Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Makin has touched on the role of the Publications Committee and the main thrust of the recommendations. Mr Speaker, as you will see from the contents of the report, Distribution of the parliamentary papers series, this committee has played a very important role in reviewing the process by which information can be relayed to the community at large, allowing everybody an opportunity to have access to the parliamentary process. The need for the report is because of tightening of the distribution of the parliamentary papers series. Mr Speaker, you would be aware of that. There was a false expectation that the parliamentary papers series need be available only in a digital rather than in a hard copy format, thinking that it would allow access to the papers just as easily, and therefore we could reduce costs by reducing hard copies.

This is certainly a simplistic view and too premature. It is important that the general public have access to these papers, so there needs to be a structure whereby papers can be put together in a less unstructured way. The cost of the retention of hard copies is usually small and there is not enough depth in the process with the digital electronic format. The important point is that those who receive the hard copies are usually the ones who set up the access for electronic copies. The committee found from a departmental website that, as soon as this year’s report goes on, last year’s report comes off in most areas, thereby removing the link. So there is a need for national, state and parliamentary libraries to have an ongoing point of reference. There also needs to be more links and the ability to keep some continuity in the papers so that people can find the papers in the system.

Recommendation 1 deals with Commonwealth departmental libraries not receiving hard copies and therefore not keeping a full series of papers. There is no doubt that there needs to be work done on departments that get their information together two years late. We received evidence that one department was up to three years late on one occasion. We need to make sure that those agencies receive a little bit more attention.

Recommendations 12 and 14 deal with the issue of some documents which just do not turn up—usually the controversial ones—and therefore are not available to the public. It is thought that there is a need to ensure they are available and in a timely fashion. Recommendation 16 shows the importance of having website links from each agency so that all documents that are presented to parliament are available as public documents. The committee became aware of the need to develop an online digital repository for the parliamentary papers series, with someone in charge to monitor and catalogue all papers that are in the system and make them available within a reasonable time period. This is reflected in recommendation 19.

With cost always a consideration for good governance, recommendation 20 of the committee looks at the Senate’s digital imaging project and asks the House of Representatives to investigate similar digital imaging of all documents, going back to all of the House’s committee reports which have been presented from 1901 up to 1996, to make sure that they are available online. This is a large part of the Australian historical democratic process of the parliament at work which the public needs to have easy access to, using our modern technology. How can young people engage with the parliamentary process without having the links available to look at these documents? I think it is very necessary for these things to occur.

I thank the chair and other members of the committee who have served with us, and particularly thank Jason Sherd and his assistants for putting all this together. I hope the Presiding Officers and our good clerks will give this report the consideration that it needs. It is a very important report and I look forward to speedy consideration of it.

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