Independent MLA Michael Moore expressed concern yesterday over a proposal to put closed-circuit television monitoring in Civic.
The proposal has been put by the Australian Protective Service to the Community Safety Committee which was set up by the ACT Government to look at ways to curbs violence and disorder in Civic.
The APS proposal would put closed-circuit television cameras in Civic and monitor 24 hours a day. An operator in the remote monitoring station would scrutinise television signals and alert police of incidents requiring attention. It would cost about $250,000.
Mr Moore he had grave civil liberties concerns about the proposal.
“”It smacks of George Orwell’s 1984,” he said. “But a decade late.”
He was especially concerned about the possibility that the signals could be recorded on video.
The director of APS, John Mackay, said he was aware of the civil-liberties concerns and acknowledged they would have to be talked through. The APS was presenting a technological aid. It was not the full solution. Other things were also needed like changes to licensing laws and more police on the beat, but he was not an expert in those areas.
He thought the committee should look seriously at the technology and the system that the APS could provide.
The APS proposal says the monitoring would have a deterrent effect; could provide police with information about criminal acts; and would also help in non-security matters like public safety, medical emergencies and traffic and pedestrian studies.
A similar system in the Brisbane Mall area recorded 653 incidents over four months: street fighting 123; theft 32; drunk and disorderly conduct 121; car offences 12; begging 16; drugs 11; indecent exposure 11; firearms 4; “”observations of vote 254 and others.
Mr Mackay said the system could efficiently direct police resources to trouble spots, rather than relying on chance or saturation policing.
The proposal says the Brisbane experiment showed it was effective in “”minimising disorder and bringing greater control to bear on those elements of society that would otherwise deny the area to legitimate users, tourists and business interests”. In Brisbane “”the miscreants were now frequenting areas of Southbank”.
Mr Moore said this thinking created two levels of society: the “”respectable” businesses and tourists on one hand and the miscreants on the other. This sort of proposal had to be nipped in the bud.
“”Law and order proposals often sound good, but they do nothing to solve deeper social problems,” he said.
Increases in crime recorded by police were often attributable to greater reporting of crime rather than a rise in crime itself, as Institute of Criminology research had showed, he said.
“”The ACT police approach of having more officers on the ground might be more expensive, but it is what community policing is all about _ police working with young people not against them.”