Destruction is the physical disposal of records.
The destruction of Commonwealth records should only be carried out with the approval of the Archives and by an approved method such a shredding or pulping, or in the case of electronic records, rendering them unreadable. Two types of Commonwealth records may be destroyed. Commonwealth records that have been sentenced for destruction under an appropriate Disposal Authority issued by the National Archives that is, records which have been appraised as no longer having any value for business purposes and have not been selected as 'national archives'. Commonwealth records considered to be of very short-term use only, eg duplicated and unimportant material. The Archives Act includes an NAP provision which allows agencies to dispose of these records without formal authorisation.