AUNTIE'S WEB 'LINK' TO BOMB SITE: MP

A Liberal backbencher looking to catch up on the daily news on the ABC's Web
site instead found herself perusing sites that advised how to make illegal
drugs and backyard bombs.

Federal MP Ms Kay Elson said she was "horrified" by the sites, which she
found through "links" on sites devoted to the Quantum television program and
the ABC's youth radio network Triple J.

While the ABC didn't have the information that concerned Ms Elson on its own
sites, the links either brought Internet users directly to the controversial
site or to sites with links that eventually offered the offending matter.

Ms Elson, a mother of eight grown children, said Triple J in particular had
played a critical role in undermining the Government's anti-drugs message.

"You talk to kids about marijuana and they tell you: 'Come off it, I listen
to Triple J and it's not that bad'."

Defending the ABC, its head of multimedia, Mr Colin Griffith, said: "With
the Internet, you are only two or three links away from the dark corners of
humanity. This is part of the risk that comes with Internet culture."

He said the ABC would continue the practice of providing links, although
"you always have to be careful".

The Triple J site had removed from its "cool sites" link the offending
connection to "backyard ballistics", a home-grown explosives site, following
Ms Elson's complaints.

Mr Griffith said Ms Elson had exaggerated the content on the explosives
site. He said it merely provided advice on how to fashion a potato gun, in
contrast to Ms Elson's claim that it advised how to make a mortar device
using a soft drink can.

But the Quantum links to sites that can lead users to recipes for ecstasy
and its pharmacological cousin MDMA remain.

Mr Griffith said the Quantum site "neither condoned or promoted the use of
drugs" but just gave "different views" on the subject. The site in question
was devoted to its show, What's Your Poison, screened last year.

Ms Elson has written to the ABC's managing director, Mr Brian Johns, with
her complaints but has yet to get a response.