MELBOURNE – On the SBS  program “Insight” this week, Australian Communications Minister Stephen Conroy took a short but significant step backwards from the government’s controversial ISP filtering policies.

The policy has been understood to introduce compulsory ISP-level filters of the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s blacklist of prohibited websites, but during the show Conroy said  that mandatory filtering would be restricted to those websits that had been “refused classification.”

According to The Age, “This about-turn has done little to assuage the concerns of online rights groups, the Federal Opposition and the internet industry, as the RC category includes not just child pornography but anti-abortion sites, fetish sites and sites containing pro-euthanasia material such as The Peaceful Pill Handbook by Dr Philip Nitschke.”

Fiona Patten (pictured), CEO of the Eros Association, attended the “Insight” program and participated in the discussion.