Information anger
By Jane Ross
and Bert van Bedaf
DESALINATION protesters are incensed at the State Government handing over their personal details to plant consortium AquaSure.
Up to 50 protesters attended a hastily convened meeting in Wonthaggi on Sunday morning to decide what to do about the matter.
Watershed Victoria president Stephen Cannon expressed his outrage in part by wearing red shoes.
He said as far as he is aware, his police “record” consists of a good behaviour bond for obstructing a road. Or as he puts it, “I sat on a chair on a road.”
“(Premier John) Brumby is always going on about bullying – who’s the biggest bully?” asked Brenda Otto who lives with her partner Kevin Brew on Lower Powlett Road, near the plant.
News broke on Saturday that the government had cut a deal with AquaSure, handing over protesters’ details on the grounds that it would protect desalination construction workers and the community.
Protesters would like to know: protect the community from what?
Watershed members all live in the South Gippsland community and say they have never been violent in their protests, which have continued over a period of tow-and-a-half years.
Gathering in McBride Avenue ahead of their meeting, Brenda Otto joked, “I’m file number 52678/103!”
She and her colleagues maintained their collective sense of humour, despite feeling as though the State had trampled over their civil liberties.
“I’m outraged,” Mr Cannon told the press. “Our group has been very responsible. There has been no damage to property and no violence.
“I feel this must be driven politically.
“The police know us, they’ve liaised with us and to a large extent they’ve sympathised with us. If we were any sort of a threat you could understand them alerting the authorities. But we are not.
“What information do they (AquaSure) have? What is it aimed at? Who knows where it is now?
“They say it has happened with other projects; they’ve done the wrong thing a number of times.
Mr Cannon and his colleagues can’t work out what the government and AquaSure have to be afraid of.
It might have something to do with Brenda Otto. She said she and Kevin protested during the North/South pipeline project.
“They took our registration number and our photos. But I flashed my boobs so they had to stop. And do you remember those pensioners who stripped outside Flinders Street Station protesting about pensions? That was me!”
Although no information has reportedly been passed on yet, AquaSure spokesman John Ridley said the Memorandum of Understanding between the company and the police allows for information to be exchanged, as long as it did not violate privacy laws.
Mr Ridley said any sharing of information would be done in compliance with all privacy law requirements.
He also said the company had “not sought nor received any personal files”.
He said the report in last Saturday’s Age was “quite wrong” and “false”. “The fact is it is not true.”
A public document available on the internet, the 20-page memorandum was signed on August 28, 2009, by the Department of Sustainability and Environment, Victoria Police and AquaSure.
It states that “VICPOL (Victoria Police) will release Law Enforcement Data to the project company (AquaSure), subject to “the Standard and Protocols for Law Enforcement Data Security”.
The data may take the form of any text, images, audio and video. It may include “any data related to individuals”, also reports, police diaries or official notebooks.
Mr Ridley said the memorandum was about “helping the police to protect the workers on site and the community. It is about public safety.
“It is about the overall relationship with the police to ensure all work together to protect the site and the community.”
However, Mr Ridley confirmed that if a person or group of people would, for example, push or move a fence or gate at the site and this would have been filmed or photographed by police or passed on to police, the police would be free to pass the information on to AquaSure.
“There could be photos of activities, but this has not happened,” Mr Ridley said.
He said similar memorandums were in place for such sites as the Grand Prix in Albert Park and the Sugarloaf Pipeline Project.
Short URL: http://www.thestar.com.au/?p=121
Posted by 
