John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 9 August 2006 the Minister for Justice and Customs answered my question No. 3391 in relation to tampering with CCTV cameras in the baggage area of Sydney airport controlled by Customs. That answer confirmed that on 23 October 2004 a camera was found to have no focus. On 26 January 2005 a second camera was found to be facing the wall. On 30 January the original camera, camera No. 1, was also found to be facing the wall. Mr Speaker, I asked a whole series of questions of the minister about that on 9 and 10 August last year, and last week I asked you in the parliament, under standing order 105(b), to follow these questions up to get answers. It is not good enough for the minister to say that, while on three occasions in a very highly sensitive area these cameras were out of focus or pointing to a wall, nevertheless, because of the overlap factor, the other fields of view were picked up by cameras that were operating properly. People need to know why these cameras were interfered with in one of the most highly sensitive areas. The government prides itself on national security, yet on three separate occasions cameras in a highly sensitive area were interfered with. We need to know why. (Time expired)