Critics blast 'great firewall of Australia' - ABC

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/15/2772781.htm

The Federal Government's decision to press ahead

with compulsory internet filtering has come under fire from lobby groups and the Greens.

The Government wants to pass laws to force internet service providers to block banned material hosted on overseas servers..............

ISP content filtering pilot report

Same old story! Public servants in Australia to social network - if access allows!

BLOG, tweet, update Facebook - that's the message the Australian Government is sending its bureaucrats as part of a push to break down barriers between public servants and ordinary people....................................................

"Yet not enough public servants have work access to these building blocks of Government 2.0.''

Indeed, none of the public servants on the taskforce preparing the Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0 report had access to instant messaging despite the fact that it was an important tool for other taskforce members, it said.

The report also noted that one public servant responded to a call for colleagues to engage in robust work discussion online with: "Ha - we can't get to FaceBook, YouTube, Flickr, or most common discussion forums where I work.'

(Can't resist saying - some of us, in a UK government department, started doing this back in 2004 - now the victim of a cutback in public service costs!

However, probably left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing, see also

Update on digital engagement in Home Office )