George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

At the request of Senator Lundy, I move:

That the Senate—

(a)

notes that:

(i)

legal deposit is a statutory provision found in the legislation of most countries requiring producers of publications to deposit gratis copies of their works in libraries, usually the national library,

(ii)

in Australia, the Copyright Act 1968 requires Australian publishers to deposit one copy of every publication with the National Library of Australia (NLA),

(iii)

the National Library Act 1960 requires the NLA to develop and maintain a national collection of library material relating to Australia and the Australian people and legal deposit is a major factor enabling the NLA to meet this requirement,

(iv)

legal deposit has ensured that an outstanding collection of Australian publications in print form has been acquired by the NLA on behalf of the nation,

(v)

the NLA is seeking revision of the legal deposit section within the Copyright Act 1968 to encompass publications in non-print form due to the impact of new technologies and the Internet on the creation, publication and dissemination of information, which has been profound in recent years,

(vi)

a significant amount of Australia’s documentary heritage is now published in electronic form and unless the NLA is given a mandate through legal deposit to collect non-print publications, many of these works will be lost to future generations, especially as many electronic works have a very short life-span on the Internet, and

(vii)

the NLA is collecting a very small proportion of Australian electronic publications, as this endeavour requires seeking permission on a publication-by-publication basis, which is very resource intensive and unsustainable into the future;

(b)

calls on the Government, as a matter of urgency, to introduce legislation to extend legal deposit to non-print publications, as such legislation is of strategic importance to the future collection and preservation role of the NLA; and

(c)

recognises that other countries have already acknowledged this and legal deposit legislation has been amended in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, France, Japan and the Scandinavian countries.

Question put.