“FACT SHEET” Circulated by the Australian Society of Archivists

Why We Oppose the Closure of National Archives of Australia Offices in Adelaide, Darwin and Hobart

On 13 November 2009, Ross Gibbs, the Director-General of the National Archives of Australia (NAA), announced that the NAA state offices of South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory would be closed over the next two and half years. The reason given was the need to achieve budget savings of $3.5 million in that time (NAA’s budget in 2008/2009 was $77,299,000).

Subsequent public consultation with senior staff revealed this decision was in line with a long held policy objective of NAA to establish a centralized storage and preservation facility in Canberra.

What will happen to the records stored now?

The Director-General refers to transferring the records to NAA repositories in Sydney and Brisbane, as they are the only NAA facilities which have space. The NAA has barely 10 months to relocate the records before leases expire in August and September 2010 in Darwin and Hobart.

The NAA is also discussing making storage “arrangements” with State archives and libraries, museums and local cultural institutions. These have far smaller resources than the NAA and their own responsibilities.

They should not be required to undertake Commonwealth legislative, administrative and financial responsibilities.

What does this mean for users and staff?

Today all three offices have reading rooms where trained staff familiar with the records held locally help the public find what they need. If the records are relocated to the repositories in Sydney or Brisbane, people will have to travel there, and the same assistance cannot be guaranteed. Alternatively they can pay to get copies through broadband Internet access, if they can identify the records they need. A digital copy of one file less than 100 pages is $16.50. Such research is fraught with inaccuracy, delay and waste.

The NAA has signed Memoranda of Understanding with the representatives of the Stolen Generations in each State and Territory setting out arrangements to assist Indigenous people trying to trace their families. If the records of Indigenous people held in Adelaide and Darwin are relocated to Sydney and Brisbane, how are these undertakings to be fulfilled?

Twenty jobs will be lost as a result of the closures and the affected staff will find it hard to get similar work in Darwin, Adelaide and Hobart. Redeployment in other NAA offices has not been offered to date.

What records would be relocated?

The Darwin Office holds significant records relating to the period when the Commonwealth had administrative responsibility for the Northern Territory from 1911 until self-government in 1978 as well as records of Commonwealth offices that continue to be located in Darwin. The Darwin NAA office holds records about policy and governance, pastoral property, heath and education as well as documentation about the Indigenous experience of Commonwealth administration. Records dating from the 1920s onwards which relate to Aboriginal people (always a large percentage of the Territory’s population) include population records, the Register of Wards and patrol officers' reports. The relocation of these records to Brisbane and the loss of assistance from NAA officers familiar with key records for tracing family and community links for the Indigenous people who are part of the Stolen Generations are significant blows. A former worker in the Darwin office says:

“… [In the late 1980s] I was privileged to work with Indigenous people who were seeking information about their families, some members of which they weren't even aware of. This was the vanguard of the Stolen Generations movement, and was only made possible by the location of the records being in the area in which the people lived. It was traumatic enough for them, but had the people been required to do this research in Canberra or some other southern centre it would have been impossible.”

The National Archives of Australia preserves the Commonwealth Government records identified as having continuing value (the archives). It has reading rooms for the public to see the records and storage repositories in each state and territory.

The Adelaide Office holds records of Commonwealth administration from 1901 but also immigration records dating back to 1848, and other significant immigration records from the 1920s to the 1980s. These are frequently needed to provide evidence of entitlement to the Immigration Department (for passports or residency) and to Centrelink. The South Australian and Northern Territory pension index cards dating from 1948-1982 are used to help re-connect Indigenous family members who are part of the Stolen Generations. Other references to Indigenous people in Commonwealth records in Adelaide are more scattered (which makes the task of locating information more difficult) and are found in records of employment by government agencies, e.g. Commonwealth Railways. Other significant holdings include photographs, films drawings and glass negatives from the British Atomic bomb tests at Maralinga in the 1950s; Defence Department records about coastal fortifications in South Australia; internees’ records from WW1 and WW2; records including plans of SA National Estate buildings such as the GPO, post offices, customs houses, drill halls, other defence buildings; and records from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody which it was promised would stay in Adelaide.

The Hobart Office holds records of the Australian Antarctic Division (headquarters in Hobart) including records from expeditions dating back to early last century; CSIRO Division of Marine Research including fisheries and oceanographic research; Bureau of Meteorology’s observations series dating back to the mid 1800s including handwritten reports from farmers and lighthouses (used for climate change data collection). Tasmania has half of the registered heritage buildings on the Register of the National Estate – e.g. Tasmania’s early lighthouses and other Georgian structures, houses and public buildings, Post Offices, naval establishments, customs houses and railway workshops and stations – so the NAA office holds the plans, photographs and specifications for their management. Other records include passenger lists and immigration records including child migration schemes; large and unique railways holdings and Customs records.

What you can do?

• Sign the petition and circulate it widely.

• Write to Senator Joe Ludwig, the minister responsible, and send a copy of your letter to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (who strongly opposed the closure of the Brisbane NAA repository in 2001), your local federal member, your State’s senators and the media. To contact Senator Ludwig, go to his page on www.aph.gov.au and complete the email form or write directly to Senator Joe Ludwig, Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600.

• Pass a resolution opposing the proposal at meetings of concerned groups e.g. Indigenous people, unions, professional colleagues, family history researchers, historians, teachers and immigration lawyers, and forward to Senator Ludwig.

• Contact the Australian Society of Archivists: http://www.archivists.org.au/contact  

• Contact Anne Picot for further information - email apic0954@usyd.edu.au

1 December 2009