I'd like to quickly update our members and supporters with a few bits of EFA news.

Things have been outwardly quiet recently; although we have been active behind the scenes and in the media, commenting on issues such as privacy, copyright, censorship and games, we have not been producing as much content and commentary as we'd like to.

Why is this? We've been working on some much-needed internal reorganisation, which includes: a completely overhauled web presence; a brand new system for managing our members and supporters (and letting you manage yourselves); and our own payment integration, so we can do away with the (deservedly) despised Paypal. When we relaunch, we want a new focus on providing useful and engaging information in the form of issue backgrounders and position papers, FAQs and legal explainers. The new site and associated tools will let us focus more on providing better content and on education and campaigning.

Once we're up and running we'll be doing a better job at managing our corps of volunteers. If you have skills in legal affairs, research, writing, campaigning, design or anything else that can assist our mission, and you're interested in volunteering, please drop us a line at [email protected]

In the meantime, keep a lookout for us in the media, and you might be interested some recent submissions we've made to inquiries on classification and cyber-safety.

Finally, on a personal note I'm a little sad to announce that I'm stepping down as Chair of EFA. It's been a very rewarding experience, and as a result I am even more passionate about the issues than I was when I first joined EFA. That's why I'm pursuing an opportunity to work inside our nation's Parliament and see just how policy is really made in this country.

Fortunately,  the organisation will be in excellent hands. I'm very pleased to welcome David Cake to the role. David has a long history with the organisation including seven years on the Board. David has recently been leading EFA's international affairs effort, and I know he is champing at the bit to lead our upcoming campaigns. Sarah Stokely will be stepping up as Vice-Chair. Both David and Sarah know the landscape very well and have many fresh ideas to drive the debate, and the organisation, forward. Over to you, David and Sarah.

EFA relies on your support and ideas, so if you have any feedback on campaigns you'd like to see, information you need or anything else, please contact us.

The Ausvotes 2010: Party Policy Guide is now available for download.

The guide is available here.

Just 24 hours after the Time To Tell Mum campaign has launched it can be declared a massive success. Everywhere you look there is evidence that this is one of the most impactful initiatives we've ever undertaken, with over 14,000 people telling their mums that Internet censorship is bad so far. We know from recent research this means 14,000 fewer supporters of the proposal.

The campaign has been covered in The Australian, ITWire, iT News, ZDnet, Gizmodo and other outlets, bloggers have blogged, the announcement was an #openinternet "Top Tweet", hundreds of Facebook users have shared and liked the site and in a one hour radio show this morning the campaign was discussed on Dr Katherine Albrecht's radio show and syndicated across the entire United States, and around the globe online.

We're back to working on the next steps, but I'd like to personally thank everyone for their support.  From Fnuky Advertising in Adelaide to the guy who donated $3 to the Open Internet drive, we've had a heap of assistance to get this launched.

We're excited to announce that EFA have today launched a new campaign to raise public awareness of the Government's internet filter: "Time to Tell Mum."

The campaign features well-known comedian Akmal Saleh and exhorts Australians to tell their mums about the filter plan and what it won't do for Australian families.

One of the big challenges in the debate so far has been combating the myth that the filter is - or ever was - a cyber-safety tool designed to keep kids safe online. It's not. It's designed to "harmonise" censorship laws, not protect children from inappropriate content. It's censorship for its own sake.

We know that the more people understand the proposal, the less there are that support it. This is an opportunity for those 'in the know' to help in educating the wider community, with a focus on parents who are the most worried about cyber-safety issues, but won't be helped by the policy. We hope this campaign will reach some new people, and further highlight the myths about Conroy's Filter.

You can watch the video and share it with your friends here at http://www.timetotellmum.com

Oh... and tell your mum.