Unfortunately for his country, it seems Australian Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy couldn't care less about either making sense or being taken seriously. Pity. It's such a nice country.

His quote in response to criticisms about the imminent plan to institute mandatory Internet filtering — i.e. censorship — is a stunner.

"If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd-Labor Government is going to disagree," he said.

That, readers, is an inane statement, but it is also a particular type of totalitarian rhetoric that George Orwell warned us about many years ago.

Shame on the Australian minister for employing it. Being an Australian, he really should be more sensitive to this sort of sloppy undemocratic thinking.

I suppose at some point they will also equate this move with the war on terror.

Buggers.