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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2206 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

What the reaction today overlooks is that the Government is proposing to operate a trial in which the only people who will have access to that video information are Australian Federal Police officers. They, of course, are part of an agency of the Commonwealth Government and are therefore fully subject to existing privacy legislation. There is no need for further legislation in respect of that operation. If we were having a trial in which a private security firm were monitoring the cameras, yes, there would be a deficiency in legislation. But there is not when Commonwealth officers, namely, Australian Federal Police men and women, are the only people with access to those cameras and to the tapes produced by them. It is nonsense to talk about legislation in those terms.

I have also put to members of this Assembly that the Commonwealth Ombudsman almost certainly has a role to play in the enforcement of Commonwealth privacy legislation and certainly has a role to play in the work of Australian Federal Police officers. So why do we need to appoint a separate special privacy ombudsman when we already have an ombudsman with full jurisdiction in this area, namely, the Commonwealth Ombudsman? Any breaches of the legislation would be by Commonwealth officers, namely, Australian Federal Police officers. That is why the Government has rejected the recommendations of the committee. They were not well thought through. We already have the legislation in place and we already have the Ombudsman in place. It would be nonsense to produce another person to do the same job as the present Commonwealth Ombudsman. It would be nonsense to produce legislation to do the job which is already done by the Commonwealth Privacy Act. What is the reason for it? There is, of course, no reason.

I said before that I thought it would cost $100,000 to develop legislation. I asked for a costing on the preparation of privacy legislation and the establishment of an ombudsman's position. My advice was that the budget for such measures would be roughly as follows: A consultancy to evaluate the trial itself would cost $50,000. If you added extra costs for monitoring personnel for the purposes of a trial, you would have another $22,000. If you set up privacy legislation, you would be looking at $59,000 in costed time. That includes research, community consultation, industry consultation, and drafting. They are not my figures; they are the figures I have from my department. The employment of an ombudsman, presumably on a part-time basis but with backup support such as secretarial support and so on, would cost $60,000. That is $119,000 for us to implement a trial that could be as short as four or five months. I do not believe that the Territory needs to spend that money or to waste that time.

I make one last comment before sitting down. I was told that there are problems with the operation of security cameras elsewhere. It was not said exactly where. Indeed, there was a suggestion about misuse of cameras elsewhere. Mr Moore has indicated to me that his attention was drawn to paragraphs 4.3 to 4.9 of the report, which make reference to the fact that there is little formal complaints process in place in respect of cameras in Brisbane. Comments are made elsewhere about the lack of arrangements in place to protect members of the public. (Extension of time granted) The suggestion is that there are problems with other places. The problems identified in this report are not problems with misuse of the cameras. They are problems with a perceived lack of protection, but no explanation was given of where that actually results in abuse of people's privacy.

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