Senator Conroy came under fire during Senate Question Time yesterday for failing to answer questions, after concerns were raised about the credibility of the live censorship trials.

Watch the debate here, courtesy of Tech Wired Australia.

Senator Bernardi, a South Australian Liberal, asked, “How many customers would an ISP need to enlist for a trial to be credible, and will the results be independently examined and verified?”

“The government is committed to taking an evidence-based approach to ISP-level internet filtering,” said Conroy.

“The pilot will test the potential impacts of filtering technologies on internet speeds, the accuracy of filters, the circumvention costs and customer experiences in a real-world environment.

“A range of filtering solutions will be tested, including, at a minimum, filtering of the ACMA blacklist of prohibited internet content, largely child pornography.”

Bernardi replied that Conroy had “failed miserably to answer the question,” and asked him to address the number of people needed for a credible trial, and how the 10,000 “unwanted content” sites had been selected.

“At this stage you are attempting to put the horse before the cart.”

“What we are doing is engaging in a process with a very targeted list at the moment,” said Conroy. “When you look around the world at Interpol, the FBI, Europol and other law enforcement agencies and you look at the size of the lists that they are actually using at the moment, 1,300 would not be sufficient to cover the URLs that we would have supplied to us with the purpose of blocking.

Conroy added: “So let me be clear about this: the pilot will seek to test network performance against a test list of approximately 10,000 sites—“ before being cut off by the Senate President.

“Based on the minister’s answer, I would suggest that there is more than a horse and cart involved; there is probably a donkey as well,” interjected Bernardi.

Bernardi also questioned Conroy’s decision to close NetAlert, the government’s free, voluntary internet-filtering software for parents, on 31 January.

Conroy described NetAlert as the “single largest lemon of a policy implemented by the previous government”.

“This is a policy which saw mass mail-outs, advertising on television and millions
of dollars of wasted taxpayers’ money that led to an extraordinarily small usage—I am happy to get him the exact figure; possibly two per cent are still using it after all of the blather from those opposite. This was a monumental failure of a policy.

“But let me be clear: for those who are currently using it, the support mechanisms are in place and go on. We will be taking no new applications. “

Conroy also pointed out that Bernardi previously signed Senator Barnett’s letter supporting ISP-based filtering, alongside 78 other members of the Opposition.

The deadline for expressions of interest by ISPs to participate in the live filters is 8 December.

To read more about the live trials, click here.