Page 1879 - Week 07 - Thursday, 20 August 1992
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cost may be involved in holding positions open and providing relief staff, but this cost needs to be balanced against the benefits of retaining skilled employees and the enormous personal cost to employees if they lose their job or are unable to care for their families adequately. Now is the time to introduce this Bill and provide ACT private sector workers with this protection.
I therefore commend the Bill to the Assembly, and present the accompanying explanatory memorandum.
Debate (on motion by Mr De Domenico) adjourned.
LISTENING DEVICES BILL 1992
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (10.38): I present the Listening Devices Bill 1992.
Title read by Clerk.
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
This Bill is an important addition to privacy legislation in the ACT. The Listening Devices Bill is required for two reasons. Firstly, the legislation will rectify an anomaly created by an amendment to the Australian Federal Police Act 1970 which regulates the use of listening devices by police only. Flowing on from this, and more importantly, the Bill will achieve a wider social objective of enhancing rights to privacy in the ACT by imposing relevant controls on the use of listening devices by private citizens, bodies corporate and ACT Government agencies.
The clandestine use of listening devices should not be tolerated in any society, as it represents an interference with the ordinary citizen's right to privacy. The use of listening devices should be sanctioned only to protect the public interest, for example, in law enforcement contexts covered for ACT purposes under the Australian Federal Police Act 1979, as amended by the Law and Justice Legislation Amendment Act 1989, with appropriate judicial and other sanctions and safeguards to ensure that law enforcement agencies do not themselves abuse the use of clandestine listening devices. Similar to many of the other States, the intent of the legislation is not to discriminate as between the various types of devices but instead to ensure that listening devices, regardless of their type, are used by ACT citizens in legitimate circumstances. This regulatory approach overcomes any administrative difficulties which would be experienced by specifying certain listening devices as unlawful, thereby avoiding the need to keep changing the legislation to keep abreast of technological advances.
The Bill, therefore, prohibits a person not party to a private conversation or a person party to a private conversation from using a listening device to listen to or record a private conversation. There is provision, however, to use a listening device in certain legitimate circumstances, such as an authority granted by or under a law of the Commonwealth, the unintentional hearing of a private
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