Tag: Australian Government

Australian Federal Election – Unprecedented Live & Online Coverage

Australian Federal Election - Digital Coverage 2

Over the last decade, we have seen the proliferation of online coverage of events around the world as well as the beginnings of close to real-time video from remote areas courtesy of the Internet. Television coverage has made keen use of technology to close the lag time between initial recording and broadcast and the popularity …

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Check Your Voting Enrolment Online Now

With the Prime Minister of the day expected to call an election tomorrow for late August, I thought it was important to remind everyone to check their voting enrolment. Every vote counts and ensuring that you are correctly enrolled is especially vital this election. To check your electoral enrolment, go to the Australian Electoral Commission …

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Are You Comfortable with the Government Recording Your Browsing Activity?

Having read an article at ZDNet today, I became aware of a confirmation from the Attorney-General’s department that it had been investigating a mandate for ISPs to record the browsing history of its customers. This comes after the introduction of similar laws in the EU back in March 2006 which required carriers in specific  member …

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Internet Filter Shelved – Make Your Vote Count

In news that may have gone under the radar, a spokesperson for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announced that legislation regarding Internet filtering would not be introduced in the final sessions of parliament before the coming election. This follows the Emissions Trading Scheme also being put out to pasture for the time being as well as …

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Net Filtering – Even the US is Concerned

Over the last couple of days, it has become evident that the US has been keeping an eye on the Internet filtering policies of the Australian Government. The US has a strong sense of “net neutrality” (i.e. there should be no discrimination against users, particular types of traffic, etc on the Internet) which is enforced …

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Video Disc Rental – Extinction by 2020?

Today I came across an article in The Australian outlining the downgrade of Blockbuster credit rating to a level just above default in USA. The article also went on to detail cooperative marketing efforts between the Hollywood studios and the major cable operators to promote video-on-demand services. Bringing things back home to Australia within the …

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Australian Video Game Classifications – Out of Touch

In an earlier blog post (An Attack on Online Anonymity), I mentioned that the highest tolerated classification for video game publication in Australia is MA15+. This is as a direct result of South Australian Attorney-General, Michael Atkinson being the sole opposing censorship minister at state and territory level. In a development covered today by News, …

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