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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 1 Hansard (8 December) . . Page.. 4037 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

Privacy protection principles will be in place. People concerned about privacy have a guarantee that the cameras will be operated within police guidelines and that complaints can be investigated by the Ombudsman.

Cameras will form an integral part in a strategy aimed at making the centre of Civic a safer place.

The starting point for the debate was the report of the standing committee chaired by Paul Osborne. I am not quite sure who the Liberal Party representative was. Mr Hird, you might be able to remind me. The Labor Party was represented by Rosemary Follett. I know there was general agreement and consensus.

Mr Hird: Mr Kaine was.

MR STANHOPE: Mr Kaine was a member of the committee. There was general bipartisan agreement. The Liberals then embraced that. The Liberals went to the election with specific, unambiguous, unequivocal promises. The Liberals would trial safety cameras in Civic; the Liberals would ensure that there would be privacy guarantees; the Liberals would ensure that complaints could be investigated by the Ombudsman. These are the Liberal promises. All this motion does is ask the Liberals to keep their promises. The motion states:

It is a very simple motion. Will you, the Liberal Party, the Government, keep your promise to trial security cameras in Civic? Then all the ifs and the buts come.

Mr Berry: One day.

MR STANHOPE: Yes, one day. It is a bit like the Belconnen pool. The Liberal Party says, "Yes, one day we will. When we stop blaming everybody else for our inaction, when we stop blaming everybody else for the fact that we cannot get up off the chair and cannot get up off our hands, when we stop blaming the Labor Party, when we stop blaming Wormald, when we stop blaming the fact that we do not have privacy principles in place, when we stop blaming the fact that we have not done the work we promised in our election manifesto that we would do, when we stop blaming everybody else, maybe we will get around to it. We have been promising it for two years, since the last election".

Are you going to promise it for the next election as well? Is part of your policy platform for the next election going to be: "We repeat the promise we made at the last election campaign that we will institute a trial of security cameras in Civic", or will you just sit on your hands for another two years? You have had this promise on the table for 22 months. You have 22 months to go. You have blamed everybody in sight. You have blamed us; you have blamed Wormald; you have blamed your inability to develop the privacy principles that you said you would develop. You have not got around to it. It is

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