EFA Media Release - Internet Election Policies Assessed

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Media Release
Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc.
                    Media Release                  October 1st 1998 

INTERNET ELECTION POLICIES ASSESSED

Online civil liberties group Electronic Frontiers Australia today
released its appraisal of the parties on censorship, privacy, and
cryptography issues.

The full details can be found at
        http://www.efa.org.au/party.policies.html

Overall rankings:
	Party                             Net Freedom Index

	Liberal/National Coalition        **
	Australian Labor Party            ****
	Australian Democrats              ****
	Australian Greens                 ****
	Pauline Hanson's One Nation       **
	Christian Democratic Party        -

On censorship, Liberal election policy is to prevent the online
publication of 'offensive' material and the distribution of 'pornographic'
material.  "This is not only impractical, but also wildly overbroad and
highly illiberal", commented EFA Board member Danny Yee.  "John Stuart
Mill will be turning in his grave."

Privacy issues have been given a low profile by all the major parties.
But EFA hopes that Labor and the Democrats will continue to push for
privacy legislation covering the private sector.

The Coalition has given no indication that it intends to relax export
controls on cryptographic software.  EFA Board member Greg Taylor
commented, "The Prime Minister announced in his Industry Statement in
December last year that the government would support the OECD guidelines,
yet Australia's controversial export controls have remained in place,
to the detriment of the Australian IT security industry.  Labor has a
more progressive policy on this issue, but we would like to see a more
aggressive stance taken.  Experts agree that it is not possible to build
secure communications systems using weak cryptograpy or techniques that
provide back-door access to keys."

While none of the parties have been prepared to take a bold stance
in support of online liberties, EFA is convinced that this will be an
increasingly important issue.  Trampling on the freedoms of Australians
in order to appear 'tough on porn' or to curry favour with the United
States defence establishment will not be a vote-winner.

ENDS

      --------------------------------------------------------------
      Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc  --  http://www.efa.org.au/
      representing Internet users concerned with on-line freedoms
      --------------------------------------------------------------
      Media Contacts

      Kimberley Heitman                  Danny Yee
      Phone: 08 9458 2790                Phone: 02 9955 9898 (home)
                                         Phone: 02 9351 5159 (work)
      Email: kheitman@it.com.au          Email: danny.yee@efa.org.au
      --------------------------------------------------------------

BACKGROUND

- Liberal Party proposals for regulation of Internet content
http://www.liberal.org.au/election98/policy/infoeconomy/infoeconomy.html

- Labor Party IT plan
http://www.alp.org.au/campaign/policy/betterplans/it.html
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