Senator Stephen Conroy, 4 Corners and Nurse Ratched organises the votes ...

(Above: Senator Conroy posing down with a pout, and then perhaps demonstrating the size of something shocking he saw on the intertubes? There's something mighty fine about the look of these photos with access denied and a dirty big cross in the right hand corner).

Thanks to Four Corners, I'm reminded all over again precisely why it's impossible to vote for a government that has Senator Stephen Conroy as the Minister for the Intertubes.

You can access the transcript of the show here, and in the usual ABC way, you can also do a little catch up viewing, here.

I particularly liked Jim Wallace of the Australian Christian Lobby's exceptional idea:

JIM WALLACE, AUSTRALIAN CHRISTIAN LOBBY: The material that the Government is looking to block is illegal material and I find it quite amazing that anyone can oppose this you know.

I think if people believe that they should be using child pornography, bestiality material, sexual violence or instructions to crime, then really somebody somewhere should be raising a file on them.

(Below: Senator Conroy with what might be a file, or just a random sheaf of sheets).

Ah yes Jim, raising a file, in the good old-fashioned way, not so much an ASIO file, as perhaps a Ministerium für Staatssicherheit file. What we really need in this country is a decent Stasi to keep track of the bastards. Just like Mr. Salisbury did in the good old days in South Australia.

By the way Jim, all those old folk at the start and the end of the show look exactly like the reprehensible reprobates who need a file opened. All that talk of wanting to find out the details of how they might die with dignity on their own watch. Piffle, a smokescreen. Why as sure as chips those old folks were on the hunt for porn, filthy filthy vile porn, no doubt about it.

But let's not leave out Dr Clive Hamilton, who brings a whole new meaning to the concept of progressive:

PROFESSOR CLIVE HAMILTON, PUBLIC ETHICS CENTRE, CHARLES STURT UNIVERSITY: We now we have this strange alliance in support of Internet filtering - brings in Christian conservatives, along with feminists, social progressives such as myself and a vast number of parents and ordinary punters out there.

That's how politics works.

Dr. Clive said that last line with a strange, unsettling leer, and I'm still trying to get my head around the notion that Christian conservatives of the Jim Wallace kind are somehow in the same camp as progressives.

Has the word now become so abused, the concept so abusive, that it should be abandoned?

Strange, and there I was thinking it was just round fifteen in the eternal battle between wowsers and prudes, and those inclined to think in the laid back knock about larrikin way that keeps the tits on Underbelly rating so well.

Clive himself shows all the adroit intelligence of the Americans peddling the domino theory that led to the Vietnam war. Here's Dwight Eisenhower explaining it back in 1954:

... You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.

Here's Clive explaining how sexual dominoes work:

It's a very simple matter to go from internet images of sex between men and women involving, you know, various what might be called mainstream sexual practices to perverse and extreme sexual practices.

Ah the missionary position, and then before you know it, the woman's on top! Talk about perverse and extreme. Sadly, they didn't get on to what Clive thought was perverse. Perhaps he could flag some pages in The Joy of Sex. Or should it be called The Pain and Perversity of Sex?

Perhaps even more amusing was the contribution of one Trevor Grace, who made a small splash in South Australia with his anti-abortion crusade, which involved running for parliament - google him if you can stand the pain - and who turned up on the program to complain about his website being censored, with ACMA upholding a complaint against his site for showing grisly images of aborted foetuses:

TREVOR GRACE, ABORTSA.COM: No I don't see that it's justified.

I think that people - particularly in our society - should be given an opportunity to uh, to look at or have the freedom of information and this is information.

I-I can't see why they're upset about that sort of information. Is there something wrong with those images? What's wrong with those images really?

I mean they show aborted babies but we're told it's only a piece of tissue, so where would the problem be?

Indeed Trev. I'm told that some people think of penises and breasts as pieces of tissue too.

I did wonder about his motivation and in googling around, came across this:

Trevor Grace is a personal friend of mine. He is a selfless Christian (confirmed) that has a huge heart for God, the unborn, women who have been pressured into aborting (or not but are suffering with guilt) and the aborted baby's fathers. He is 100% untouchable, in my honest opinion, as far as 'political power' is concerned and will not be bribed as to his call to speak loud and clear for these children in the houses of parliament. (here).

Um, Houston, or should that be Jim Wallace, we have a problem here. Should someone be raising a file on Trevor Grace? I mean, come on selfless Christian? Isn't he some kind of wild lawbreaker, distributing 18+ images?

Lordy, next thing you know, someone will be peddling graffiti and wanting to sell cans of spray paint, and seriously in need of a file.

Come to think of it, when are we going to start raising a file on all activist Christian and Islamic fundamentalists?

Needless to say, throughout Conroy was evasive, equivocal, and impenetrable, when not acting like a primary school teacher with a very bad teaching manner:

Well here's to Quentin McDermott, and his neat send up of Conroy. I don't think there was a single pleasant image of the good Senator on view - when he wasn't looking sinister, he was simply looking weird - and at the very end, the show delivered a neat wrap up by bringing back the old folk who thought they had a right to know about adult issues, including ways to die as explained by Nurse Betty on a now deleted YouTube video:

MARK NEWTON, ISP NETWORK ENGINEER: The idea that the Internet is this scary place that parents don't understand, that everybody needs protection from, isn't a view that's held by most of society.

What it actually is is a scary place that politicians don't understand, that politicians need protection from and that's why we're having this debate now.

BETTY PETERS (on Exit International video): Any questions?

No nurse Betty, no questions at all. Or perhaps just one? How can we stop Senator Conroy doing what's best for us, when he doesn't have a clue what's best for us? And the awesome alternative is a coalition of the progressive Clive Hamilton and the progressive Jim Wallace?

Sheesh, just when I was warming to that progressive conservative David Cameron.

What's that nurse Betty? Cultivate the firm conviction that a vote for a government with Senator Conroy is a vote for a net nanny I don't want?

Hah, and all the conservatives rabbit on about the nanny state, and then when the ISP filter comes up they go to water. Bunch of nannies ...

And now, since brooding about Senator Conroy for too long is likely to increase my blood pressure to an unhealthy level, I thought of ending up with Nurse Betty, a movie which has sex, drugs, violence, a couple of hitmen and a surrrealistic infatuation with soaps. Everything designed to upset a progressive. You can check out a trailer here.

But then I had second thoughts: why am I suddenly reminded of Nurse Ratched and voting procedures? Could it be that Senator Conroy and Nurse Ratched have certain things in common?

Warning: this very old movie still uses language shocking to the ears of some. Usually those who don't like fucking ... (and you might need to give it a nudge ... damn you google, damn your sticky interface ...)