AN audit of politicians' internet use that claimed the scalp of a state minister ranked news.com.au as the most visited "adult website".NSW Ports and Waterways Minister Paul McLeay resigned this week after results of the audit were revealed.
The audit supposedly showed whether NSW MPs had been visiting adult links such as gambling and pornography sites.
However Legislative Council president Amanda Fazio yesterday revealed the audit had incorrectly classified news sites as adult because they contained links to or advertisements for adult dating sites.
Both news.com.au and smh.com.au were classified as adult sites in the audit.
"The definition of what has been classed as an adult site is something we're reviewing," she said.
"What surprised us... the biggest (site) of what is classed as an adult site being hit by the parliament is the news.com.au site.
"Because there are adult matchmaking links or ads on their site, every time someone accesses news.com.au and they go from one article to another, that's counted as an individual hit on an adult site."
The bungle is one of the most embarrassing examples to date of the problems that can occur when governments and organisations try to regulate internet use.
The revelation could also absolve some MPs tangled in the web porn scandal at NSW parliamentary offices that erupted this week.
Christian Democratic MP Fred Nile, for example, has defended his office's viewing of certain "adult websites", saying they were merely for "research purposes".
Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell said every politician had been tainted by the scandal and asked for the matter to be settled quickly.
His office had questioned a Nationals MP whose name emerged as part of the audit into online activity, including gambling websites.
But the nature of the audit has thrown up even more questions.
Earlier this week Ms Fazio and Legislative Assembly Speaker Richard Torbay said internal audits covered site categories but they did not commission any reports on MPs' internet use.
Ms Fazio said she did not know how the internet use patterns of MPs were gathered.
News.com.au editor David Higgins said the auditing error showed governments could not be trusted to censor the internet.
"News.com.au is one of Australia's most visited news websites featuring award-winning journalism from the country's most respected newspapers," he said.
"The fact that a government agency has classed us as an adult site only demonstrates the deep flaws in government-mandated internet filtering of the type put forward by the Gillard Government."
"If governments can't get it right within their own IT departments how could we possibly trust a nationwide mandatory web filtering system based on a secret list of banned websites put together by politicians?”
4 Sep 2010 With Fran Foo for The Australian and AAP
Another government blunder.
The government shows time and time again that it currently does not have the resources to 'censor' the internet for the 'protection' of the masses.
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