Conroy cries foul over 'dishonest' filter foes

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has lashed out at opposition to the Federal Government's bid to filter the internet, and labelled those promoting the dissent as "dishonest".

He described claims the internet speeds would be slowed by as much as 87 per cent were "wild" and said the government's intentions were misrepresented by opponents.

"This has been a campaign quite dishonest in the way that it has talked about how speeds will be impacted," Mr Conroy said.

"I've seen wild claims that 87 percent of the internet would be slowed down. If the government is going to introduce a policy that slows the internet by 87 percent, I'd be out there saying that's not just an acceptable outcome.

"The evidence here in our testing and overseas, where this sort of filter is operating in many countries, there is a negligible impact, 1/70th of the blink of an eye."

He made the comments after yesterday's launch of Cyber Security Awareness Week, where Senator Conroy made no mention of the internet filter or its role in the government's cyber security strategy, until questioned at a press conference.

"The government has never claimed this is a one size fits all solution, we never claimed this was a silver bullet, lots of people allege we made that claim but it's simply not true," he said.

"The reason for cyber safety week is we have a whole range of initiatives for our cyber safety policy... a whole range of policies to address this, [of[ which the filter is just one."

He also conceded the government had missed the deadline to introduce the internet filter legislation in the first half of the year.

"We hoped to finish the consultation and legislation finish being drafted in the first half of the year. We don't expect that to be the case.

"The consultations are still ongoing... We would hope the legislation will be tabled in parliament in the second half of this year."

The government was working well with ISPs on the majority of issues, he said.

"Yes, we have a disagreement. We're in constant dialogue and consultation with the individual ISPs
and we're continuing to consult with them about the mechanism that will go around the policy to ensure we have better transparency, accountability, a way that Australians can feel secure in having this blacklist."