Australia'southward one-time Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has go chairman of the advisory board for an insurance-focused blockchain firm.

Stephen Conroy — an Australian Labor Party Senate fellow member from 1996–2016 — has joined the Melbourne-based blockchain firm 24-hour interval Past Twenty-four hours, co-ordinate to a December. eighteen report from ZDNet.

Day By Day is focused on the creation of a blockchain-based asset registry management platform intended to innovate insurance inventories and expedite claims in the industry.

Commenting on his new role, Conroy said that "problems of under-insurance and fraudulent claims" remain significant issues for both clients and insurers. He said he believes a blockchain-based asset registry will prove to be "a win-win" for both individuals and the industry.

A divisive career

During his fourth dimension as communications minister, Conroy had attempted to innovate controversial legislation for mandatory internet filtering back in 2009.

Intended equally a clampdown on online child pornography, the policy would have compelled all ISPs to block any cloth hosted on overseas servers that had been deemed unacceptable past the Australian Classification Board. Information technology was ultimately withdrawn following a severe backfire by critics of net censorship.

Conroy eventually distanced himself from the policy later the Board'southward blacklist was found to include a heterogeneous mix of apparently innocuous sites. Yet his advocacy of the legislation — amongst other unpopular policy initiatives — led to his crowning every bit "Cyberspace villain of the twelvemonth" at the 11th almanac Internet industry awards in the United Kingdom in 2009.

After resigning from the Senate in 2022, Conroy took on a office equally caput of Responsible Wagering Commonwealth of australia, a lobbying group for the Australian-licensed online gambling industry.

Crypto-related developments in Australian politics

Speaking at a counter-terrorism conference in Melbourne this November, Commonwealth of australia'south Minister of Home Affairs Peter Dutton has warned that terrorists are exploiting cryptocurrencies to "fund their deadly missions."

The state's Treasury has broadly struck a more restrained tone, pointing to the scant bear witness that cryptocurrency is beingness used to facilitate black economy activities in Australia.