Finally Good News From Down Under.
It seems Australia has finally realized they went off the deep end. South Australia's Attorney General, Michael Atkinson who once backed the restrictive speech law made an announcement today (February 2nd) saying
"From the feedback we've received through AdelaideNow, the blogging generation believes that the law supported by all MPs and all political parties is unduly restrictive. I have listened. I will immediately after the election move to repeal the law retrospectively... It may be humiliating for me, but that's politics in a democracy and I'll take my lumps."
AdelaideNow, not IHN. Was one of the main sites effected by this. Apparently its a political forum for Southern Australia. Anyone posting political comments from South Australia had to give up their real name and address or face a AUS$1,250 fine. What the hell? The insanely thin skin of the Southern Aussie political figures is staggering. And furthermore the law only applied bloggers and not online journalists. Yes there is a difference. Bloggers are asshats with a website and online journalists are asshats with a website and funding from an outmoded source of information such as the newspaper or a television news station. They say they repealed the law because the constituents protested so much. Really I don't think many Aussies cared. Hell till I met RU I didn't know they even had power. No this was overturned because they realized the enormous task of what they were trying to do. That and China even said "Damn you guys need to back off your citizens" To read a better version of this story as told by a BLOGGER. Check out the story on ArsTechnica
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