Page 764 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 20 March 2018
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
costs and personal trauma that that caused to many people. They could have had a valid excuse to not agree to repay the money under these criteria during that period. It would be recoverable later, of course. Clearly, under this legislation there is discretion for the Head of Service to do this in a reasonable way that does not unfairly impact on people, whilst ensuring the integrity of the public purse.
On the other side of the equation it is important to note that this scheme is about recovering money and it helps to provide certainty and integrity in the management of public funds. Overpaid public service employees are paid with public funds and there is a responsibility to recover this money in a reasonable time—also, as I said, with due accord to people’s personal circumstances so as not to create circumstances of hardship.
The second amendment in this bill will remove uncommenced provisions in the Workplace Privacy Act relating to employer surveillance. The uncommenced provisions would have allowed an employer to apply to the Magistrates Court for an authority to conduct surveillance of a worker outside the workplace. The change was recommended in a review of the Workplace Privacy Act. The act already allows an employer to apply to the Magistrates Court for an authority to conduct surveillance on an employee inside the workplace. The employer would need to demonstrate a reasonable belief that the employee was engaged in unlawful activity and that external surveillance was necessary. There were other significant safeguards in place and the Human Rights Commission was closely involved in developing the scheme to ensure that it was appropriately balanced with the right to privacy.
As I said, when taking the original decision to delay the commencement of these provisions, stakeholders nevertheless raised concerns about the provisions and we did reconsider. It is one of those circumstances where one should always be mindful of new information, and I think new information was presented in this circumstance. I decided it was appropriate to conduct a broader review of the whole civil surveillance space. There are many unresolved issues in the area of civil surveillance, as well as emerging issues related to new technology, and that was the context in which the provisions were deferred.
The review was intended to consider a range of issues, including the occurrence and use of surveillance in civil litigation claims in the territory; the extent of existing regulation of surveillance activities, including regulation of surveillance businesses; whether the Listening Devices Act 1992 should be expanded to capture video surveillance and electronic monitoring; the ability of existing legislation to respond to emerging surveillance technologies and practices, such as smartphones, fitness trackers, geotagging and drones; the possible need for a tort of breach of privacy; and the interaction of provisions regulating surveillance with other ACT legislation, including the Information Privacy Act, the Workplace Privacy Act and the Human Rights Act.
As I said the intention was to come up with a best practice model for regulating this rapidly evolving area of civil law. As members will recall, an expert consultant was contracted, who developed an issues paper, which is available on the JACS website. There were also public submissions.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video