Qld: Police investigate Amber Alerts

AAP General News (Australia)
08-07-2004
Qld: Police investigate Amber Alerts

BRISBANE, Aug 7 AAP - Radio and television stations may break into their normal transmissions
to broadcast details of abducted children if an Amber Alert system is introduced, Police
Minister Judy Spence said today.

Amber Alerts began in the United States in 1997 after nine-year-old Amber Hagerman
was abducted while riding her bicycle in Texas and was later found murdered.

Ms Spence said today a similar system could be introduced in Queensland and possibly, nationally.

"I think we can get it up and running here in Queensland and I've asked the police
service to prepare me a submission on how it would operate," Ms Spence told 4BC Radio
in Brisbane today.

But police would have to work out which cases were legitimate abductions and which
were family law matters and subject to privacy laws, she said.

"I think that we can certainly break into radio and TV broadcasts, like they do in
the United States and I'm sure the media will come on board volunteering to do that."

"Police are keen to introduce it and they are looking as quickly as possible about
how they can do it."

Electronic roadside signage with photos of missing children was not an option at this
state as most Australian signs did not have the capacity to put up images and could display
only a limited number of letters.

Ms Spence said further publicity would not have helped find missing Sunshine Coast
teenager Daniel Morcombe who disappeared from a bus stop near his home on December 7 last
year.

Widespread publicity has resulted in over 6,000 pieces of information about 13-year-old
Daniel being given to police to help their search, some of it from as far away as Perth.

The Amber Alert submission will go to cabinet in the next couple of months, Ms Spence said.

She will also take a proposal for the introduction of the system to an Australasian
Police Ministers' Council meeting in November.

"There are also some legal implications in terms of the Broadcasting Act, which is
federal legislation, so we have to put some energy and effort into [it] and that's why
a national agenda will be important."

AAP rad/sjb

KEYWORD: AMBER

2004 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.