Some days it feels like a whole bunch of people fighting internet censorship - or clamouring for Government 2.0, or complaining about movie studios protecting their copyrights - only perceive politics though the narrow prism of "hands off my internets".

This strikes me as both naïve and arrogant.

It's naïve to imagine the government would change course just because the digital elites get fired up about something and issue a stream of sarcastic tweets.

It's arrogant to denigrate politicians as stupid or ignorant because they don't deeply understand digital technology - and yes I know I sometimes do that myself, but I'm thinking aloud here - when the critics have only a shallow understanding of politics and government. Why is their ignorance acceptable?

It's also arrogant for the elites to assume that their wants and needs for the internet are better than anyone else's.

A clear example of the naivety was this bizarre idea that emerged during the elevation of Julia Gillard to Prime Minister: that Senator Stephen Conroy would or could or should be sacked as Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and replaced by Senator Kate Lundy.

For a start, why sack Conroy? Apart from internet filtering, an issue of interest to only small if vocal minority on either side, everything else chugs along fine.

After a few false starts, Conroy has gotten the National Broadband Network (NBN) under way. He appears to be pulling off the biggest telecommunications reform in two decades with the Telstra/NBN Co deal. There's currently no scandal for which he needs to take blame. And looking at the communications side of his portfolio, Conroy certainly possesses the rugged negotiation skills needed to handle media magnates like Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Stokes.

Even if Conroy were sacked - or promoted or chose a new portfolio - why replace him with Lundy?

Sure, Lundy is experienced and well-respected. She was Shadow Minister for Information Technology from 1998 to 2004. She's been a strong proponent of Government 2.0. She's built strong links into online communities. But since when has any of that been a deciding factor in appointing a minister?

More relevant is the pool of talent in the junior ranks of the ALP, many of them deserving promotion. Bill Shorten, Maxine McKew, Mike Kelly and Mark Butler come to mind.

Lundy is also married to David Forman, executive director of the Competitive Carriers Coalition, the everyone-but-Telstra lobby group led by Optus. While this isn't necessarily a show-stopper, it'd be difficult for Lundy to avoid allegations of a conflict of interest. Telstra spinner Rod Bruem certainly had a go two years ago. Legal threats followed.

But the biggest mistake here is imagining government policy would change if Lundy replaced Conroy.

Senator Conroy is certainly the public face of the internet filter, and Labor's Plan for Cyber Safety issued just before the November 2007 federal election lists Conroy as the author. But as Crikey's Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane put it recently, Conroy is just doing his job as a professional politician to implement policy, and the filter is still ALP policy today:

"Look ten years down the track, or twenty years, when Conroy has left politics and he's written his memoirs, for all we know he'll reveal that he absolutely hated the filter and it infuriated him every time he had to defend it... You don't get a choice about these things. There is such a thing as cabinet solidarity which means that you do what you're told."

Gillard may well open the subject for cabinet discussion - after all, Kevin Rudd was a keen supporter of mandatory internet filtering and he's gone.

But it's also widely believed that the filter was part of a Senate preferences deal between Labor and Family First that led to Conroy being elected in the first place. Would Conroy renege? His comments this week suggest not.

It's wonderful that people are getting involved in a political debate, any political debate. But calling for Conroy's dismissal demonstrates little understanding of politics and government.

That isn't noteworthy, of course. Few Australians of any kind have much clue about this stuff. We're one of the most politically apathetic nations on earth.

Back in the late 1980s I was a producer with ABC Radio in Adelaide. The day after a state cabinet reshuffle, I asked random people in King William Street and Rundle Mall to name any member of cabinet, old or new.

Seventy percent of them didn't even know what "cabinet" meant.

"You mean like John Howard?" ventured one young woman. Well, kinda. Bob Hawke deposed the Fraser government, of which Howard was Treasurer, in 1983. Wrong level of government, wrong side of politics. But at least she had a go. Few of the rest got any further than naming Premier John Bannon.

I daresay if we repeated the exercise today with the digital elites, the result wouldn't be much different. Maybe it should be.

Stilgherrian is an opinionated and irreverent writer, broadcaster and consultant based in Sydney, Australia.