Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I should perhaps have extended the motion to include the Hobart, Tasmania office. They too are finding themselves with the sword across their neck as we stand here today. It is a purely bureaucratic decision made by bean counters without a genuine appreciation for the important cultural heritage value that the archives has in states like South Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania. I note that the member for Lyne is speaking on this motion, and I am sure he too will express great disappointment with the decision to shut the Hobart office of the National Archives.

I would like to quote a leading authority on the importance of cultural history in Australia. This is from 5 April 2001 when there was some talk at the time amongst finance bureaucrats under the former government, as I am sure you would remember, Mr Deputy Speaker Bevis, who were looking for savings across the public service. The member for Griffith stood up on this issue and made speeches to both this place and the House of Representatives on the shutting down of the National Archives office in Brisbane. In fact, I think it was something as simple as moving the archives office from a part of his electorate to another electorate in the Brisbane CBD—which I think is probably the deputy speaker’s electorate. He spoke very well, saying that he was deeply concerned that closing this repository would:

… become a pretext for a rapid culling and rationalisation—

of the NAA’s records. He went on to say:

…who knows what documents may be destroyed as a consequence?

I agree fully with the now Prime Minister but then member for Griffith’s view about that—that it is very important that we maintain these offices in Adelaide, Darwin and Hobart. These are very important offices for local communities. As we all understand, archives offices today represent important opportunities not only for research academics but also for the general public. They are of particular interest to those researching family histories and the cultural history of their state, particularly in relation to migrant information. Of course, they have had great importance to the stolen generations and I noted with interest some significant comments by those who represent the stolen generations about these bureaucratic penny-pinching decisions to shut down the offices in Adelaide, Darwin and Hobart.

The one city that does not get mentioned in that is, of course, Brisbane. It appears that Brisbane has survived any culling of its office at this point for reasons best known, I guess, to the bureaucrats involved. But they do play a very important role in the cultural fabric of our society. The Adelaide office is destined to close, unless the government changes its mind on this decision, on 31 March 2011. The decision was taken in November as part of the mid-year economic review and clearly it was a decision made by penny-pinching bureaucrats who were looking for ways to save money due to the excessive spending of the Rudd government.

They have all had to cut down their spending. They have all been told they have to find savings. The National Archives is no exception to that. We know that is the case with the Australian War Memorial as well—they have had to sell advertising for the last post as part of the budget-saving measures, the efficiency dividends, that have been put across the Public Service. This is another one of those penny-pinching episodes of a government desperate to find money in any hollow log they possibly can. Unfortunately, this hollow log means that the Adelaide, Hobart and Darwin offices of the National Archives will be shut, which I think is a very unfortunate decision, which is why I think that those on both sides of the House will support this motion. 

The Archives have been open for over one hundred years and they have played a very large role in the way our cultural history has developed. They store vital information. Interestingly, on one side of my family there is a fellow member of parliament, a state parliamentarian, the Hon. Bob Such. He is related to me through a strange mixing of cousins. He is a third cousin, I think.

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