Backflip

Straighty has done a one-eighty. Let’s have a look at some of Conroy’s recent comments.

I contradict myself THIS much!

[Conroy] has also resorted to unedifying inferences against those who dared question his plan. When a Greens Senator, Scott Ludlam, asked some perfectly reasonable questions during a senate estimates hearing last October, Senator Conroy responded: “I trust you are not suggesting that people should have access to child pornography.“

“If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd Labor Government is going to disagree.”

These comments, to me, strongly imply that Conroy believes the filter will stop the spread of child pornography. Am I right? Apparently not:

Senator Conroy said the Government had never claimed the filter itself would stop child pornography.

“We’ve never tried to pretend that this was a silver bullet, we’ve never tried to suggest this was the sole solution,” Senator Conroy said.

The aim of the proposed filtering is to block material that is already illegal and is refused classification, he said.

So he is trying to juggle several opinions at once here:

• If you don’t support the filter, you support child pornography (ie., the filter will stop child pornography).
• The filter won’t actually do much at all, we need to use other methods to crack child porn rings.
• Wait, wait, the filter will block illegal material (including child porn) and refused classification material.

If you have any ideas on how Conroy could reconcile these contradictory opinions, let me know in the comments. I sure can’t work it out.

As a side note, I love how Conroy is now talking about blocking both illegal and refused classification material. I can’t wait until someone confronts him about wanting to block material that he knows is legal.