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.

Earlier this week, I stepped down as the Chair of EFA, and will shortly be leaving the EFA Board. I'll be moving to the US for the 2010/11 academic year, and will be focusing on my academic work after completing my PhD dissertation.

I step down with some regret; I have very much enjoyed being a part of this important organisation. Over the last few years, I really think we've done some great work here; we're starting to see much wider attention on the Open Internet campaign against mandatory ISP filtering; we've been working hard on computer game classification, on ACTA, and on telecommunications interception, to name but a few topics. I've been very pleased to see EFA's profile continue to increase in the past few years, and honoured to have served with the other members of the Board and all members and other individuals who have pitched in to try to make a positive difference to Australian internet regulation and policy.

The new Chair is Colin Jacobs and the new Vice-Chair is Geordie Guy, both of whom should be very familiar names to those of you follow EFA's activities. I wish the best of luck to them both — and the rest of the Board — in the continued campaign against filtering and all of the other areas within EFA's remit.

   -- Nic Suzor