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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (6 November) . . Page.. 3686 ..

Debate resumed from 25 September 1997, on motion by Mr Osborne:

That the report be noted.

MR WOOD (10.41): Mr Speaker, when the debate was interrupted I was indicating that the Government seemed to be relishing the prospect of running a law and order campaign. Certainly, the Minister, Mr Humphries, was, if not the Government as a whole. I would find it surprising that they would seek to run such a campaign at a time when armed hold-ups appear to be occurring in the ACT without any control. People who work in banks, shops or service stations can no longer feel safe. Even customers who visit those places cannot feel safe. The community at large is highly anxious about this increasing number of armed hold-ups. I would be surprised if the Minister thought he could sustain any notion that here is a government that is on top of the issues.

I might indicate that the Labor Party will run a law and order campaign. Certainly, we will focus on crime, but we will focus on those more serious issues in the background that may lead people to crime. We will focus on the social conditions that many people face in Canberra, such as a lack of employment, inadequate housing and a whole range of issues that might tend to lead people to crime - a path on which they would not be if circumstances for them were better. That is one of the steps that the ALP will take, as well, of course, as focusing on the prevention of crime.

I come back to this debate on the position of surveillance cameras. This Assembly, I repeat, has made its views well known, and the Minister should attend to the views of this Assembly if he wants to do anything further about surveillance cameras.

MR MOORE (10.43): Mr Speaker, the issue of surveillance cameras has been with us for quite some time. I think there is a series of issues that apply to surveillance cameras and how we use them. Nowhere have they been dealt with better or more thoroughly than in the report of the Standing Committee on Legal Affairs. Prior to that report coming down I had been strongly opposed to surveillance cameras. I was concerned about the matters that the standing committee dealt with. Many of the concerns that I had have been taken into account by the committee.

Before the committee reported it had always been my view that I would not have any room to move, that I would simply say, "No, there will be no surveillance cameras, because of the potential for misuse". Mr Speaker, you may recall the resolution of the Assembly when the report was tabled. It included an amendment that I had put forward. It read:

That the Assembly takes note of the paper and, in noting the paper, this Assembly requires the Government to refrain from any implementation of surveillance cameras that is not in accordance with all the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Legal Affairs report "The Electronic Eye".

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