ATUG ‘Communicator of the Year’ medalist: Stephen Conroy
Friday April 24th 2009, 8:45 am

No… I’m NOT kidding.

Conjob was awarded a medal by ATUG (Australian Telecommunications Users Group) :

Charles Todd Medal winner for Communicator of the Year – Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.
ATUG has appreciated the Minister’s focus on engagement with end users:
* seeking input from “feisty and fearless friends”,
* improving levels of customer service by guiding and working with industry,
* developing Australia”s digital economy,
* working through the platforms, the polices
[sic], the opportunities and the obstacles,
* supporting ATUG”s Roam Fair Campaign- taking the initiative in APECTEL, the OECD and the ITU to secure fairer outcomes for end users.

ATUG debases themselves to the point of hilarity by giving a ‘Communicator of the Year’ award to the Ministard for Communications, who studiously avoided communications such as answering questions both in Parliament and in public about Labor’s proposed mandatory internet filter, until the ACMA blacklist was leaked. The leak forced Conjob to appear on ABC Q&A, SBS Insight and Triple J’s Hack program, on all of which the Ministard obfuscated and waffled over what materials would be banned, tried desperately to claim that ACMA’s ‘Refused Classification’ rating means ‘illegal,’and was in all cases handed his arse on a platter by anyone with a cursory understanding of how the internet works.

That pack of ‘feisty and fearless friends’ would include pro-censorship mobs like the Australian Christian Lobby (who want everything not in the bible removed from the internet), Webshield (ISP) CEO Anthony Pillion (and any other censorware vendors who stand to turn a fast buck off of mandatory internet censorship), ChildWise CEO Bernadette McMenamin (who doesn’t understand how the internet works yet calls those who do liars), etc. Feisty, fearless.. and absolutely unfettered by knowledge.

If Conjob merits a ‘Communicator of the Year’ award, Robert Mugabe is well past due for a Nobel Prize for Economics.

ATUG? A great BIG tug.

-weez


4 Comments so far
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It’s Monty Python at its best. From the same series: South Australia’s Road Safety Minister Tom Koutsantonis charged with 30 speeding and traffic offenses. A smirking John Howard receiving a Medal of Freedom, making everybody with a grain of decency sick. And what about that repulsive monster of the seventies, Henry Kissinger, who got the Nobel Peace Prize for the illegal bombing of Cambodia which blew 500 000 civilians apart.

Comment by Melchior 04.24.09 @ 11:56 am

I focussed on the picture before I went to the text. Either Conroy himself cannot believe it, or he’s been heavily into the Forbidden Party Chemicals. (At least that’s what it’s communicating to me.)

Comment by ryno 04.24.09 @ 12:37 pm

mel, Conjob The Great Communicator is beyond Python. It’s straight April Fools’ day material.

Comment by weez 04.24.09 @ 6:16 pm

ryno, I think Conjob’s busting a gut because he’s being given not just an award, but a medal, for doing something (communicating) that he has not only not done but actively avoided and opposed. Conjob refused to comment or just plain lied (notably in Parliament) about the filtering scam until the ACMA blacklist was leaked. As did I, Conjob is surely thinking “SUCKERS.”

What could possibly be the reason for ATUG giving this award for non-performance? Are they currying favour with the Ministard? For what? I don’t get it, unless it’s a massive pisstake. It just HAS to be a joke at Conjob’s expense, it can’t be anything else.

Comment by weez 04.27.09 @ 9:27 am



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