blog Think your fevered rantings on Australia’s largest technology forum, Whirlpool, are private and just among mates? Think again. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has admitted he is addicted to trawling threads on the site for the latest posts about his pet project, the National Broadband Network. The Financial Review reports:

“Stephen Conroy is something of an information junkie … He “tragically” monitors a laundry list of online threads related to the $36 billion national broadband network on telecommunications forum Whirlpool”

Wow. Although I’ve always thought of him as something of a jock, the AFR’s profile makes it seem as Conroy is becoming more and more of a geek over the years. Certainly amongst parliamentarians his well-publicised enthusiasm for his iPhone and iPad makes him something of a rarity, but I didn’t realise he was geeky enough to be trawling Whirlpool threads. I do know for a fact that the Minister reads Delimiter, although he hasn’t ever posted a comment on our site, unlike his colleagues in the portfolio from other parties, the Liberals’ Malcolm Turnbull and Greens Senator Scott Ludlam.

Perhaps Conroy’s first port of call at Whirlpool might be one of the forum’s longest-running and most hotly debated threads, entitled How can NBN fight the FUD and WIN? A daily read for yours truly, this thread often chronicles and debunks the exploits of the Murdoch press in trying to squash the NBN. And Conroy is known to be one of News Ltd’s biggest detractors. But then again, an even longer-running thread is devoted to another of Conroy’s projects — ISP-Level Content Filtering. I’m sure he keeps an eye on that one too ;) In the meantime, everyone at Whirlpool, wave at Conroy — you’re on the Ministerial iPad!

Image credit: kjd, Creative Commons