I won’t be attending Information Online 2009, even though it’s in Sydney and that’s where I work. I would have liked to, but it looks as if this going to be an extremely lean year, budget-wise. Information Online is quite an expensive conference too, so if work isn’t paying or contributing, then it’s out of my price range.
Looking at the bright side, maybe it’s just as well, because I wouldn’t know how to handle myself when Stephen Conroy opens the conference.
- Would I even give him polite applause?
- Would I turn my back on him?
- If he says something particularly outrageous, such as equating all opponents of his scheme for mandatory ISP filtering in Australia with advocates for child pornography, would I boo or heckle him?
It’s not for me to give advice about this to anyone who is attending Information Online. Unless this becomes an issue in the next election, this will probably be the first and only time that Stephen Conroy is in this situation - where he is in a room with a large number of members of the public and voters who oppose him on the mandatory ISP filtering issue.