[Volume:625;Page:19993] 
In practice this means embarrassing material is withheld not because it is of any security nature whatsoever but because it is politically embarrassing for the agency concerned. We have seen a graphic example of this in the Hugh Price case covered recently in the  
Dominion Post 
. Mr Price a retired Wellington publisher has spent 2 years squeezing material out of the SIS bit by bit by going back time and time again to the Ombudsman. The material which was at first withheld and later released under pressure from the Ombudsman clearly had nothing to do with the security of New Zealand although security was the reason that SIS director Richard Woods gave for withholding it. The matter relates to security police harassment of Mr Price and his colleagues 52 years ago when Mr Price was a young student. The SIS director’s actions in this case have not been governed by public interest in the slightest. Clearly Mr Woods’ only concern has been to protect the service from embarrassment at the disclosure of the wrongdoing of one of his predecessors even though this wrongdoing which destroyed the careers of several innocent New Zealanders was committed by agents over 50 years ago and is the sort of thing that is of historical interest to researchers today—something that New Zealanders can learn from and should be in Archives. 
One of the security grounds for withholding material under clause 22(6) is that it would: “ (b) prejudice the entrusting of information to the Government of New Zealand on the basis of confidence by—(i) the government of another country or an agency of such a government;”. This means that not only does the New Zealand agency concerned have a veto over the release of the supposedly security-sensitive material but that all kinds of foreign agencies do too. Take for example official material regarding the Viet Nam War or East Timor where the New Zealand Government and its overseas allies did disgraceful and deceitful things that would be in the records. Such material would be embarrassing to release both for the New Zealand foreign affairs ministry and for those of the United States and Australia—not to mention the embarrassment of the SIS and its overseas counterparts like the FBI the CIA and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. I have seen historical material on East Timor withheld by our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade purely because it would embarrass the ministry and the Government of Indonesia. 
Under clause 22(7) any deferral of deposit on security grounds can be renewed by a “responsible Minister”. The bill contains no specified period for which the deferral can be renewed and no limit on the number of deferrals—and of course the SIS actually does keep rolling over the deferral of deposit of virtually all its archives in 25-year blocks. The Chief Archivist is shut right out of this process regarding material defined as security sensitive even though we know—and I have given examples—that security agencies will misuse the security let-out in this bill. There has to be an independent look at whether security-sensitive material should be withheld from Archives. It could be done by the Chief Archivist or as is proposed by the Australian Law Reform Commission by a separate independent body that looks at classified materials to stop their being withheld illegitimately. The Australian Law Reform Commission also proposes that security-sensitive material be re-reviewed every 5 years. 
On another matter the committee had an interesting submission from historian Charlotte Macdonald who was worried about the present destruction of census materials making it much more difficult for future historians to analyse the material in their own way. The fact that individuals’ personal details should not be disclosed—and this is right—does not mean that the census forms and all the information itself should be destroyed. The other challenge before us Archives New Zealand and the National Library that was mentioned by submitters is how to preserve digital records. We may have to discuss that matter further.