Wikileaks has been at the centre of a number of high-profile information-sharing cases, the most recent being the publication of the BNP member address list and the leaked memos on Barclays’ tax avoidance. For the latter, applause – these were documents that laid bare the complexity of Barclays efforts to avoid supporting the country. For the former, boos – whatever you think about the BNP, it’s an invasion of privacy to have your political affiliations, which many people regard as deeply personal, pushed out into the open. The BNP’s members aren’t necessarily racist or xenophobic, and to put them on a list encouraged whitewashing of the issue.

Now with this Australian blacklist, there are similar charges of compromised civil liberties, with blocked sites weirdly including innocent destinations like a dentist’s office and a kennels. The idea of blocking access to certain websites is argued by Wikileaks to be undemocratic – they accused Australia of ”acting like a democratic backwater” with the list. The way Theodor Reppe, the owner of the site, had his home raided was personally damaging – the German authorities painted it as a search for child pornography, as Wikileaks publishes lists of blocked sites that include child pornography links.

Wikileaks says: “once a secret censorship system is established for pornographic content the same system can rapidly expand to cover other material, including political material” – they published a Thailand blacklist that featured sites criticising the Thai royal family.

All quite compelling. But it’s interesting when you learn that the dentist’s office website, that allegedly proves Australia’s internet suppression extends beyond child pornography, had its server hacked by a porn website and was redirecting users to their site, hence the ban from the government. If you take a look down the list of sites blocked to Australia’s people, the URLs alone make for uncomfortable reading, and are compelling evidence for a blacklist. If a dentist’s office that couldn’t keep their security in order appears on it, then it’s a small price for protecting users from child pornography.

Even more morally dubious is Wikileaks actually posting clickable links to all blocked child porn sites on its website – “If the customer is presented with a “STOP!” page, the site is still listed in the filter.” This is surely the most wrongheaded reaction imaginable – when you start to argue for free speech by disseminating child pornography, you know your argument has lost legitimacy.

Depressingly, the Australian blacklist that’s caused all this fuss is, according to one internet filterer, hopelessly out of date, with two thirds of the links dormant and the whole list only representing 0.2% of illegal pornographic material. To hamper efforts to combat this problem with accusations over mild limits on freedom is again wrongheaded.

The raid of Reppe may be overkill, and symptomatic of the apparent “hysteria” gripping Germany over paedophilia, but blacklists can surely be managed by an independent body to ensure there isn’t a creeping infringement upon civil liberties. But it’s another example of paranoia and kneejerk distrust, just as there was with Google’s Street View launch last week. Some “infringements” are useful when you’re trying to find your way round some bizarre street system, as in the case of Street View, and important when trying to combat abuse, in the case of blacklists. When it comes to protecting children, the paranoid howlings of Wikileaks should be kept to a low volume.

“This movie is bigger than Superman and Indiana Jones,” actor David Gulpilil told the Australian newspaper, “it’s a true Australian movie.” Nicole Kidman concurred. “This is a once in a lifetime thing,” she said, before reluctantly acknowledging that “It’s not the second coming.” Meanwhile, Hugh Jackman was a gibbering wreck; “As my old acting teacher said, nerves just mean you care.”

Baz Luhrmann told the press he wanted to create a Gone With the Wind or Casablanca for the 21st century, “One of those old fashioned movies… everyone can come to the meal,” and then repeated his joke that Australia is only two and a half hours long because everyone in the country is in it. 

The film is set between 1939 and 1941 in northern Australia, and tells the story of a frigid English aristocrat Sarah Ashley (Kidman) who has her cockles warmed by a roughneck cattleman called “the Drover” (Jackman). They travel together across the outback to Darwin, where they fall in love, and and help an indigenous aboriginal child (Brandon Walters) en route. Beautiful.

Fearing a patriotic backlash, the critical reception to the film amongst the Australian press has been respectful. The Australian’s film critic David Stratton complained the film has “a lot of cliches in the script” and was obviously aimed at an American audience because it offers “a simplistic view” of Australian history at best, but despite numerous objections stated it was “an impressive and important film.”

Commenters on his article post saw it slightly differently:

– Jamie of Brisbane: “If only Nicole Kidman wasn’t in it! She’s so beige and unremarkable – I just couldn’t sit through 3 hours of her.”

– Thaddeus of Sydney – “What? No poker machines at all?”

– Sean of Concord – “Baz’s schtick has always been commercial banalities and cliches masquerading as kitschy art. Its why he’s been able to develop a tourism commercial out of the movie… Having to sit though 3 hours of this ’sweeping’ guff for me would be the equivalent of going to the dentist for a similiar amount of time. And on top of all that its called Australia. Somebody tap baz on the shoulder for gods sake!”

Regardless, as the Telegraph reports today, the film has been pounced on by Tourism Australia, who capitalised by spending £17 million on a global television advertising campaign directed by Luhrmann, which launched earlier this month. Like Australia, the TV spots star Brandon Walker, who tells metropolitan office rats around the world to “Go walkabout.”

Although set in the Northern Territory, Australia was primarily filmed and shot in the town of Kununurra in Western Australia, which is now relentlessly plugging the association in the hope of pulling in tourism dollars. Meanwhile, the Northern Territory has launched its own six figure media assault, plugging itself as “the real outback” and generally bigging up its connection to Luhrmann’s film. 

Cheesy? Maybe. But never before have the economic hopes of a nation been so dependent on a one film; tourism accounts for approximately 4% of Australia’s GDP, so a Baz-bounce would be a welcome fillip.

Whatever happens though, Tourism Australia has certainly improved on its previous ham fisted TV marketing efforts, which have included Delta Goodrem singing ‘I Can Sing a Rainbow’ over Uluru porn, and weird pronouncements about “having the camels shampooed” and “getting the sharks out of the pool,” backed by a ‘Journey to Arnhemland’ style background music.