Govt CCTV pledge falls short
A new $7 million commitment to installing CCTV cameras and improving monitoring falls short of the Barnett Government’s four-year $13.5 million election promise.
The Opposition has accused the Government of breaking its promise, but Police Minister Liza Harvey says only $8.5 million has been committed because the Government has been able to find savings.
During the State election campaign, the Liberal Party pledged $5 million for a crime prevention infrastructure fund, which local governments could access for CCTV cameras in high-crime areas, and $8.5 million to upgrade a facility at Maylands to access live feeds.
Mrs Harvey announced today that $2 million would be included in the upcoming Budget and $5 million would be made available in 2016-17 to implement the State’s CCTV strategy.
She said the $4 million included in the election promise to upgrade the facility at Maylands would no longer be needed because of new techniques and technologies.
Money that was set aside for upgrading and linking the Public Transport Authority to the police system would also not be needed because it had been achieved using the existing budget.
“Instead of having a standalone structure, where we would have the feed of CCTV footage into it at Maylands, we have now found that by insisting that we have internet-based systems with an IP address we can equip police with the technology to access the IP addresses at a much cheaper cost,” Mrs Harvey said.
Police Minister Liza Harvey
“I expect that the community, particularly at the moment understanding the Budget environment that we have with the shrinking share of the GST and the collapse in the iron ore price, I think they expect us to have a look and make sure we are getting value for money out of every single thing that we do.”
Mrs Harvey said $5 million was a substantial amount of money for CCTV improvements and local governments would be “hard pressed” to spend that in the two-year timeframe.
Shadow police minister Michelle Roberts said the announcement confirmed the Barnett Government had broken its election promise and WA’s CCTV network was unlikely to meet expectations.
“The total investment is $5 million short of what was promised … and falls well short of what is needed,” Ms Roberts said.
“After seven years in Government, the Liberal Party is still yet to develop an integrated CCTV system.”
WA Local Government Association president Troy Pickard said $4 million now available to local governments would help councils protect their local communities with increased CCTV coverage and more coordinated camera operations.
