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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2055 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

in the world, what goes on in Canberra and what goes on in the Assembly; and that, therefore, the ability to hear first-hand what happens in the Assembly will aid them in their information process. Most particularly, it will aid journalists in reporting what goes on in this place, because they will have access to material directly from the proceedings of this house in order to inform their viewers or their listeners about what has happened in the Assembly. I think that is a good thing for this Assembly and a good thing for the community as a whole.

Mr Speaker, I am very much in favour of this. I am very much in favour of clarifying some of the matters of privilege which have apparently been obstacles to the wider use of recordings from this place in the past, where there have been concerns raised about how all the parties involved in the broadcast or rebroadcast of proceedings might be affected by matters of privilege, particularly in relation to material that may be defamatory. I think it is important to have a framework. As Mr Humphries said, there are probably other matters of privilege which also need some framework legislation, and it is something we ought to look to in the future.

Mr Speaker, it is a particular source of satisfaction to me that we are making progress on the whole issue of the broadcasting of proceedings because, as one of the people involved, in my time working for Roberta McRae when she was Speaker of the Assembly, in setting up the infrastructure in this building for the Assembly, we took a great deal of trouble to ensure that the infrastructure was there to allow for the broadcasting of proceedings in the future. It is, therefore, with some satisfaction that we see progress starting to be made in allowing that infrastructure to be put to use in order to facilitate the broadcasting of proceedings. To achieve the best results for the broadcasting of proceedings, we will, in time, have to make additional resources available for the broadcasting of proceedings if we want to get away from the cumbersome business of having freestanding cameras located at various points around the chamber; we are going to have to make provision for the installation of cameras and for people to operate cameras in locations remote from the chamber so that it can be done.

When the building was designed, it was designed with that in mind, and there are camera points that have been specified. The actual cameras and other infrastructure were not included in the initial building project because, at that time, the Assembly had not made a decision to go ahead with broadcasting and, therefore, it would have been an inappropriate investment of taxpayers' money. As we move down this path of opening up the Assembly to broadcasting, it is something that I think will have to be considered and will have to be considered by the Government because it is not within the resources of the Assembly to do it without input from the Government. I do believe that would further assist the electronic media in reporting the proceedings of the Assembly, particularly news broadcasts which will want to have vision as part of their broadcast. Without bringing freestanding cameras into this place, TV news will be stuck with using some sort of a photo or something with sound broadcast over the top; whereas the provision of cameras would allow them to use actual vision, as we see on television from the Federal Parliament.

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