This speech was delivered on 19/3/2014 in the NSW Upper House. You can read the original contribution here.
Mr DAVID SHOEBRIDGE [6.30 p.m.]: Today I discuss the increasing use of closed-circuit television [CCTV] by local councils across New South Wales, and some of the financial, social and political implications of that increase. At the outset I acknowledge that this contribution is informed by the research undertaken by Dr Robert Carr from the University of Wollongong, who continues to carry out work in this area. I thank him for sharing his insights. In looking into this issue I discovered that there is much about closed-circuit television that we currently do not know. We do not currently know how many closed-circuit television cameras there are in public places in New South Wales. We do not know how many of these cameras are currently in use. We do not have any overall figures that suggest they work to prevent crime, to identify the perpetrators of crime or to help people feel safe. There are no maps that we are aware of that show the locations of closed-circuit television cameras. There are also no New South Wales best practice guidelines for either the technical or operational aspects of closed-circuit television systems.
It is therefore somewhat remarkable that the Abbott Government, in tight financial circumstances, has committed $50 million in grants to local councils for the installation of closed-circuit television cameras. It has done so in the absence of solid evidence that such systems make us safer, or even make us feel safer. In fact, the Government’s own Institute of Criminology recognises that cameras have limited efficacy at best for crime prevention. The Abbott Government shares with the O’Farrell Government a preference for announcements over data—a preference that means law and order programs are evaluated on what sounds best in a media sound bite rather than what will work.
The evidence that exists does not support closed-circuit television systems reducing crime overall. In fact, a review of the operation of such cameras in Nowra, for example, showed a modest increase in crime in the areas where the cameras were in operation. Passive surveillance of broad public areas does not work. However, there are instances where closed-circuit television cameras can work and make sense, such as at automatic teller machines or at the entrances of pubs and licensed premises. Their efficacy is difficult to establish though because there is no requirement or provision for the collection of crime statistics before the installation of closed-circuit television systems. What is relied on instead is anecdotal evidence from police and media reporting.
Given the impact of closed-circuit television systems on our civil liberties, a solid evidence-based approach should be in place before they are rolled out further. Support for closed-circuit television systems within the media is often high, with grainy pictures of public places providing a useful source of footage for the media, despite the quality being so low that an accurate identification of people filmed is generally impossible. It is for this reason that experts criticise the use of closed-circuit television footage in court cases. In New South Wales changes were made in May 2013 following a damning decision in the Administrative Decisions Tribunal that rejected the basis on which Shoalhaven council operated its closed-circuit television cameras. The O’Farrell Government hastily brought in regulations to exempt all council closed-circuit television operations from the requirements of the privacy laws. At the time The Greens tried to amend the legislation to provide that closed-circuit television cameras had to be useful, fit for purpose and compliant with privacy laws. That amendment was not supported, and we know why: the data that would allow those conclusions to be reached simply does not exist.
What are the risks of uncritically rolling out cameras across our communities? There may be more than one thinks. The most obvious are privacy rights, with Big Brother actually watching people in more and more public places. There are also financial implications and risks of police misuse of the systems. Local councils could be forgiven for accepting funding for the installation of closed-circuit television cameras in their local areas, but when they shake hands with their local Federal member to accept the one-off Federal grant they should be telling their local ratepayers that the much larger costs of monitoring and maintaining the systems will not be met by the Federal member, who will soon disappear. They will be met by council and ratepayers, and that may well have crippling financial implications down the track. In Mr Carr’s research the cost burden of operating closed-circuit television systems was belatedly acknowledged by almost all responding councils.
In New South Wales these systems are often monitored by police, not councils, although Mr Carr’s research shows that sometimes the monitoring is contracted out to private security firms. This has the effect that police have been able to acquire closed-circuit television systems more or less for their own use despite being prevented from doing so under policy and funding restrictions. There are substantial risks that the systems will be misused. One of the more obvious ways in which this could happen in New South Wales is where council-funded systems are monitored by police, who then use the systems for broader information gathering, rather than for public safety, which is the reason they were authorised.
All of this takes us back to the Abbott Government’s funding program, and we see it now for what it is. Like the New South Wales Coalition Government, the Abbott Government wants to appear as though it is tough on crime. Closed-circuit television cameras appear to be tough on crime—after all, they invade our privacy in public places and civil libertarians criticise them. We need better than this. We need policy decisions that are based on data, not simply a media sound bite.
