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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (29 March) . . Page.. 1001 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

surveillance cameras in Civic. The Attorney-General has consistently run this disingenuous and, I believe, dishonest campaign in relation to the Labor Party's position on this.

Mr Wood: And he never did anything to advance the cause.

MR STANHOPE: He has done nothing. He has promised every year to introduce a trial of security cameras, and has done nothing. It is better that we focus on Mr Humphries' record in relation to security cameras in Civic, and the fact that, as the Attorney-General, he has done nothing. By this appalling lack of attention to this significant issue, he has failed to do anything, and he has sought to cover his failure by suggesting that it is the Labor Party that is holding up the trial. Well, this is really interesting. What we need to do is go back to "The Electronic Eye" report, a report in which both Mr Osborne and Ms Follett stated publicly that, during the inquiry, they both changed to a middle position, where they were able to agree on a wide range of recommendations.

Ms Follett has declared quite publicly that her position moved dramatically from one of opposition to one of support for the trial. Paul Osborne, similarly, said that his position moved from one of total support to one of support for a trial. Those are the facts. The Attorney-General simply needs to accept that. He cannot hide behind the fact that he has done nothing, that he has sat on his hands for the last five years.

Mr Wood: He just wanted an issue.

MR STANHOPE: That is right, it is a nice populist issue that he could run on and an issue that he could pursue irrespective of the facts of the matter. I would not have actually made those concluding remarks had not the Attorney-General interjected, once again, that the Labor Party had had a late change of heart on this. We now have a good piece of legislation, which actually pursues one of the recommendations made by that committee, a recommendation that the Attorney-General chose not to support in his response.

Mr Hargreaves: And it is five years late.

MR STANHOPE: That is absolutely right. Five years of inaction by the Attorney-General; five years of inaction in the face of rising concerns about community safety and law and order issues; five years of doing nothing; five years of empty rhetoric. The Labor Party has now moved to fill one of the gaps that the Attorney-General refused to fill himself because of his penchant for inaction. It has now been done by the Labor Party and Mr Humphries has now been embarrassed into fulfilling the promises that he and the Liberal Party have been making for years about a security camera trial. I commend this Bill to the Assembly, Mr Speaker.

Debate (on motion by Mr Humphries ) adjourned.

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