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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 1 Hansard (8 December) . . Page.. 4041 ..

MR SPEAKER: Order! Your leader was heard in silence. I expect the same courtesy to Mr Humphries.

MR HUMPHRIES: I know you people like to shout people down. That is a nice convenient way of dealing with issues. But I will present my arguments, and you can respond as you wish. You can hurl all the abuse and call me all the names you like, but I will put the arguments very coldly and calmly. Labor instituted a committee to stall security cameras. The report endorsed cameras, subject to extremely heavy restrictions, subject to the enactment of privacy legislation specifically about security cameras and subject to the establishment of a new ombudsman specifically for the purpose of monitoring cameras. They wanted a camera ombudsman to be set up in the ACT, at a cost of about $130,000 to the ACT community. They are not opposed to cameras, Mr Speaker! They say, "We are in favour of cameras. We just want you to spend $130,000 making it happen, before you put the first camera on the streets of the city".

Then we had a motion in June 1997, when the Government proposed to proceed without the ombudsman and without the specific privacy legislation duplicating, as they would have done, the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the ACT Ombudsman and duplicating the protocols already in place in respect of the Federal Police, who will be operating the cameras. We proposed proceeding without those restrictions in place. Again, the Labor Party, in conjunction with Mr Moore at the time, moved against the Government.

Mr Hargreaves: When was this?

MR HUMPHRIES: This was in June 1997. Mr Moore moved an amendment to the motion that the Assembly take note of the paper to add the following words:

Again, this so-called green light was much more like a very pale amber light, if not an absolute red light. You said, "You can have cameras, but you have to put in place a special camera ombudsman", which I note you have now forgotten about, which I note you have now abandoned.

Mr Berry: When was this - 1996, 21/2 years ago?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, again I ask for some respect for my right to put a point of view in silence. Again, they wanted a camera ombudsman and they wanted special camera privacy legislation. We said, "Sorry, we do not intend to take that approach. We will go to the electorate and we will say that, if re-elected, we intend to implement cameras on the basis that these unnecessary filibusters on the part of the Labor Party should be put aside". Lo and behold, the electorate backed the Liberal Party in that matter and re-elected us with a 10 per cent margin over the Berry-led Labor Opposition. The Labor Party went through one of its most humiliating defeats in its

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