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ARCHIVESThe Role of the National Archives of Australia in
Recordkeeping by Australian Government
Agenciesby
Steve Stuckey
Assistant Director-General, Collection Preservation & Management
National Archives of Australia
Tokyo, November 12, 2004
Ladies and Gentlemen
It is a great honour to be invited to speak to such a distinguished audience, here in Tokyo. I would
like to express my great appreciation to the National Archives of Japan, especially President Mitsuoki
Kikuchi, for their kind invitation.
It is also a great honour for me to share a podium with Mr. Ian Wilson from Canada.
This afternoon I will be speaking to you about the role that the National Archives of Australia has in
making sure that all agencies of the Australian Government make and keep good records of theirbusiness. I shall give you some information about government in Australia and the history of the
National Archives and our legislation. I shall explain the history of records management ingovernment agencies, and I will talk about the Australian standard on recordkeeping, which has been
turned into an international standard. I will end by explaining some of the new ways that the National
Archives is addressing electronic records issues, and the Australian government's expectations ofwhat we can do. I shall raise some issues that we face in Australia and I hope you will recognise someof these as issues that are relevant in Japan.
Government in Australia
The national government in Australia is only 103 years old. Until 1901 Australia was six separate
British colonies. But after three attempts, the Australian people voted to join together as a single
country, and on 1 January 1901 the Commonwealth of Australia came into being as part of the British
Empire. Like the United States, Australia has a House of Representatives and a Senate; the Prime
Minister of Australia is the leader of the political party that has the most seats in the House of101

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Representatives. Ministers of the Government can come from either the House or the Senate.
As well as having a central government, there are six states in Australia, and two federal territories.
The constitution of Australia approved in 1900 lists which are the matters in government that are theresponsibility of the central government, such as defence, foreign affairs, posts and telegraphs, andtrade, and everything else is the responsibility of the states, such as transport, health and education.
When the central government was established, the records that were in existence about functions
that had become the responsibility of the new government were transferred. So, there are records
from the old British colonies in the records of the National Archives.
Often there is duplication of activities between the central government and the state governments.
For example, each state and territory in Australia has its own archives, as well as there being a
National Archives.
The population of Australia is only 20 million people, in a country that is the same geographic size as
the United States. So, there are a very few people in a very large country, and almost all Australians
live close to the sea; much of the centre of Australia is either very large farms, or desert. Most
Australians live in the big cities, so not many Australians live in 'the bush' as it is called; we do notoften see koalas and kangaroos, except in zoos!
The History of the National Archives
The central government in Australia had no Archives authority until 1944. Until that time, eachgovernment agency was expected to keep its own records as long as they needed them.
In 1942 certain senior members of the public service started to be concerned that the records ofAustralia's involvement in World War II may not be kept. The historian who had written the official
government history of Australia's involvement in World War I had complained that the records heneeded to write his history had not always been kept, and he was concerned that this might happen
again. So, in 1944 the Cabinet agreed to the appointment of the first Government archivist - only 60
years ago this year. At this time the Archives was part of the National Library, because the National
Library - which used to be part of the Parliament - collected manuscripts.
The role of the archivist was to ensure that the records that would be needed for the official war
history were identified and retained. After the war ended, government agencies wanted somewhere
to deposit the large amounts of records they had created and collected. So, many of these records
were put into government warehouses in the state capitals, as well as the national capital, Canberra.
For much of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s the role of the Archives was firstly to be a warehouse where
any records no longer needed for the everyday government of the country could be stored cheaply,
and retrieved as necessary. This role of the Archives - to be a cheap place to store old records of any
value - was something that the Archives had to spent many years overcoming. In 1963 the Archives
was separated from the National Library and became a separate part of our Prime Minister's
Department. This was an important step in establishing the reputation and authority of the Archives.
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During the 1970s in the West there was a move to make government more accountable to the people.
Following the United States example, Australia introduced a Freedom of Information law whichallowed the people to apply to see current government records. This was after the Governmentchanged its policy on release of public archives from 50 years to 30 years. So, any record that was 30
years old could be released by the Archives unless it contained information that had to stay
restricted, such as certain records about defence and foreign affairs, or personal information about
individual Australians.
The government had decided that it was the Archives which would be responsible for managing therelease of old records to the public. The government proposed that there be an Archives law
introduced to Parliament at the same time as Freedom of Information law, so that they complemented
each other. This did not happen, however, because many government agencies were worried aboutallowing an independent agency - the Archives - to decide which of their records the public could see.
So, it was not until 1983 that the Archives law passed the Parliament, almost 40 years after theappointment of the first national archives officer.
The Archives Act 1983
The Archives Act of 1983 established the National Archives as a part of a Department. There wasnothing radical about this law - it only put in place a legal base for what had been happening formany years. But, some of the interpretation put on the law by both the Archives - with support of
Ministers - and by lawyers slowly increased the power of the Archives.
There are three aspects of the Australian Archives law that I want to mention today. They are about
which parts of government are covered by the law, which types of records are covered by the law,and the powers the law gives to the National Archives.
The Archives law in Australia covers all departments and agencies of the central government,
including the records of the Defence Department and all the armed forces. It covers the office of thehead of state, the House of Representatives and the Senate, and all courts controlled by the central
government. It covers the records of government Ministers created or received as part of theirofficial duties. And it covers the records of any trading company controlled by the central
government, and external Australian territories.
So, the law is very broad in the records it makes the Archives responsible for. But, unlike manynational archives in other countries - including Canada - the National Archives of Australia does notcollect any records other than those of the central government.
The other very broad aspect of the law is what it means when it describes a 'record'. The law defines
a 'record' to be in any format that holds information. So, not only is a record a written document, but
it is also a film, a sound recording, a photograph, a map, a magnetic tape or any other medium on
which you can record information.
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For the National Archives of Australia this has been very significant - for example, it means that ourcollection of sound recordings and film is greater than that of the National Film and Sound Archive.
We collect material from the government-owned national film making agencies and broadcasters of
television and radio, while our colleagues in the National Film and Sound Archive collect material
from private sector film makers and TV and radio broadcasters.
But, perhaps most significantly for the National Archives of Australia, it has meant that we havebecome vitally concerned about electronic records, because if an archives does not become involved
with these records from the time they are created it is likely that the records will not survive to be
kept as archives. I shall return to this aspect later on in my talk.
The National Archives of Australia in 2004
The National Archives gets all its funding from the national government. The budget for the financial
year 2004-2005 is $Aus65 million (or ¥5.135 billion). Of this amount, $Aus12.5 million (or ¥987 million) is a
special annual amount to spend on preservation of the collection.
The National Archives of Australia has a staffing of 494 staff at the end September, of whom 347 are
full-time staff. 150 staff work in the Collection Preservation and Management branch, 36 staff work inthe branch responsible for providing advice about records management, and 124 work in the public
outreach branch (doing exhibitions, publications and websites, and providing a reference service to the
public).
About 380 staff work in the main office in Canberra, the national capital. 110 staff work in National
Archives offices in the state capital cities. The National Archives of Australia is the only national
cultural agency that has offices in every state capital in Australia, and this is because of our originalfunction of storing all old Government records. But in the last few years we have started to close ourrepositories in the smaller state capital cities and use these sites as access points for the public, with
only small quantities of archives held there.
The holdings of the National Archives total 356,000 linear metres, in eleven repository buildings. Mostof these buildings are specially built archives repositories. Over 90% of this material is in paper form files and volumes, but we also have 13,500 linear metres of audio-visual material and 2,700 linear
metres of photographs. We have 126 linear metres of electronic records, on disc and tape. We
estimate that the whole collection has over 51 million items.
In its Corporate Plan for 2004 to 2006 the National Archives has set itself two goals:
1. To have a national archival collection that is preserved and accessible to all Australians, and2. To ensure the creation and management of government records that support accountable
government.
Most people understand that the a goal of an archives is to do the first of these. What has been a104

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change for the National Archives in Australia has been the emphasis in the last 8 or 9 years on doing
the second of these goals.
Records management in Australian government agencies
The National Archives of Australia has not always had any responsibility for the way thatgovernment agencies have managed their records. Before the Archives existed, the Public Service
Board, part of the Prime Minister's Department, advised agencies on how they should run registrysystems and maintain their files. When the Archives was established it was given the power to advise
which government records should be kept, and for how long, but it was to the Public Service Board
as a central agency that the real power was given.
This was at a time when there was strong central control in the Australian government about how
agencies managed all their resources, whether it be money, staff or information. During the 1980s and1990s this began to change, with devolution of responsibility to individual agencies to manage theirown affairs, within the law, with only general guidance provided by central agencies.
The Archives Act of 1983 gave the National Archives the power to provide advice and otherassistance to agencies in how they should keep their records in an efficient and economical manner.
In 1997 the government commissioned a review of the Archives Act by the Australian Law Reform
Commission. In 1998 the Commission reported to government that generally the Archives Act was
satisfying the need of the government. But, it commented that the state of records management in
the public service was 'parlous', and that the government was at risk of not being efficiently managedwithout there being good evidence of the business that agencies were undertaking. The Commission
strongly recommended that the National Archives be given the power to establish standards that had
to be complied with by the heads of all Departments and government agencies.
At around the same time, in 1997, Australia's Prime Minister announced the Government's
commitment to having all appropriate government services online by the year 2001. Importantly,
electronic service delivery relies on good recordkeeping. The National Archives saw this government
decision as an opportunity to convince agencies that they needed to have good recordkeeping to meet
the Government's commitment to electronic service delivery, and that it was the role of the National
Archives to provide the tools to do this.
In the United Kingdom the National Archives has taken the same view in its approach to the British
government's commitment to electronic service deliver by 2005, as well as the introduction of
Freedom of Information legislation.
Why good records are important
The Archives has argued that good recordkeeping is fundamental to the operation of a democracy;
records are evidence - the primary means by which government agencies explain what they havedone and why they have done it. Records hold us accountable as public servants. Records also allow105

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recipients of goods and services from government to claim and defend their rights and entitlements.
Poor recordkeeping places government agencies in a very vulnerable position (even if they haveactually been doing the right thing). Poor recordkeeping can actually encourage improper practices oreven criminal activity.
Good recordkeeping is also fundamental to the efficient operation of day to day business. So
fundamental, in fact, that it is easy to overlook its importance.
Every day agencies need to know what has been done by the hundreds of other past and present
public servants and Ministers in whichever part of the Government is their responsibility. Not having
the right records in the right form can mean time wasted, money unable to be recovered, and poor
policies.
Of course, problems in recordkeeping are not new, but they have accelerated and been compoundedby the way business is done in modern government. In my own work, for example, I receive almost
no paper correspondence. Most of my communications, including some of the most formal ones, are bye-mail. Business is being transacted, decisions are made and documented, policies are developed andimplemented, often with little or no paper being generated. Every document, every record, is, or canbe, created electronically - correspondence, reports, photos, films, maps, plans.
A recent analysis of the National Archives' own records created into our electronic recordkeeping
system revealed that 72% were electronic messages, many with attachments as Word or Excel
documents. The International Data Corporation forecasts that the number of e-mails sent daily aroundthe world will grow from 9.7 billion in 2000 to over 35 billion in 2005.
In Australia electronic systems have found their way into all areas of information management andrecordkeeping and they have brought enormous benefits. However, electronic records are generally
more fragile than paper records and they don't survive neglect as wel as paper will. Also, some of thelong-standing and well known practices associated with paper records have been lost in the transition.
Filing a letter received might be a routine and automatic response, but somehow a critical email gets
deleted by your computer after 15 days.
The pace of change and demands made on individuals in modern government are also making it
harder and harder for people to make good records. Good recordkeeping is becoming more and more
important at the same time as established recordkeeping practices and infrastructure are breaking
down.
It is these arguments that we - as records professionals - need to make to Government and to senior
managers to make sure that records management gets the attention it deserves in this newenvironment.
The Australian and international records management standard106アーカイブズ18

Records professionals in Australia have the advantage that in 1993 we started to work on a records
management standard, a standard that was issued in 1996. In September 2001 the International
Standards Organisation adopted a new standard that has many similarities to the 1996 AustralianStandard.
The National Archives used the local standard to guide development of a comprehensive set of newrecordkeeping products. We point out to government and to senior public service managers thatrecords management is important; it has to be, as there is now an International Standard dealing with
it. We also use the Standard as a way to get software developers and records management
consultancy firms to comply with the Archives' related policies, guidelines and standards. But, I
should point out that software developers and consultants were involved in the development of theAustralian Standard in the first place.
The four fundamental principles of the Australian Standard approach were:
1. that responsibility for recordkeeping is actively taken up within an agency.
2. that recordkeeping is based on a thorough understanding of the environment and functions ofa government agency.
3. that recordkeeping is based on a systematic analysis of the needs of all stakeholders forrecords in relation to those functions and4. that business systems should be built and records managed in accordance with the identified
needs.
To add to the Australian standard, the National Archives set out to totally renew the advice we giveto agencies about their recordkeeping. We have taken a strong role as a standard-setter within the
public service, reinforcing our position in relation to records disposal and public access decisions. We
have taken full advantage of the concern many feel about the use of e-mail, such as is it actually arecord that can be used to hold you accountable (it certainly is, in Australia at least) and whether it issubject to the usual rules against unlawful destruction (again, yes).
We read all the reports issued by our national Auditor-General. We can tell senior public servants andParliamentary committees that in over 60% of cases Auditor-General reports in some way or anothercomment adversely on recordkeeping practices. We go into agencies after they have been criticisedby the Auditor-General, or committees of inquiry, or Parliamentary reports, and offer advice on how
to rectify their recordkeeping problems.
Our approach as the recordkeeping experts in government is to talk to senior managers not about
records management but instead about making the best use of their expensive technology. And wetalk about business analysis and risk management, so they can make best use of their information
assets. But, now we have the impetus of a national government committed to doing its businessonline.
So, how does a government archives fit in with this? In Australia, the National Archives sells
ourselves as part of the solution, providing products that can assist with electronic service delivery.
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On 30 March 2000 we launched a comprehensive set of products under the slogan of 'e-permanence:
the new standard in recordkeeping'. These products are continuously updated and there are now
more than 2000 pages of guidelines, standards, advice and training material on our website to assist
government agencies.
The most important of the Archives' products is a manual for designing and implementing
recordkeeping systems. It uses a logical approach which is taken from systems design methodology,
so is familiar to most senior managers. There are eight steps in the approach being used. These are:
A. Investigating the agency environment, including laws, government policies and social
expectations;
B. Analysing the functions of the agency and the activities it undertakes to fulfill those functions;
C. Identifying recordkeeping requirements, such as where does the law require us to keep arecord, and how do we need to be accountable for each activity;
D. Assessing existing systems to see if they meet modern requirements - such as an ability toprovide electronic service delivery;
E. Selecting the recordkeeping strategy that best fits the needs of the agency;
F. Designing the recordkeeping system, or buying one off the shelf for such things as asset
control, warehouse control, personnel or finance systems;
G. Implementing the recordkeeping system; and finally and importantly
H. Evaluating the system's performance.
This methodology requires an agency to assess the environment in which it operates (such as laws,
government policies and community expectations), and then to analyse the agency's functions andactivities. From there agencies work out at what point decisions are made and how these decisions
need to be documented.
Managers can then begin to assess what kind of records management system might best suit theirneeds - can they buy one, or do they need to build one themselves? They then design or buy,
implement and evaluate.
The process is based on knowing your environment well, assessing the needs of all stakeholders, andassessing the risks.
Included in our advice are a range of other requirements. These include a standard for recordkeeping
metadata, to allow agencies to identify, authenticate, describe and manage all their electronic records
in a systematic and consistent way to meet business, accountability and archival requirements. These108

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metadata standards were written in co-operation with the records management industry. We also
involved records management consultants and trainers, and key government agencies.
Every agency has nominated a senior officer with whom the Archives corresponds about records
management matters. All of these officers have been invited to a range of functions at the Archives,
from overview sessions to information sessions accompanied by drinks. In addition, the Archives isrunning regular training courses for agency staff to support our recordkeeping products. We see astrong and ongoing role for the Archives to be the promotion of records management andrecordkeeping as a profession within the public service.
Strategic alliance with the Auditor-General
Earlier I spoke about the assessment that the National Archives made of reports by our AuditorGeneral over a number of years. The Auditor-General in the Federal government in Australia is anindependent officer who reports to Parliament. The current Auditor-General is also very interested inrecordkeeping issues. To have such allies always helps when you are trying to draw attention toissues such as poor recordkeeping practices. The head of our Public Service Commission is also very
interested in recordkeeping issues. Every year the Commissioner reports to Parliament about major
issues in the public service. Every year the Commissioner undertakes a survey of these issues toenable him to undertake this report. For the last three years, amongst other things he has decided toreport about recordkeeping, and has included about a dozen questions about the matter in the surveythat all agency heads MUST respond to.
The Archives approached the Auditor-General about the desirability of undertaking a quality andcontrol assessment audit of recordkeeping in a number of public service agencies. The Archives
offered to help develop the criteria for conducting the audit, we provided field work resources andadvice for the auditors, and we joined a project management group that comprised the AuditorGeneral, the National Archivist and the Professor from an archives and records course at Monash
University in Melbourne. The audit was to look at compliance not just with the 1983 Archives Act,but also with the Archives best practice guidelines as a benchmarking tool, and the AustralianStandard.
The audit looked at five areas:･ Risk Assessment･ Control environment･ Control activities･ Communication and Information･ Monitoring and review
In all areas it found that there were some serious issues not being addressed by agencies. It made anumber of recommendations.

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Assessing recordkeeping needs
Organisations should undertake systematic, risk-based assessment of recordkeeping needs at a level
to enable them to design systems to capture and maintain records in accordance with business andstakeholder needs, legal requirements (including those relating to privacy and security issues), andrelevant government policies and records management standards.
Control environment
Organisations should develop and implement corporate-wide recordkeeping policies to define
responsibilities and apply standards, for all formats of records. They should have specialist skills
available to develop their recordkeeping systems, and assign responsibility at a very high level for coordinating these policies. In addition, information systems must be able to support recordkeeping.
Records Capture and classification
Organisations need to promote effective capture, retrieval and management of records by having
guidance for staff, having methods for capturing records from websites, e-mail and other documentsin personal and shared electronic workspaces, ensuring adequate classification to allow efficient
search and retrieval, and having essential metadata.
Records disposal and preservation
Organisations need to assess the risks in disposal and preservation. These include physical storage,
active management of disposal of paper files, preservation and migration of records in electronic formand capturing all business records into official systems.
Recordkeeping skills and awareness
Organisations need to enhance recordkeeping skills and awareness amongst all staff throughadequate training and communications programs.
Monitoring and review
Organisations should promote continuous improvement in recordkeeping by constant systems
monitoring and internal audit coverage.
The Audit Office thought that its recommendations relating to risk assessment, developing corporatewide recordkeeping policies, guidance for staff and enhancement of recordkeeping skills were thepriority.
The major recordkeeping issues in the Australian Government
Despite what auditors (and indeed the Archives) might say, we all know that recordkeeping is easily
forgotten in the pressured world of government administration. In addition, new technologies arebeing introduced into government agencies at a very fast rate. And, unless we tell the designers thatthese technologies must have the capacity to create and capture records as evidence of what went on,
it won't happen.

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So, what do I think confronts records managers and those who manage them in a modern public
service? Government today (in Australia at least) is big, diverse, decentralised, wanting to do things ascheaply as possible, customer-focused, results driven and subject to greater public scrutiny.
Within agencies (again in Australia at least) the everyone using records management is subject toconstant technological and organisational change. These same clients are want lots of information andcontinuous productivity improvement. External clients are demanding, want immediate public accessto government and its information.
To meet this new environment the National Archives needs to be providing guidelines and nonbinding standards and working from the bottom up with areas within agencies who have to workwith records. We provide assistance to agencies, and tell them we understand that they have toomuch work to do with constantly shifting priorities. The Archives knows that within government
administration it will not have the final say; we need to work towards consensus about what is
possible and not just provide direction.
The Archives is working with agencies to have a common sense view of document and records
management that exists almost entirely in a distributed electronic environment. In agencies,
especially amongst senior managers, there is a hostility to "paperwork". People dislike doing it, people
want it eliminated and most people assume that the computers do it. There is a lack of planning forlong-term documentation and records, and people are not really serious about electronic records.
The major message the National Archives gives to agencies is that document and records
management is almost always done electronically now. It is an integral part of program management.
It should not be viewed as a separate activity. How it is done is a question of risk. It is tied to theneeds of agencies to do business, protect the rights of citizens and government, provide foraccountability and where necessary to create an historical record of activities.
The National Archives knows that it is dealing in a very business-like environment in government
now. Chief Executive Officers will not necessarily implement standards just because the Prime
Minister or the Cabinet say that they must. Let alone taking any notice of the National Archives. All
heads of agencies are concerned with the financial situation of their agency, perhaps more than theykeep an eye on accountability. Therefore, the National Archives must keep pushing the benefits ofgood recordkeeping.
We argue that there are not significant additional costs imposed on agencies by complying with goodrecordkeeping practices. Government already has clear expectations that agencies would keep proper
records of their activities and would manage their records effectively. The billions of dollars spent bygovernment on information and communications technology in recent years in Australia would allow
the technical capacity to provide government online. All the new standards require of them is to meetcurrent best-practice obligations on a more formalised basis.
One of the major benefits of best practice recordkeeping will be the existence of better records. This
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available, and reliable. Agencies will be able to draw on an excellent corporate memory in their daily
work.
Having good records will ensure that agencies are able to explain their actions and decisions
whenever they are required to do so. The agency head, an auditor, a parliamentary committee oreven a court might require this explanation. Good records will allow agencies to prove what was done
and why, as well as just explain it.
Agencies can also be confident that they have met requirements of the law and that they areprotecting the rights and entitlements of the individuals they deal with, through appropriate
documentation. There is considerable potential for public embarrassment for an agency if these needs
are not met.
But, agencies can be assured that their core business will be undertaken more efficiently. And, in an
increasingly corporate and financial culture in the public service, they will avoid financial losses by
being able to prove that they did the right thing.
In the longer term, a small proportion of the 'full and accurate records' that agencies create will be
retained as 'national archives' and support judgments of the way the Australian government worked
and what it did.
So, the National Archives of Australia is positioning itself to be a major player in government inrelation to the long-term impact of electronic recordkeeping. Increasingly it is being acknowledged as
one of the agencies that knows about the issues associated with technology. We have developed apartnership with the Australian Government Information Management Office about issues such as
cryptography and metadata standards. In Australia it is the responsibility of the National Library tocollect all publications, and many websites are publications. It is the responsibility of the National
Archives to collect archival records, and many items on websites are records. So, we have developed
joint guidelines to assist agencies in deciding what to retain and how to do that.
Keeping electronic archives
A great challenge for a modern national archives is the need to collect, maintain and make accessible
all those modern records of archival value that are created in a digital environment. Unlike paper
records, or film, electronic records are not likely to survive until decisions are made either before they
are created or at the moment of creation that they must be kept, and kept unchanged. The National
Archives of Australia has always considered records created in an electronic environment to be 'real'
records, and subject to all the requirements of the Archives Act. For ten years we told agencies thatthey had two options in dealing with electronic records - they could print out copies and put them on
official files, or they could keep the records electronically and upgrade them to new versions of theirsoftware and hardware as they were introduced.
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and software to read old records. And, we were not prepared to pay the licence fees for old versionsof software for many years, even if software companies were prepared to support old versions. It was
the same response we made when it was suggested that we needed to keep machines to readobsolete types of video tape. We asked the national broadcasting company to use their old playmachine to convert the tapes to current technology so that they could be read in the future.
In the 1990s we were confident that international standards and the force of the market place would
ensure that solutions would be found to deal with old electronic records, driven by a market sector
much bigger than the records management or archives sectors. And this is indeed what has
happened.
We have looked at various Australian and international approaches to the issue of long-termpreservation of digital records. Our research confirmed our thoughts that the best strategy is toconvert digital records into a standard, stable format.
Over the last three years the National Archives has developed its own software that converts 90% of
document formats we know of from proprietary software such as Microsoft Word, Excel or Outlook,or Lotus Notes, into XML-compatible documents that retain the 'look and feel' of the originals. This
software has been made freely available under international open source standards, and it can be
downloaded from the National Archives website to allow others to enhance the way the software
works.
Our approach enables records to be read with computers now and into the distant future regardlessof the format in which they were created. Agencies can transfer digital records of archival value to
the National Archives once their immediate business needs have ended, for us to convert to the XML
standard format and then store in our digital repository. Once digital records have been converted
into a stable archival format, copies can be made available to users in a variety of formats including
via the Internet. Our online collection database contains descriptive information about records in ourcustody, including digital records, to enable users to identify records of interest.
Conclusion
In Australia in the last ten years there has been a revolution in the way that the Archives sees itself,and how it is seen by both government agencies and many members of the public. For fifty years theArchives was seen only as a place where old records were stored, as a secret place where therecords were locked away from the people. Firstly we had to change that view of the Archives - it isa public place where the people can see the history of the country and how the government ruled onbehalf of the people. Secondly, we realised that with the digital revolution much of the history of thecountry being produced on computers was not going to survive. For many years important paper
files were locked away in cupboards or in basements, only to be discovered and transferred to theArchives. With digital records, even if you put the records onto tapes and discs and put them in acupboard, in years to come they would not be able to be read because the software and hardware toread them would have disappeared long ago.
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At the same time, Government was starting concerned that many records being created in anelectronic environment could assist in making services by government to the people cheaper andmore efficient. But auditors and government enquiries were finding that many of the records were
not being kept in an accountable way, or could not be found to support government decisions.
The Archives realised that here was an opportunity to do two things that were vital to thegovernment and people of Australia - we could assist the government in ensuring full and accurate
records of its decisions could be made at the same time as making sure that the vital archives werecreated, identified, kept and preserved.
To do these things the Archives had to change its priorities, its knowledge and its way of operating.
In the last ten years we have made ourselves a vital part of ensuring that our democratic
government has continued to be accountable to the people, run more efficiently, and leave to future
generations a history of our achievements.
For the National Archives of Australia, these are vital goals. We hope to continue to do them formany years to come.
Arigatougozaimasu.

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