Source: Wikipedia
Internet censorship in Australia has up until now been symbolic in nature, with legislation allowing the removal of material unsuitable for minors from Australian internet servers, ineffective attempts to censor political groups, and an unsuccessful plan to provide internet filtering tools to concerned parents.
In 2008, the Australian Labor Party introduced a policy of mandatory filtering of the internet for all Australians. While the policy has not yet come into force, it has generated a groundswell of opposition from almost all segments of society, with only a few groups in support.
Proposed Australian laws on Internet censorship are sometimes referred to as the Great Australian Firewall, Firewall Australia or Great Firewall Reef.
As of October 2008, the plan includes two blacklists, the first used to filter "illegal" content, and the second used to filter additional content unsuitable for children. The first filter will be mandatory for all users of the internet, while the second filter allows opting out.
The government will not release details of the content on either list, but has stated that the mandatory filter would include at least 10,000 sites, and include both the ACMA blacklist and UK's Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) blacklist. In December 2008 the IWF list caused problems when a single Wikipedia article was added to the list, as it prevented most people in the UK from being able to edit Wikipedia
