Gillard said the government had “worked through” with ISPs on a system that would meet its stated policy objectives while not slowing internet speeds.

“We obviously want people to have faster internet speeds because this is the transformative technology of the future and that’s why we’re building the National Broadband Network,” she said.

“But we’ve been working with internet service providers to try and make sure that we’re not slowing speeds. People want fast internet, but we are dealing with content that is really repulsive and illegal content.”

The issue of slower internet speeds was highlighted in the into mandatory ISP-level content filtering.

Gillard said the government was persisting with the filter in order to gain consistency in its classification regime across different media.