To: T.Draper.MP@aph.gov.au
Subject: Trouble in your Office and Liberal Party Policy
From: lazerzap@chariot.net.au
Date: 12-Aug-1999

I approach you as an Australian voter who is currently enrolled in your electorate. I point this out because while previously attempting to amend flawed liberal party policy, I have approached your Modbury office on three occasions. Twice on the telephone and once in person.

On the last two ocassions I have become appalled at the "Don't complain to me - I've got better things to do with my time" attitude that I have recieved from your self confessed financially motivated, sarcastic receptionist. A person who is employed in a position of receptionist of any business or corporate body acts as a "Damage Control" expert and must be able to successfully deal with irate callers. Your ability to adaquately select a suitable staff member for this important position is seriously in question.

I cannot stress how disapointed I was at being ORDERED out from MY elected representatives office because the RECEPTIONIST didn't personally agree with comments that were directed toward current Liberal party policy. I would have prefered to say these comments directly to my elected representative. But I was unable to do this. I was effectively screened by your over zealous protector. I was ORDERED from your office. Under direct threat of police intervention The only reason given for this treatment was because I hadn't transfered to your electorate and therefore had NO LEGAL RIGHT to be there and NO LEGAL RIGHT to complain.

How disapointing to observe the current attitude the Liberal Party extends towards prospective supporters. The Party policy seems to ONLY cater for big business and farmer interests. There seems little to be little effort extended towards mainstream voters. Are you so smug in the safety of the slight majority you enjoy at present to be so ignorant of rising public anger at policies aimed only at thickening the wallets of the already wealthy.

As more and more people become disillusioned with the treatment they recieve from their elected representatives. The more votes the mainstream political parties will loose.

.As an existing Internet user. I wonder if the people who have made the decision to restrict access are aware that the current generation of webrowsers ALREADY have the capability to restrict content.

I would prefer an Internet that is controlled in the home by the supervisors of that household. I object strongly to the assumption that I am unable to manage of my family's Internet access. I object strongly to the fact that CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS (ie: Anyone who's rich enough to act as an ISP) are able to circumvent the current legislation.

As far as I can see the policies of your polictical party have favored the upper echelon while restricting only those who are less financially secure. Just as "Locks are only there to keep honest people out of your house", You have kept the honest people away from area's they probably never would have accessed anyway.

The other people will still be getting whatever material they want the SAME way that they always have. Encripted with a personalised key and renamed so that no-one has a clue what's in it. Are you going to burden the Internet futher with decrypting software that tries all 10 billion combinations before it passes any data on to the user? Because that's the only way this policy could be implimented fairly across the board.

What about filtering Telstra's main feed instead of the individual ISP's? What's going on there? How come Telstra is not restricting the content of what they carry? Don't you have a measure of control over them anymore? OBVIOUSLY certain people still wanted to maintain the ability to access this filtered material. But even if Telstra was filtered you would still have a problem with all the other people who get their Internet direct from the USA or via satalite.

So what was it all about then? It seems you just wanted to restrict people like me and only people like me. Have I been descriminated against?

This is what specifically prompted me to write this letter. I was doing a search for:"Early Settlers in Victoria". I selected this destination from a search engine...

Now isn't this great... I can't access information that I want.. Which is located, on what what I can see, is an educational department computer system at the University of Sydney in Australia. So if this content is so objectionable to the general public. Why was it ever available for access from the internet in the first place.

Looks to me like there is questionable material still available to people on our own computer systems in the education department. Obviosly this legislation is attempting to close the gate after the horse has well arnd trully bolted.

You should have al least made sure all questionable material had been purged, from all computer systems under your juristriction before even attempting to restrict access to the Internet. This particular political policy reeks from the stench of double standards.

If the material is unsuitable for the internet but still deemed suitable to remain on a university computer system then this is clearly hypocritical. This is not the Australia of the 1950's. It is nearly the year 2000. Wake up and start making policies to match!