The following policy motion (as printed in the Conference Handbook) moved by the Western Australian Union of Liberal Students was debated and passed at the 59th Annual Western Australian State Conference held on 21 March 2009:
That the Liberal Party of Australia (WA Division), is opposed to all Government censorship of the internet.
Support was emphatic, with no more than 5–10% of conference delegates voting against the policy motion.
Published at http://www.alsf.org.au/news.php?n=54:
Wednesday, 16 December, 2009
Fight the filter!
The Australian Liberal Students’ Federation (ALSF) has today slammed the Rudd Labor Government for its proposed internet filter and called on the Coalition to fight the filter.
“There is a grass-roots movement against this policy, and the ALSF is a leading group in that movement,” ALSF President Alex Butterworth said today.
“The ALSF will continue to campaign hard against this oppressive policy, which will limit freedom of speech, slow down internet speeds substantially, and cause an estimated 20 million legitimate sites to be blocked,”
“Rudd promised broadband for all Australians and a computer for every child, and all he is doing is slowing down the internet, slowing down the economy and taking us backwards,”
“Importantly, we need to ask why the filter is even being considered when voluntary filtering packages are already available to those who want them?”
“The filter shows that the oppressive nanny state is alive and well under the Rudd Labor Government,” “Australia will join countries such as Iran, Syria, China and North Korea as one of the few nations where the internet is filtered,” said Mr Butterworth.
Media Enquiries:
Alex Butterworth
+61 418 264 020
abutterworth@alsf.org.au
www.alsf.org.au
Actions that the government has already taken to suppress politically unfavourable views raise doubts about Kevin Rudd's motives for implementing mandatory ISP-level filtering. It is unfortunate that these outrageous violations of freedom of speech have received little attention in the media.
When an MP instructed his supporters to contact him to obtain copies of a speech because new regulations issued by the Department of Finance and Deregulation prevented him from distributing material critical of the government, I thought it was only a joke. Unfortunately, it wasn't—so much for deregulation. Luke Simpkins, Federal Member for the Western Australian seat of Cowan, raised this issue in a speech given under Parliamentary privilege on 27 October 2009:
Mr SIMPKINS (Cowan) (8:49 PM) —It is a great honour to be able to stand in this parliament as an elected representative of the people of Cowan. It is great to be able to stand here and speak with the protection of parliamentary privilege to ensure that I am not restricted in saying what needs to be said. I can talk, and have done so, about the things that matter to my constituents without my right to freedom of speech being restricted. This is a cornerstone of the great democratic tradition. That being said, I do not use parliamentary privilege to tell lies; I use it to tell the truth. If we did not have parliamentary privilege then our ability to tell the truth and convey information would effectively be restricted. The other great advantage of parliamentary privilege is that we cannot be told what we can and cannot say. If we were, that would be censorship and the argument would very clearly be that such censorship would exist to deny us the ability to communicate alternative viewpoints for the benefit of our nation or to deny us the opportunity to be critical of the government in a constructive manner.
Censorship does not exist in the parliament, but in conveying information about what happens here censorship does apply. When I convey information to my constituents, what I need to tell them is censored. The government’s appointed censors in the Department of Finance and Deregulation can tell me that I cannot print certain statements. They tell us that freedom of speech is not allowed. I cannot send my constituents copies of Hansard, the official recording of what is said in this place, if that Hansard record states or implies any words that are critical of the Labor government. The text of this speech, once in Hansard, would be predominantly blacked out by a thick black marker—a marker that serves to eliminate the ability of anyone to engage constructively in a critical debate about government policies and actions.
If I were to say that the Prime Minister was very good at finalising the delivery of quality Howard government projects and programs, and taking credit for them, but hopeless in terms of his own policy performance, that would be censored. I cannot report that in writing. If I were to say that the Deputy Prime Minister’s bungled, over-budget, behind schedule, hopelessly mismanaged—and now under investigation by the Auditor-General—memorial school halls debacle was a fiasco, that would be censored as well. If I were to say that the Minister for Health and Ageing has failed to fix public hospitals by the promised mid-2009 deadline then that would be censored.
If I were to talk about the failure by serial bungler the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy to achieve the original broadband tender at over $4 billion—he is now risking $43 billion of funds borrowed from taxpayers on a broadband plan that has no business plan, which is a very expensive plan without a plan to make sure that taxpayers’ money is spent properly—that would be censored. If I were to say that the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government claimed responsibility for infrastructure projects most of which were initiated by, and many of which were completed by, the previous coalition government then that would be censored. In fact, I do not think that you can even report anything about unauthorised boats arriving in Australian waters, as the mere mention of such an event would be critical of the government and that would be censored.
All these comments would be blacked out. Criticism of the Labor government is not allowed in our letters and newsletters. Bringing the people’s attention to mistakes of the government is no longer allowed in this country. The outlawing of legitimate criticism is occurring now in the printed format by the design of the Labor government, but who knows what the future holds.
I wonder what will be next. Perhaps we will have a list of unparliamentary words expanded so that we can no longer say—in reference to ministers, the Labor Party, State Labor governments, former members of the Labor Party, unions or any other association to do with the Labor Party—words such as ‘bad’, ‘mismanagement’, ‘bungled’, ‘incompetent’, ‘hasty’, ‘knee-jerk’, ‘putting Australia at risk’, or even ‘debt’ or ‘deficit’ et cetera . It is very hard to accurately describe the government without those words.
Perhaps the next step will be that Hansard can be edited to take out any criticisms of the Labor government. Perhaps what is being planned is that standing orders can be modified so that questions or criticisms of the Labor government will, in the future, result in exclusion from the chamber. At least then the Labor government would be able to say that there has not been a bad word said about them in parliament.
This censorship has resulted in the Labor government censors stopping criticism of the government by the opposition in letters or newsletters. The censors are not elected, just directed by the Labor government. These restrictions do not apply to the Prime Minister and ministers in the Labor government, who can continue to use ministerial budgets to criticise the opposition—double standards of the worst kind. This is, without doubt, censorship and an attack on the basic principle of democracy—freedom of speech.
Recently, Dr Clive Spash, a scientist at the CSIRO, was prevented from publishing a paper critical of the Rudd Labor government's emissions trading scheme (ETS). The political interference in research conducted at the CSIRO was raised in Parliament by Eric Abetz, Senator for Tasmania, on 25 November 2009:
It is often in matters of contention and sharp debate that the knowledge and expertise of the scientific community is most valuable. This is why it is so important to protect the right of scientists to speak out about their research and discoveries.’
Going back to that topic of—what was it?—matters of contention, guess what? We have a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme being considered by the parliament as we speak—somewhat contentious—and guess what Dr Spash was writing about? The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. So by the very test that Senator Carr puts down, he nevertheless puts the censor’s pen through and says, ‘No, we don’t want to hear in any unfettered way what Dr Spash might have to offer not only the government but also the Australian people to help inform them in their debate.’ We do not get the full and detailed treasury modelling on matters to do with the government’s legislation in recent times; we do not get the whole story out of this government.
When you have an institution as proud as the CSIRO being muzzled in this way in the face of a minister who claims that he has been an advocate his whole public life for ‘vigorous and transparent public debate unfettered by political interference’, when you have a minister who says that but then does the exact opposite, you know why he is a cabinet minister in the Rudd government. He fits the mould. That is what the Labor cabinet ministers do: they say one thing, promise one thing and then do another.
Published at http://www.rsf.org/Open-letter-to-Australia-s-Prime.html:
The Hon Kevin Michael Rudd Prime Minister Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 Australia
Paris, 18 December 2009
Dear Prime Minister,
Reporters Without Borders, an organisation that defends free expression worldwide, would like to share with you its concern about your government's plan to introduce a mandatory Internet filtering system. While it is essential to combat child sex abuse, pursuing this draconian filtering project is not the solution. If Australia were to introduce systematic online content filtering, with a relatively broad definition of the content targeted, it would be joining an Internet censors club that includes such countries as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Communications minister Stephen Conroy announced on 15 December that, after a year of testing in partnership with Australian Internet service providers (ISPs), your government intended to introduce legislation imposing mandatory filtering of websites with pornographic, paedophile or particularly violent content.
Reporters Without Borders would like to draw your attention to the risks that this plan entails for freedom of expression.
Firstly, the decision to block access to an "inappropriate" website would be taken not by a judge but by a government agency, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). Such a procedure, without a court decision, does not satisfy the requirements of the rule of law. The ACMA classifies content secretly, compiling a website blacklist by means of unilateral and arbitrary administrative decision-making. Other procedures are being considered but none of them would involve a judge.
Secondly, the criteria that the proposed law would use are too vague. Filtering would be applied to all content considered "inappropriate," a very slippery term that could be interpreted very differently by different people. In all probability, filtering would target "refused classification" (RC) sites, a category that is extremely controversial as it is being applied to content that is completely unrelated to efforts to combat child sex abuse and sexual violence, representing a dangerous censorship option. Subjects such as abortion, anorexia, aborigines and legislation on the sale of marijuana would all risk being filtered, as would media reports on these subjects.
The choice of filtering techniques has not been clearly defined. Would it be filtering by key-words, URL text or something else? And what about the ISPs that are supposed to carry out the filtering at the government's request? Will they be blamed, will they be accused of complicity in child sex abuse if the filtering proves to be ineffective, as it almost certainly will?
Your government claims that the filtering will be 100 per cent effective but this is clearly impossible. Experts all over the world agree that no filtering system is effective at combating this kind of content. On the one hand, such a system filters sites that should not be affected (such as sites about the psychology of child sexuality or paedophile crime news). And on the other, it fails to filter targeted sites because their URLs contain key-words that are completely unrelated to their content, or because their content (photo and text) is registered under completely neutral terms. Furthermore, people who are determined to visit such sites will know how to avoid the filtering by, for example, using proxy servers or censorship circumvention software or both.
The Wikileaks website highlighted the limitations of such as system when it revealed that the ACMA blacklist of already banned websites contained many with nothing reprehensible in their content. According to Wikileaks, the blacklist included the Abortion TV website, some of the pages of Wikileaks itself, online poker sites, gay networks, sites dealing with euthanasia, Christian sites, a tour operator's site and even a Queensland dentist's site.
The US company Google has also voiced strong reservations. Google Australia's head of policy, Iarla Flynn, said yesterday: "Moving to a mandatory ISP filtering regime with a scope that goes well beyond such material is heavy handed and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information."
As regards paedophilia, the most dangerous places on the Internet are websites offering chat and email services. So if this project were taken to its logical conclusion, access to sites such as Gmail, Yahoo and Skype would also have to be blocked, which would of course be impossible.
There are more effective ways to combat child pornography, including tracking cyber-criminals online (by means of cookies, IP address comparison, and so on), combined with police investigation into suspects and their online habits. Why did your government end the programme launched by the previous government, which made free filtering systems available to Australian families? This procedure had the merit of being adapted to individual needs and gave each home the possibility of shielding its children from porn.
A real national debate is needed on this subject but your communications minister, Stephen Conroy, made such a debate very difficult by branding his critics as supporters of child pornography. An opportunity was lost for stimulating a constructive exchange of ideas.
We also regret the lack of transparency displayed by your government as regards the tests carried out in recent months using procedures that have been kept secret. Your government paid some 300,000 Australian dollars to ISPs to finance the tests. Australian taxpayers have a right to be given detailed information about the results.
Finally, you must be aware that this initiative is a source of a concern for your compatriots. In a recent Fairfax Media poll of 20,000 people, 96 per cent were strongly opposed to such a mandatory Internet filtering system, while around 120,000 Australians have signed a petition against Internet censorship launched by the online activist group GetUp. The withdrawal of this proposal would therefore satisfy public opinion as well as prevent a democratic country from introducing a system that threatens freedom of expression.
I thank you in advance for the consideration you give to our recommendations.
Sincerely,
Jean-François Julliard
Secretary-General
Cory Bernardi, Senator for South Australia and Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition, for The Australian, 6 February 2009:
I identify myself as a social and fiscal conservative and most people who know me would agree with that assessment. As such, one could reasonably expect me to support ISP filtering as a means of ensuring inappropriate content remains unavailable via the internet.
Yet I have grave reservations about the Labor Party proposal on mandatory ISP filtering which is described as a ‘clean feed’ – words that just sugar-coat compulsory censorship of whatever the government deems you are not allowed to see.
Dr Dennis Jensen, Member for Tangney, in the House of Representatives, 14 September 2009:
Computer users, particularly the more tech-savvy—and a special mention must go to the Whirlpool website forums for fostering real debate of the issue—hold the minister as an object of contempt and ridicule, particularly for his bumbling attempt to impose controls over the medium which is ultimately setting the world free. The internet delivers power to the world’s people. It is an ally of all who cherish freedom, individual liberty and true democracy. That is why it is the enemy of authoritarian rulers in countries such as China, Burma and Iran—and, it seems, of the Australian Labor Party.
Members should recall that under the last coalition government we had a very simple, very cost-effective and very popular program under which families could get free copies of an internet filter program for their homes to protect their children from unsavoury internet content. The Rudd government scrapped that, and two years after taking office the minister is still unable to offer an alternative. Delay after delay has very fortunately put this censorship plan on hold, and for this some thanks must go to internet service providers who refused to take part in sham trials.
By now, the members opposite must also have realised how deeply flawed is the internet filter pursued by the minister, and we can only hope that they will quietly abandon it at some stage. What grew from the idea of protecting children using the internet rapidly became billed as a weapon against child pornography, and these are surely two very different issues. From there, the minister has broadened it to propose blocking Australians from viewing any material which a select group of faceless bureaucrats deem inappropriate. And to top it off, the list of banned material would itself be banned from public scrutiny, effectively making the censors unaccountable. IT experts say such a system will slow the network and that it will not work, regardless. This is particularly the case in combating traffic in child pornography, which reportedly is usually distributed through peer-to-peer networks rather than via websites, and so could continue unhindered by the filter.
And so we have a government pledging to spend tens of billions of dollars on a national broadband network of dubious worth which will supposedly offer higher speed data links to all. At the same time, the government is planning a censorship scheme which will have the opposite effect, reducing data speeds and hindering access. And, most crucially, it would stop the free flow of information which we have come to expect from the internet, a strategy more akin to foreign dictatorships, for which Labor feigns distaste, a strategy wholly not in keeping with our country’s proud history of free speech and open debate. The internet promised to take us all into the future, but this government appears intent on applying the policies of the past in its selfish pursuit of power and control, not only in this building but over the lives of all Australians.
Jamie Briggs, Member for Mayo, for The Punch, 27 August 2009:
Proponents of ISP filtering claim it will make it safer. Rubbish. Indeed the ISP filter systems work by closing down access to web addresses after they have been launched. Some claim that this will be as little as 24 hours after the website is launched. Even in the best case scenario it is going to be the old dog chasing its tail.
The ISP filters fail to address online chat rooms, peer to peer connections and emails.
What we have to ask ourselves here is how much are we sacrificing for additional ‘protections’?
The internet surely has dangers but they are so far outweighed by the enormous educational, economic and social benefits that we should be very wary of allowing our Government to attempt to regulate it.
If parents want to protect their children from the nasties, they should. We should be telling parents, like not talking to strangers, that the Government cannot protect you from every danger in the world and that you must take responsibility for your children’s safety.
There is a massive risk with this false promise that we will start to walk down a very dangerous path of censorship that can’t end well.
Simon Birmingham, Senator for South Australia, for The Punch, 10 November 2009:
Somehow, when promising to clean up the internet, they forgot to say what exactly it was they were going to protect kids from. Cyber bullying? Information about drugs, suicide or cults? Pornography perhaps? Surely kids shouldn’t be seeing any of these things online. Lucky for mum and dad Uncle Kev is on the case cleaning up the net.
Or is he? Ever since Labor announced its policy I’ve been trying to find out exactly what would be blocked. The story appears to have changed month by month – sometimes it’s all pornography, sometimes X rated material, sometimes inappropriate content. But now it seems to be stuff that’s already illegal – content that has been Refused Classification.
So while mum and dad are busy cooking dinner and Uncle Kev is meant to be looking after the kids on the internet, they will still be able to access pornography, information about drugs and unsuspectingly chat away with goodness knows who in chat rooms – hardly being kept safe from inappropriate content!
Originally the government proposed a very broad filter that would provide a ‘clean feed’ to each and every internet user, whether you wanted it or not. The notion of a ‘clean feed’ that protects children from “harmful and inappropriate online material” would have been a compulsory ISP level filter of such scale that China and Iran might have felt a little filter envy.
However, many experts believe a compulsory ISP level filter would result in the decimation of internet speeds and force serious restrictions on free speech. The more you filter, the greater the impact on speeds. And, the more you try to filter, the more likely you are to block access to material that law-abiding adults would legitimately want to access.
Michael Johnson, Member for Ryan and Opposition Whip, in a media release, 17 December 2009:
The frightening question is where will Rudd’s state censorship and government intrusion into the privacy of our lives end? We have seen Mr Rudd try to make homebirths illegal and take away the right of women to choose the place of giving birth and recently attempted reprehensible muzzling of Opposition Members of Parliament from criticizing the Federal Government.
The arguments against Labor’s ISP filtering censorship plan are compelling. I believe there are many arguments to support my position:
- The ISP filter will provide a false sense of security. Antivirus is a prime example – as much protection as we load onto our computers and networks we access, there are always new viruses, worms and trojans gaining access and creating havoc.
- The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) already has the responsibility for issuing take-down notices for black-listed content hosted in Australia. This Service Provider Responsibility List can be accessed at: http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_90157
- There are already tools available for parents in commercial form which are just as foolproof as this ISP filtering plan, but don’t equate to censorship. These come in the forms of personal internet filters, parental control software and remote monitoring.
- Parents should be providing their children with the educational resources and know how to support the disciplinary responsibilities not only they, but their children, must be aware of when using the internet.
- Even with the ISP filtering plan in action, it will not protect your child from online chat rooms, peer to peer connections or emails.
Alex Hawke, Member for Mitchell, to ZDNet Australia, 18 December 2009:
I'm inherently against this concept, it's a very bad way to do governance.
I'm a Christian and I have spoken to the Christian lobby and told them that this policy will not be effective. It could even potentially lead to some of their views being added to a government filter.
I don't think they're open to the danger of this policy mechanism. It will go beyond [child pornography] and that's where it could run into trouble. I'm going to be arguing strongly inside the liberal party that we should oppose this policy.
Crucial information on the Rudd Labor government's trial of ISP-level content filtering is conspicuously absent in the Enex TestLab report. Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, has failed to disclose the rate of over-blocking that occurs when the filter is configured with the ACMA blacklist. While the report includes results on the degree of over-blocking and under-blocking for a list of URLs provided by Enex, the figures for over-blocking for the ACMA blacklist are more important as this is the list that ISPs will be required to block when mandatory ISP-level filtering is in force.
The reality of Internet content filtering is that as the success rate for blocking of prescribed prohibited content increases, so too does the over-blocking of legitimate content, as Enex makes clear in its own report:
Enex considers it unlikely that any filter vendor would achieve 100 percent blocking of the URLs inappropriate for children without significant over-blocking of the innocuous URLs because the content on different commercial lists varies and there is a high rate at which new content is created on the internet. Enex has also noted, through previous testing, that the higher the accuracy the higher the over-blocking.
Enex reported that they were successful in blocking 100% of the pages listed on the ACMA blacklist, but what was the price paid in blocking of legitimate content? Even though the Minister has not released this information, he is proceeding with the implementation of ISP-level content filtering without consulting the Australian people on whether they are prepared to accept the negative impact it will have on the accessibility of the vast majority of sites on the Internet that do not pose a threat to children.
Most disagreements I've had on the issue of mandatory ISP-level filtering are not on whether it is bad policy, but the reasons why it is bad policy. The community's concerns fall into two categories:
Engineers will tell you that ISP-level filtering simply doesn't work, which might appear to contradict the fears that people have about the government being able to block access to content to further its own political interests. The social and technical arguments at first may appear to disagree with each other, but they are closely related and can be even seen as one and the same issue being debated from different angles.
The success of the Internet has been built on its open, decentralised and robust design that has enabled its rapid expansion and information to quickly and reliably flow from one host on the network to any other host located anywhere on the globe. Attempting to regulate communications requires intervention in the fundamental underlying workings of the Internet and inevitably leads to undesirable results. Whether you view this from a social or technical perspective, the policy undermines the strengths of the Internet that have allowed it to transform the way we communicate.
Proponents of Internet censorship sometimes compare the Internet to TV in the censorship debate—programs are censored on free-to-air television, so why should the Internet be treated any differently? The difference is that free-to-air programs are delivered over a broadcast medium and communication occurs in only one direction between the station and the public. When programs are censored, the content is removed at the source. Censorship on the Internet via ISP-level filtering is achieved by blocking communication between hosts connected to the Internet, not removing the content at the source, and has an adverse impact on all communication that takes place between Internet users.
Richard Bone, President of the WA Internet Association, appears to have a good understanding of the inherent flaws of using ISP-level filtering to regulate content on the Internet, as he wrote in an article for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute:
- It is not an effective way to block or stop the content that it is designed to prevent.
- Filters can be bypassed. This would be particularly relevant in radicalisation networks where the participants form a relationship with each other which could involve sharing of techniques to bypass filters.
- The introduction of (arguably ineffective) filters will increase the costs to ISPs and impede their ability to provide superior performance. This will ultimately lead to higher costs and lower performance for consumers.
- Legislative change is far too slow to be effective. For example, the time to introduce filtering legislation, or revisions to such legislation is months or years whereas technology to bypass and/or avoid filters would occur in days or even hours.
- The introduction of filtering legislation would be an impediment to investment and innovation in the Australian internet industry. It is already the case that the lack of safe harbour legislation for hosts within Australia drives Australian content to be hosted offshore. If filtering is introduced this will worsen.
He clearly understands that ISP-level filtering won't work and law enforcement is a better policy alternative:
In forming counter-radicalisation policy it should be remembered that the internet provides a tool to help humans communicate better and more easily. It is a facility that underpins a human activity system. As part of a human activity system, the internet evolves often very rapidly to trends driven by human behaviour. The internet is resistant to impediment—where changes are introduced they are often quickly circumvented.
From an industry perspective, the best way to fight radicalisation is to use human law enforcement, equipped with state-of-the-art technology, assisted by the Australian internet industry.
Despite writing the above for the strategic policy think tank, he publicly stated his support for the government's plan for mandatory ISP-level filtering:
This initiative will help reduce access to significant amounts of harmful content.
It is difficult to see how he was giving an open, honest opinion on this ill-conceived policy after making the earlier remarks for the ASPI.
Below is the provisional list of 114 participants that Australia has sent to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. According to the statistics provided on the provisional list of participants, 194 nations have sent a total of 8053 participants, so the average number of participants in each party sent to the conference is 42.
The party includes 28 people from the Department of Foreign Affairs, but surprisingly the Foreign Minister's name Stephen Smith doesn't appear on this list.
H.E. Mr. Kevin Michael Rudd
Prime Minister
H.E. Ms. Penelope Wong
Minister, Climate Change and Water
Office of the Minister for Climate Change and Water
H.E. Ms. Louise Helen Hand
Ambassador for Climate Change
Department of Climate Change
Mr. David Fredericks
Deputy Chief of Staff
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
Mr. Philip Green Oam
Senior Policy Adviser, Foreign Affairs
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
Mr. Andrew Charlton
Senior Adviser
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
Mr. Lachlan Harris
Senior Press Secretary
Prime Minister's Office
Office of Prime Minister
Mr. Scott Dewar
Senior Adviser
Office of Prime Minister
Ms. Clare Penrose
Adviser
Office of Prime Minister
Ms. Fiona Sugden
Media Adviser
Office of Prime Minister
Ms. Lisa French
Office of the Prime Minister
Office of Prime Minister
Mr. Jeremy Hilman
Adviser
Office of Prime Minister
Ms. Tarah Barzanji
Adviser
Office of Prime Minister
Mr. Kate Shaw
Executive Secretary
Office of Prime Minister
Ms. Gaile Barnes
Executive Assistant
Office of Prime Minister
Ms. Gordon de Brouwer
Deputy Secretary
Prime Minister and Cabinet
Mr. Patrick Suckling
First Assistant Secretary, International Division
Prime Minister and Cabinet
Ms. Rebecca Christie
Prime Minister's Office
Mr. Michael Jones
Official Photographer
Prime Minister and Cabinet
Mr. Stephan Rudzki
Mr. David Bell
Federal Agent
Australian Federal Police
Ms. Kym Baillie
Australian Federal Police
Mr. David Champion
Australian Federal Police
Mr. Matt Jebb
Federal Agent
Australian Federal Police
Mr. Craig Kendall
Federal Agent
Australian Federal Police
Mr. Ian Lane
Squadron Leader Staff, Officer VIP Operations
Mr. John Olenich
Media Adviser / Adviser to Minister Wong
Office of the Minister for Climate Change and Water
Ms. Kristina Hickey
Adviser to Minister Wong
Office of the Minister for Climate Change and Water
Mr. Martin Parkinson
Secretary
Department of Climate Change
Mr. Howard Bamsey
Special Envoy for Climate Change
Department of Climate Change
Mr. Robert Owen-Jones
Assistant Secretary, International Division
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Clare Walsh
Assistant Secretary, International Division
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Jenny Elizabeth Wilkinson
Policy Advisor
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Elizabeth Mary Peak
Principal Legal Adviser, International Climate Law
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Kristin Tilley
Director, Multilateral Negotiations
International Division
Department of Climate Change
Mr. Andrew Ure
Acting Director, Multilateral Negotiations
International Division
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Annemarie Watt
Director, Land Sector Negotiations
International Division
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Kushla Munro
Director, International Forest Carbon Section
International Division
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Kathleen Annette Rowley
Director, Strategic and Technical Analysis
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Anitra Cowan
Assistant Director, Multilateral Negotiations
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Sally Truong
Assisting Director, Multilateral Negotiations
International Division
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Jane Wilkinson
Assistant Director
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Tracey Mackay
Assistant Director
International Division
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Laura Brown
Assistant Director, Multilateral Negotiations
International Division
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Tracey-Anne Leahey
Delegation Manager
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Nicola Loffler
Senior Legal Adviser, International Climate Law
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Tamara Curll
Legal Adviser, International Climate Law
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Jessica Allen
Legal Support Officer
Department of Climate Change
Mr. Sanjiva de Silva
Legal Adviser, International Climate Law
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Gaia Puleston
Political Adviser
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Penelope Jane Morton
Policy Adviser, Multilateral Negotiations (UNFCCC)
International Division
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Claire Elizabeth Watt
Policy Advisor
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Amanda Walker
Policy Officer, Multilateral Negotiations
Department of Climate Change
Mr. Alan David Lee
Policy Adviser, Land Sector Negotiations
Department of Climate Change
Ms. Erika Kate Oord
Australian Stakeholder Manager
Department of Climate Change
Mr. Jahda Kirian Swanborough
Communications Manager
Ministerial Communication
Department of Climate Change
H.E. Mr. Sharyn Minahan
Ambassador
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Ms. Julia Feeney
Director, Climate Change and Environment
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Mr. Chester Geoffrey Cunningham
Second Secretary
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Germany
Ms. Rachael Virginia Cooper
Executive Officer, Climate Change and Environment
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Ms. Rachael Grivas
Executive Officer, Environment Branch
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Moya Elyn Collett
Desk officer, Climate Change and Environment Section
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Mr. Rob Law
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Mr. Robin Davies
Assistant Director General, Sustainable Development Group
Australian Agency for International Development
Ms. Deborah Fulton
Director, Policy and Global Environment
Australian Agency for International Development
Ms. Katherine Renee Ann Vaughn
Policy Advisor, Policy and Global Environment
Australian Agency for International Development
Mr. Brian Dawson
Policy Adviser
Australian Agency for International Development
Mr. Andrew Leigh Clarke
Deputy Secretary
Department of Resources Development, Western Australia
Mr. Bruce Wilson
General Manager, Environment Energy and Environment Division
Department of Resources Development, Western Australia
Ms. Jill McCarthy
Policy Adviser
Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism
Mr. Simon French
Policy Adviser
Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
Mr. Ian Michael Ruscoe
Policy Adviser
Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
Mr. David Walland
Acting Superintendent, National Climate Centre
Bureau of Meteorology
Mr. Damien Dunn
Senior Policy Adviser
The Australian Treasury
Ms. Helen Hawka Fuhrman
Policy Officer, Renewable Energy Policy and Partnerships
Mr. Scott Vivian Davenport
Chief Economics
NSW Department of Industry and Investment
Mr. Graham Julian Levitt
Policy Manager, Climate Change
NSW Department of Industry and Investment
Ms. Kate Jennifer Jones
Minister, Climate Change and Sustainability
Queensland Government
Mr. Michael William Dart
Principal Policy Advisor
Office of the Hon. Kate Jones MP
Queensland Government
Mr. Matthew Anthony Jamie Skoien
Senior Director, Office of Climate Change
Queensland Government
Mr. Michael David Rann
Premier, South Australia
Department of Premier and Cabinet, Southern Australia
Ms. Suzanne Kay Harter
Adviser
Department of Premier and Cabinet, Southern Australia
Mr. Paul David Flanagan
Manager, Communications
Government of South Australia
Mr. Timothy William O'Loughlin
Deputy Chief Executive, Sustainability and Workforce Management
Department of Premier and Cabinet
South Australian Government
Ms. Nyla Sarwar
M.Sc student
Linacre College
University of Oxford
Mr. Gavin Jennings
Minister, Environment and Climate Change and Innovation, Victorian Government
Ms. Sarah Broadbent
Sustainability Adviser
Ms. Rebecca Falkingham
Senior Adviser
Victoria Government/Office of Climate Change
Mr. Simon Camroux
Policy Adviser
Energy Supply Association of Australia Limited
Mr. Geoff Lake
Adviser
Australian Local Government Association
Sridhar Ayyalaraju
Post Visit Controller
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Mr. Tegan Brink
Deputy Visit Controller and Security Liaison Officer
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Ms. Melissa Eu Suan Goh
Transport Liaison Officer and Consul
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Ms. Lauren Henschke
Support Staff
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Ms. Maree Fay
Accommodation Liaison Officer
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Ms. Patricia McKinnon
Communications Officer
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Eugene Olim
Paasport / Baggage Liaison Officer
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Ms. Belinda Lee Adams
Ms. Jacqui Ashworth
Media Liaison Officer
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Ms. Patricia Smith
Media Liaison Officer
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Mr. Martin Bo Jensen
Research and Public Diplomatic Officer
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Mr. Mauro Kolobaric
Consular Support
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Ms. Susan Flanagan
Consular Support
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Mr. Stephen Kanaridis
IT Support Officer
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Mr. George Reid
Support Staff
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Ms. Ashley Wright
Support Staff
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Ms. Jodie Littlewood
Support Staff
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Mr. Thomas Millhouse
Support Staff
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Mr. Timothy Whittley
Support Staff Driver
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Ms. Julia Thomson
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Mr. Donald Frater
Chief of Staff to Minister Wong
Office of the Minister for Climate Change and Water
Ms. Jacqui Smith
Media Liaison
DFAT
Diplomatic Mission of Australia to Denmark
Mr. Greg French
Senior Legal Advisor, Environment
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Mr. Jeremy Hillman
Advisor
PMO
