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

No, I don’t think Gumeracha has ever been Labor. Gumeracha, of course, was Tom Playford’s seat, Member for Lyons. He was the longest serving Premier in the country’s history.

This information was obtained through things like the archives. Both Barry Sharman and Bob Such were able to get information and research they could not possibly get if these archives were shut and moved to a central location in Canberra, Sydney or Melbourne. It is very eastern-states focused, but that is typical when you have Canberra based bureaucrats who are just penny-pinching, looking for any hollow log to make up for the shortfalls that unfortunately the Treasurer has foisted upon these departments with the massive spending spree that he has been on. This is an example of decisions made by the government at national level now affecting communities at the lower level.

There has been a great outcry in Adelaide and South Australia about this decision. It has caused a great deal of resentment, because again it seems that cities like Melbourne and Sydney—and in particular in this case Brisbane—escape the cuts. I remind the House that in 2001 the member for Griffith, the now Prime Minister, spoke very passionately in this place about the need to keep the archives office open in his electorate. It seems a little strange that the government has decided to shut down the archives in Adelaide, Hobart and Darwin but Brisbane has survived. So we are disappointed with this decision and thus I have moved this motion. I am very pleased that the member for Grey has decided to speak in favour of this motion as well. He has obviously had very similar feedback in his electorate in South Australia about the impact this decision will have. I will be interested in the contribution of the member for Lyons; I am sure he will be disappointed with the decision as far as Hobart goes as well. I am sure people in Darwin have had a similar reaction.

We should not forget that archives are a very important part of the cultural fabric of our country. If we do not study our history, we risk forgetting it. One of the great things Australians do is honour the past. We do that through war-time records. We honour people who served our country with great monuments around the country as well. These archives contain information about people’s service, they contain information about migrant records and they have a great deal of the state’s and city’s history contained in them. If you simply up and move them to an eastern state on the basis of bureaucratic penny-pinching—just because they are a hollow log from where the government can steal back money to pay some of the massive debt that this country has built up—then that is a disaster for smaller states like South Australia, like Tasmania and like the Northern Territory. We hope very much that the public outrage, which is clear in South Australia at the moment, is enough to force the Rudd government to reconsider this decision. I know that the Labor members from South Australia are privately disappointed. I hope they are able to bring the same passion to this debate as the member for Griffith did in 2001.

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