locked up against their will and that's why they shouldn't have guns.

Please, don't make a judgement on this straight away; I used to be anti-gun, but have come to realise that, once you get over the 'guns are evil' stigma, they are useful tools, or at the very least are not some kind of plague that sweeps across a nation and kills everyone in it.

The point of the LDP is that everyone has different interests and instead of hating each other for that and trying to stop each other, we should let each other carry on as long as we don't infringe on other peoples' rights. The Shooters Party are pro-gun and opposed to drugs, the Greens are pro-drug and opposed to guns. The Shooters argue that guns don't affect crime rates, so what the hell is everyone worried about, but then some members go on to say that drugs cause an increase in violence. The Greens state the opposite. This is why I hate both parties; stop trying to ban what others want to do! Keep religion out of politics, keep knee-jerk reactions, right-wing anti-drug hysteria and left-wing anti-gun hysteria out of politics and keep only the rights of citizens (not that we have any here; I'm dead serious we only have 3 or so rights here; not even a right to freedom of speech) and the facts in politics. Everyone has different views about what shouldn't be banned and most have facts to back their view; so how about we stop trying to stop each other and instead help each other do what we want?

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Hogfather
Posted 03:12pm 11/7/10

look i see your point this forum is private and the admins can do what they want. if i don't like it i should just f*** off. but similar things can be said to the minority that opposed conroy :P

Except this forum is private (opt-in) and the Government is public (not opt-in). Bad comparison is bad!

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FaceMan
Posted 03:28pm 11/7/10

So you are pro censorship under certain conditions.
Just like Conroy.

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Mantorok
Posted 04:24pm 11/7/10

You can clearly see that despite the 1996 ban the murder rate still remained steady and then slowly began to decline.

Which completely disagrees with your earlier point of:

they either didn't change or even slightly increased when guns were banned.

I guess we're on the same side of the argument then, as you seem to be now saying homicide rates fell after the 1996 gun laws.

As for your data from the US; you are talking about a law being introduced that prevents proven violent criminals from purchasing firearms - it stopped over 1.8 million criminals from buying guns between 1994 and 2008! Of course it lowered crime! Do you honestly think I would be opposed to preventing violent criminals from possessing guns??

Well, the LDP are. By allowing long-arms to go unregistered, criminals buying guns becomes as simple as teenagers buying alcohol: they just get a friend to do it for them.

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FaceMan
Posted 07:24pm 11/7/10

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trog
Posted 07:45pm 11/7/10

conroy is no different to the admin who nuked faceman's post

you do not understand the fundamentals

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FaceMan
Posted 10:03pm 11/7/10

Over 90 academics, practitioners and public interest organizations from six continents have collectively warned that a secretive global treaty, currently being negotiated by governments of the world�s largest economies would see tight controls placed on the internet and would threaten other fundamental rights and freedoms.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/academics-politicians-pending-global-treaty-threatens-free-internet-fundamental-rights.html

There is a War coming.

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Mattressi
Posted 11:04pm 11/7/10

Mantorok, it doesn't disagree with my point; I didn't say that the murder rate never changed, just that it didn't change right after a gun ban. If you look at the graphs in the links you can see that well after the bans were in place that the murder rate decreased a little, as had been happening off and on for the past century. It seems that if the murder rate had stayed steady the whole time, then in 50 years time it dropped you would have come on here and said "hey it dropped after 1996". Just because it eventually dropped, it doesn't mean it was because of the ban - if the ban were to have a marked effect it would have started to happen relatively soon after it was implemented.

As for your point about no registration; did you actually read the link you posted? The law didn't require registration of guns, simply that people have to be identified when a sale is made. Your point is illogical; while someone could buy the gun for a criminal when there is no registration, they could do the exact same even if there was registration. Serials can be filed of easily so no one will no they gave it to the criminal, or they could say it was stolen. Registration does nothing.

FaceMan, I've agreed with you up until now: this is a privately owned and run site, while the government is paid for by our tax money, which they use to take away our rights. A private company can do what they want because it is their money. You can object to it, but don't compare it to the government. I am not pro-censorship, but I am pro individual rights; if someone owns a forum/new site they have the right to edit it however they like.

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neffo
Posted 11:17pm 11/7/10

Your data is wrong: the data I posted contradicts it and is from the Australian Institute of Criminology (a government agency), yours is from a bunch of anti-gunners. You can clearly see that despite the 1996 ban the murder rate still remained steady and then slowly began to decline.

The reason they are different is because one is per 1000 people.

Homicides involving firearms as a percentage of total homicides, 1915-2003

Source: Adapted from ABS causes of death 1915-2003 data

From that graph there has a be consistent reduction in gun use in homicides (post gun buyback).

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thermite
Posted 11:32pm 11/7/10

I love how mantarok's graph has a fake line of averages that is purposefully disjointed between pre and post law. Those could easily have been continuous lines.

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Mattressi
Posted 11:40pm 11/7/10

neffo, from that graph there has been a consistent reduction in gun use in homicides since 1971; well before the gun buyback. It's been decreasing at a relatively steady rate. Perhaps I should have phrased my statement as "anti-firearm laws have either no effect on the rate of change of murder rate, or slightly decrease the rate of change of murder rate (i.e. if it is dropping fast it is slightly slowed)".

Besides, I'm not arguing that guns are used less in crimes when banned, just that the bans don't decrease the crime rate (people still use knives and other weapons, plus many still use illegal guns).

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Corrupt
Posted 07:56am 12/7/10

I think you will find most statistical studies are f*****g useless because they don't have a high enough population sample.

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Corrupt
Posted 04:02pm 12/7/10

The proposed postponement is just a political maneuver the proposed review isn't even a proper one its just a review of the sites on the list.

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Hogfather
Posted 04:11pm 12/7/10

So you are pro censorship under certain conditions.
Just like Conroy.

It is not censorship to tell someone to shut up when they are being loony or leave your house.

It is not censorship for a news editor to decide which stories the paper will run and which will not be run, and which letters to the editor will be printed and which will not.

It is not censorship for the administrators to say who may and may not speak on their privately-owned forum.

It is censorship for the Government to determine what may and may not be read and viewed by its citizens, and what private citizens may or may not print onlint or off. You do not understand the difference between public and private ownership, and are a complete fool besides.

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JaYMan
Posted 04:19pm 22/7/10

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2010/07/keeping-kids-safe-cannot-be-outsourced/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GizmodoAustralia+%28Gizmodo+Australia%29

Good to see even some religious people are starting to see this isn't the answer.

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