The Australian Sex Party is hoping a review into national online classification guidelines will legalise some types of pornography which are currently banned.

Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy today announced an independent review of the policy of what constitutes "refused classification" rated content when he delayed the introduction of a mandatory internet filtering program.

He says the review, to take up to a year, has nothing to do with criticism of the proposal from the likes of Google and the US government.

Under current guidelines anything that is so abhorrent that it offends the standards of decency and morality of a reasonable adult is refused classification.

That includes child abuse material, bestiality, sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime or drug use and incitement of a terrorist act.

Some of the grey areas of internet censorship include images of crimes taking place, graffiti or stencil art and sexual fetishes.

Spokesman for the Australian Sex Party, Robbie Swan, is in favour of sexual fetish material becoming available online.

"Bondage material is consenting. People say that they want to be spanked on the bottom, so it's consenting," he said.

"But under the guidelines at the moment the RC [refused classification] material says that it's a form of violence which is a bit silly really."

But he is unsure whether he will see such material becoming legalised any time soon.

"I don't know that that would be the case," he said.

"I would hope that in fact consenting fetishes would become legal under this. But I can't see Senator Conroy agreeing to that."

Current guidelines were originally written for publications, film and computer games.

freedom of speech

Irene Graham, who has been running a website about Australian censorship laws since the 1990s, says those guidelines have no place online.

"The internet is not a media. It's a communication system and we don't have classifications applying to our telephone conversations or letters we sent or faxes we sent," she said.

"Why should it apply to material on a web page that you're accessing in your own home?"

But the guidelines are already used to assess material on Australian websites and after they are reviewed, they will be used to determine which overseas websites will be blocked.

Ms Graham says the rule against inciting crimes and drug use can be applied much more broadly to material on the internet and the guidelines need to be tweaked to make sure they do not stomp on freedom speech.

Prominent euthanasia campaigner Dr Philip Nitschke had his book about euthanasia refused classification on review. He is concerned that websites which claim to promote harm minimisation may be banned.

"This important topic is the instruction in the information about safe drug use, for example. The idea that that should be prevented so that people can't learn how to safely use drugs, I think is something which I find quite unacceptable," he said.

People who are familiar with Australia's censorship regime are predicting a long delay because any change to classification guidelines requires all Australia's Attorneys General to agree.

It is an arrangement which has already frustrated fans of violent or raunchy video games who have been campaigning for several years to be able to play them.

Any computer game which does not rate MA+ or less is banned in Australia, which raises the prospect of the internet filter blocking access to what would otherwise be mainstream fare for gamers.

Senator Conroy says internet service providers Telstra, Optus and Primus have agreed to block websites known to contain child pornography in the meantime.