She would like to reassure members that the Editor and her editorial team are working towards resolving these difficulties as quickly as possible. She thanked the members for their patience. The proclamation was delayed due to ongoing work in respect of the regulations for the Act. Notification of the compliance requirements and a compliance timetable for Part 2 of the Act will be forwarded to NSW Government agencies prior to the proclamation. The Government Recordkeeping Manual will be issued around the time of proclamation.
All comments are very welcome.
Keeping records well requires a considerable commitment of time and resources. At the Commonwealth government level, the scale of the task is enormous and complex. Records which are no longer needed by government agencies to conduct business, or to fulfil accountability requirements, quite properly need compelling reasons for their continued retention and maintenance. For many years the National Archives has used standard criteria and methods for determining the values of Commonwealth records. There are now, however, strong indications based on past and projected funding for government records that the criteria and methods are leading the Commonwealth towards an unsustainable level of retention of records nominated for posterity.