Websites found to be helping Australians illegally download content are one step closer to being blocked.

After one public hearing on the topic and only five recommendations of amendments to the bill, the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs gave the go-ahead Thursday to the federal government's plan to make Australian Internet service providers (ISPs) block overseas websites that facilitate copyright infringement.

Australian Greens senator Scott Ludlam is the committee's lone dissenting voice.

See also: Australians could have VPNs blocked under new piracy bill

If passed, the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill would allow copyright holders to apply to the Federal Court for an injunction requiring an ISP to block overseas websites whose "primary purpose" is piracy. The ISP would then be made to disable access to the website for Australian Internet users.

Committee chair senator Ian Macdonald wrote that, subject to its recommendations, the bill "should achieve its aim of targeting copyright infringement" in Australia.

Introduced in March by the minister for communications, Malcolm Turnbull, the law has received considerable push back from consumer advocates, as well as the legal and telecommunications industry.

Among other concerns, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and consumer advocacy group Choice have warned virtual private network services (VPNs) could be blocked under the legislation. VPNs, which help users browse the Internet anonymously, are often used on torrenting websites, but are also employed for legitimate purposes such as evading online surveillance.

The status of VPNs remains in doubt, however, as the senate committee wrote only that it would be "reassured" if the privacy technology's legal status was clarified in the bill's explanatory memorandum.

Critics have also suggested the bill could have severe unintended consequences for legitimate websites due to its lack of technical specificity regarding how sites will be blocked — a matter that went largely unaddressed in the report.

While the committee noted an incident in 2013 when the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) used the Telecommunications Act to block three scam sites, yet ended up taking down thousands of legal ones that happened to be using the same IP addresses, it made no concrete recommendations for improvement in this area.

Matthew Rimmer, associate professor at the Australian National University's College of Law, told Mashable Australia he finds the bill a "complete and utter mess". The way in which the committee has responded to the bill is very disturbing, he added. "The Coalition and the Australian Labor party members showed a very poor understanding of the technology involved and the ramifications in terms of implementing a site blocking regime."

Key terms are left undefined, he said, and the primary purpose test included in the bill to determine whether or not a site is facilitating copyright infringement remains a very crude mechanism.

It's also worth remembering, Rimmer added, the bill could result in copyright censorship beyond entertainment products. "WikiLeaks is a site full of leaked copyrighted works," he pointed out. "Will our access to WikiLeaks be blocked by the federal government on the grounds of copyright infringement?"

Australian Greens senator Scott Ludlam wrote in a dissenting report the bill "is the latest in a long line of misguided attempts by the government to monitor, control and censor the Internet." He warned it did not provide sufficient safeguards for legitimate sites, and that the committee had not taken the views of stakeholders other than copyright holders sufficiently into account.

Rimmer agreed with Ludlum regarding the disproportionate weight given to the entertainment industry. "The bill and the report are love letters to Foxtel and News Corp," he said. "The role of government isn't to write copyright law for the purposes of a few companies."