About this time last year, Stephen Conroy made a potentially embarrassing gaffe on ABC Radio National’s Breakfast with Fran Kelly program, in which he said “you can’t regulate the internet” – before quickly stepping back and qualifying the statement as relating only to IPTV.
While his comment was not strictly in the context of his stupid and much-hated policy of mandatory internet censorship, the minor stink I created with the snippet below from the interview did spark a response from the minister’s department, courtesy of iTNews.
Well, seems he’s done it again today, with the following quote made at the launch of a new HP data centre construction in Sydney, and presented in this Delimiter article:
“…Australia’s a vibrant democracy, where the government doesn’t control the internet…”
So in February 2010 it is “you can’t regulate the internet”, and in February 2011 it is “the government doesn’t control the internet”.
If the mandatory internet filter is not the government trying to “regulate” or “control” the internet, what exactly is it Mr Conroy?
Ministerial facepalm.