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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3361 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

The problem with locally worked out codes of practice and protocols is that, although they are very well intended - I am sure they are well intended at the two places that we saw - there are no consequences for either accidental or intentional breach, and make no mistake, Madam Deputy Speaker, they are being breached here in Australia.

I want to mention one incident in particular. We had a meeting with the Queensland police. The deputy commissioner of the police force up there was very proud of the fact that some of the successes from the video were being shown at the police academy. I would suggest that that was in breach of any protocol in place up there. During the course of this inquiry the committee soon came to realise that the parties involved in putting together and working under these protocols generally have a very low appreciation of the serious nature of the privacy issues involved in working with surveillance cameras.

Another situation that the committee became aware of while we were researching this issue was that a security firm which sold and monitors a system for one council used video footage from its monitoring operation in its sales presentation to at least one other place, contrary to the protocols it was operating under. That was another blatant breach, I would suggest, of any so-called protocols that were in place. The footage seen included street assaults and the corresponding police response, and it was seen by a group made up of local and State government officials, the police and a group of local businessmen. To date I am fairly sure that the council which owns the original video footage does not even know that this has taken place.

Despite all of these problems elsewhere, Madam Deputy Speaker, one of the big issues for the committee was the fact that there has been no research done into the effectiveness of these cameras. We feel that there is the opportunity to get it right here if it can be shown that surveillance cameras do have a positive impact. I would suggest that cameras are often put in place for a political purpose. They are often put in because a council member or a member of a State parliament or an Assembly makes some sort of outlandish promise about law and order issues. Because video cameras to a certain extent often increase the public's perception of their safety, they are often put in with no real research done into whether there is a problem, and, after they have been in place for any period of time, no research is done into what impact they have had. One concern for the committee was the fact that once the surveillance cameras went in we could not ascertain any place where they had been pulled out. I think in 99 per cent of times they have been expanded without any consultation.

Madam Deputy Speaker, recommendations 8 to 10 cover the process of conducting a possible trial. We felt that once proper research has been done, once the Government has considered our previous recommendations and what it can do to change the physical environment of Civic, such as improving the lighting - the committee is of the opinion that that, in itself, will have some sort of impact - and once privacy legislation is in place, then, and only then, should the Government consider a trial.

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