Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

in reply—If you expect me to top that, you must be joking. Members have spoken about the Archives Amendment Bill 2008 and how it encapsulates one of the beauties of the National Archives and the vital role it performs in being a treasure trove and a warehouse of our nation’s history. I would like to thank the members for Sturt, Fairfax, Parramatta, Forde and Dawson for their contributions. I do not know if the member for Forde was actually putting in an application to become a member of the advisory council of the National Archives but I will take the opportunity to actually thank the council for performing the roles that they do. I would like to acknowledge in this place Mr Paul Santamaria, the chairman; Mr Peter Grant; Senator Kate Lundy; the Hon. Alex Somlyay, who obviously made a great contribution previously with respect to this legislation; Mr Ian Hancock; Mr Roland Perry; Mr Aladin Rahemtula; and also one particular individual whom I know quite well, Mr David Irvine, who will be a great addition to the advisory council. There is also Dr Dianne Snowden, Associate Professor Dr Helen Irving, Professor John Williams, Dr Mickey Dewar and Professor Mick Dodson. I think their efforts should be acknowledged.

We have heard personal stories and personal vignettes. I guess it is difficult to relate the Archives Amendment Bill 2008 given the emotion that has been put forward in some of the discussion about people’s family histories and what it means to them. It must be a great task for the National Archives to try to encapsulate that, to decide what should and should not be going in there. That task is performed by the director-general in most cases. It is a living history. It was said by the previous speaker, the shadow justice minister, Christopher Pyne, that many other countries do not have this facility and this particular capacity.

Even though this bill we are putting forward enjoys bipartisan support and is what would be categorised as a ‘dry bill’, we know it is a much deeper bill than that. It encapsulates our country’s history and it does that in a very safe way. We talk about what we might say to our children when they ask in 30 or 35 years time about the events of government and the great events of the day. We see those events through the prism of our daily experiences. We live them. But the Archives encapsulates them and keeps them as a record so our children and our children’s children can go back and look at decisions that have been made—and reporters can and historians can. I think that is a vital role and we should promote the National Archives. I have walked past it with Senator Faulkner on many occasions but have not been given the opportunity to go through. We will be making sure that I go into the National Archives very shortly to actually see firsthand the work that they do.

As I said, in many ways this is a technical bill dealing with the definitions of such terms as ‘material of the archives’, ‘care’ and ‘record’ and inserting an objects clause. All of us here know it is an important and long overdue measure, modernising the legislative framework governing one of our most important national institutions, the National Archives of Australia. Obviously, the previous government had dealt with the issue in 2006 but because of the proroguing of parliament had not been able to proceed with it.

The government administration of record keeping has changed enormously since the Archives Act was drafted in the 1970s and passed in 1983. We heard in a number of the contributions about the idea of the paperless office. I do not know if the paperless office has lived up to its early expectations, but we keep on being reassured that it is just around the corner. If you look at what is encapsulated in this, you will start reflecting on the paperless office! Nonetheless, today’s email traffic and websites and the technology allowing the digitisation of huge volumes of information are transforming the archival world, requiring new approaches to all stages of record keeping, from their creation, evaluation of their long-term significance and their preservation to, importantly, their long-term availability to the public.

Following on from the recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission over a decade ago, this bill is a useful step to bring the Archives Act up to date, to modernise it and to enable Public Service agencies and the Archives to meet the challenges of our ever-changing technology. It is through the Archives that we know and understand our nation’s past. Through the Archives, future generations, our children, will be given an account of our activities and contributions. In reality, when we think about the National Archives, it is the ultimate accountability agency. With that, I thank members for their support for this bill.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.

See this speech in context