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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 2 Hansard (29 February) . . Page.. 505 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

With existing surveillance arrangements, we often see security cameras installed in a range of specialised circumstances. For example, they are known to be in banks, and that is for a very good reason. Banks are frequently the subject of violent crime. They are burgled, often at gunpoint or at knifepoint, and clearly there is a need for additional security. We also see cameras increasingly appearing in shops, particularly shops where the goods for sale are of a very high value, such as jewellery shops. Again, that is for good reason. Those shops have been subject to crime and they are known to be at risk of crime.

We also have security cameras around this building, again for quite specific reasons. Parliaments of all descriptions are known to be the focus of protests of all kinds. They are also known to be a focus of those people in our community who, unfortunately, are not always in possession of the balance of their minds, and for that reason there is a particular need for some minimal level of security around parliaments. In those circumstances, most people would have no objection whatsoever to a specific known risk being addressed by means of surveillance cameras.

But that is a very different proposition from the proposition we now find being put to the Canberra community by Mr Humphries. Mr Humphries is proposing to put under surveillance the general range of the community who may be using particular parts of Civic.

Mr Hird: You people did it on this building.

Mr Humphries: That is right. What are we stealing in this building?

MS FOLLETT: Mr Speaker, if people opposite had any interest in this issue they would have just heard me address that matter for a good five minutes. They must have their ears covered. It is extraordinary.

Mr Hird: I was listening to what you were saying, but you were not saying that you put it in.

Mr Humphries: It was irrelevant. What is there to steal in the Assembly?

MR SPEAKER: Order! Ms Follett has the call.

MS FOLLETT: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I will do it again. In the particular circumstances of parliaments around the world, there is an acknowledged need to provide some measure of security. This is for two reasons, one being that parliaments of whatever nature - big, small, local, Federal, whatever - are a known focus of protest activity. You know that. You have had ample demonstration of that. The further reason is that parliaments are also a known focus for the small number of people in our community who are unbalanced in their views - - -

Mr Humphries: The demonstrations outside, you mean?

MS FOLLETT: - - - and who may not have the balance of their minds on a particular issue and are prepared to pursue that issue even to the point where it may endanger themselves or others.

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