Power Simon: Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill — First Reading 
Power Simon: Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:676;Page:21452] 
Hon SIMON POWER (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I rise to support the first reading of the Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill. I will use my time to address the suggestion made by members opposite that the alternative to this bill is to cut out the relevant parts of the Search and Surveillance Bill and paste them into a stand-alone bill. Notwithstanding the good intentions behind this suggestion it does not take account of the fact that the surveillance regime in the Search and Surveillance Bill is part of a complex and integrated scheme for law enforcement search video surveillance interception and tracking powers. In fact that is the whole intent of the Search and Surveillance Bill: to integrate our laws on search and surveillance. Its effective operation relies on the various definitions and protections provided in other parts of the bill such as the creation of trained issuing officers the imposition of reporting obligations and the protection of professional privilege. I am advised by the Parliamentary Counsel Office and justice officials that the interrelated nature of the bill makes the extraction of the surveillance regime undesirable and extremely complex and therefore open to oversights. 
I will also address the claim that the Government should have moved faster to pass the Search and Surveillance Bill. The simple point is that until the Supreme Court decision of 2 September the common law understanding of the lawfulness of covert video surveillance was shared by successive Governments the police and the Court of Appeal. 
Just for the record I think it is worth recounting some of the history behind the legislation. Ten months after the Law Commission’s report on search surveillance powers in June 2007 the then Labour Government announced its decision to proceed with a bill in April 2008. At the time justice Minister Annette King noted that the existing legislation “is silent in relation to visual surveillance devices.” Labour introduced the Search and Surveillance Powers Bill on 17 September 2008—notably the penultimate week before the House rose for the election. In the final sitting week of the House the then Government used urgency to advance or pass 17 pieces of legislation in the one urgency motion but the Search and Surveillance Powers Bill was not among them. My point is that although the previous Government anticipated the need to introduce a regime to govern video surveillance I suggest that no one was advising them they must do so with haste lest current practice be found to be unlawful. 
Shortly after I received the warrant as Minister of Justice I was advised that the Search and Surveillance Powers Bill introduced by the previous Government was not sufficiently comprehensive in its coverage. Rather than amend the bill which again would have been an extremely complex task we had the new Search and Surveillance Bill drafted and introduced in July 2009 before discharging the existing bill. 
It is fair to say that that then Search and Surveillance Bill attracted more than a little controversy. The select committee consideration was extended several times while the Justice and Electoral Committee worked out substantial revisions that would provide greater comfort for parties across the House. However just before it was finally reported back in November last year an incident involving the Serious Fraud Office’s use of its production and examination powers to obtain information from a journalist opened up a new front for controversy. In a letter to me at the time the Hon David Parker raised this issue and several others as obstacles in the path of further support from Labour including limiting the existing powers of the Serious Fraud Office by requiring prior judicial approval raising the threshold for examination orders to offences punishable by 10 years’ imprisonment and exempting the media from being subject to any production and examination orders even those—this is as I recall—approved by a judge. 
These are complex issues that have merited further consideration. We had to balance this against other Government priorities for what has been a very truncated House timetable this year. Again of relevance in these considerations was the fact that no one was telling the Government that the current activities of the police were unlawful and therefore had to be remedied with haste. Even if we could have achieved agreement on the Search and Surveillance Bill and passed it by the middle of this year the Supreme Court decision would have still undoubtedly captured cases where video surveillance was gathered before the bill was passed. 
Finally several other statutes have been amended or enacted by this House since the select committee reported back that would require consideration of whether consequential amendments to the Search and Surveillance Bill are necessary. I therefore support the Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill as a discrete and time-limited bill to provide a temporary fix. This will enable detailed consideration of the remaining complex issues involved with the Search and Surveillance Bill to ensure that any amendments are a durable solution to this problem. I commend this bill to the House.