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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 2 Hansard (29 February) . . Page.. 510 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

The places where we are talking about putting these cameras in Civic are the places where crimes occur, the places where crimes of a very serious nature have occurred in this community over the last few years. A few weeks ago a young man was stabbed, almost fatally, at the bus interchange in Civic. As it happens, the extra police this Government has made available since coming to office were there very near to this incident when it happened and were able to address the situation quickly. A person has been arrested in relation to that offence and it appears that a prosecution may be successful; we do not know. That is a question for the courts. It was pure happenstance that there were some policemen about 50 metres away when this particular stabbing occurred. It is pure good fortune that that was the case. If they had not been there, if there had not been willing witnesses nearby, the person who allegedly committed this offence might still be at large. Cameras in that part of Civic may have made the difference between being able to capture people who had done these things and not being able to do so.

Mr Berry: Rubbish!

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Berry says "Rubbish" - - -

Mr Moore: Bunkum, Gary! Where is the evidence? Find the evidence from somewhere else.

MR HUMPHRIES: The evidence is the other places in this community - that is, the Australian community - where these cameras have been used, and used successfully. Mr Berry and Mr Moore should talk to the people in Brisbane, around the Queen Street Mall, who have operated the cameras there successfully and who claim unanimously - - -

Mr Moore: The security company is getting paid for it. That is not exactly an unbiased evaluation.

MR HUMPHRIES: No, not those people; the police, the shopkeepers there, the civilians who use those areas. Those people say that these cameras have been enormously successful. Do not believe me; I ask you to believe the Labor Party, because they have installed these cameras themselves - not in shops, not in banks, not just above the Legislative Assembly's entrances, but in the most public places you can imagine, namely, bus interchanges in this city at Belconnen - - -

Mr Moore: That is to monitor the buses, to know where the buses are.

MR HUMPHRIES: No, Mr Moore; you know that that is not true. The cameras are put in there to monitor behaviour in the interchange. You talk to the people who installed them and you find out. You see where they are directed. They are not directed at the buses; they are directed at the people. These hypocrites opposite get up here and stamp their feet and say how shocked they are by the invasion of civil liberties that is taking place in this community with the proposal to have cameras. But they themselves have installed them in the very sorts of places where we are now talking about installing them -

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