Page 2894 - Week 09 - Thursday, 18 August 2005

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Mr Smyth: Oh! So why did you change your mind?

Mrs Burke: Yes, what about your mind. Use the Prime Minister as an excuse.

MR SPEAKER: Order!

MR STANHOPE: I have announced that the ACT will, and we discussed this in question time yesterday, pursue an audit and investigation of the utility, the management, the placement and the possible use of CCTV cameras in other areas within the ACT. We will do that and that is what we are doing. It is a very reasonable thing to do. As I said yesterday, even within the ACT, having regard to the relatively small number of CCTV cameras that we have, there are, I believe—and I will await the outcomes of the audit—four separate ACT government agencies with responsibility for them. I just do not think that is desirable.

MR SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Mr Pratt?

MR PRATT: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Chief Minister, what has changed in terms of the ACT security risk in your mind? Why has it taken you so long after the 2002 Bali bombing to start beefing up security?

MR STANHOPE: Well, we haven’t—that is just an absolute nonsense—

Mr Pratt: You have got all of these avenues that you have not even touched.

MR STANHOPE: It is a matter of major concern—I understand Mr Pratt has been the recipient of briefings from those officers within the ACT—that Mr Pratt stands up in this place and says the ACT government has done nothing since Bali. That defies the fact that I know of the detailed briefings that he has had. The concern for me is that—if he can stand up here now and say that he believes nothing has been done on the basis of the confidential briefings he has received—he is dumb.

Mr Pratt: I didn’t say that.

MR STANHOPE: He has been given the most detailed briefings—

Mr Pratt: I didn’t say nothing has been done.

Mr Smyth: He didn’t say that: he said you!

MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Pratt. Order, Mr Smyth.

MR STANHOPE: He has been given the most detailed briefings by the ACT’s most senior security officials on the detail and the depth of the planning that has been undertaken in the ACT and he stands up in this place and says that nothing has happened, it has taken this long—

Mr Pratt: I didn’t say nothing has happened.


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