Franks Stephen: Public Records Bill — First Reading 
Franks Stephen: Public Records Bill — First Reading 
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STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I rise for the ACT party in this first reading of the Public Records Bill which as the Minister introducing it believes shows an increasing respect or reverence for our history in what she calls the ever-changing story of who we are and how we got here. A speech like that on a bill that most members would consider very technical dry and non-contentious is a chance to reflect. 
I have to say that I enjoy history. I love the magazine that we get from Antrim House every month or two. I even confess to enjoying  
Sounds Historical 
—and I can see a lip curling on the other side of the House because Mr Hughes would consider that that was a typical fogeyish pleasure—and I really do enjoy historical tourism. I can spend days in museums. 
 But I worry about this bill. I worry about the preoccupation of New Zealand with its history and I worry about the claim that that shows some form of maturity. Exploring a contentious or glorious past examining our navels over and over again and taking enormous care about recording our history might actually be quite irrelevant if in fact we are too immaterial or irrelevant a people for anyone including our children to even stay around. Let us think about the times one goes on foreign travels to see those mysterious and vast ruins and jungles of Asia or artefacts in South America and so many other places where people have lived for thousands of years and transformed the landscape. But nothing is remembered and the reason—completely unlike the history of say the United Kingdom Rome or many of the countries dominant in the world today—is simply that history is irrelevant if the people who think it is important are no longer relevant. 
I worry that we will put a great deal of effort into keeping archives when we have in fact lost respect for the truth—respect for the idea that it really does matter what we are storing. Even the casual phrase the Minister used to introduce this bill: “the ever-changing story of who we are and how we got here” has been changing because of political correctness. It has been changing because parts of our history are inconvenient. It does not matter how good our archives are if we think—as Dr Michael Bassett recently told us the Waitangi Tribunal thinks—that history should be at the service of modern politics and that rewriting the story is OK if it serves a valuable purpose. If we can decry the efforts and good intentions of our forebears because we now hold different values then there is not much point in having a really flash Archives Act or public records legislation and in storing it all. If we really have become insignificant our songs and stories will pass into dust whatever we do to try to preserve them. 
I also worry about this bill because I wonder who will bother to read most of the stuff. The attention span of our audiences is about 15 seconds for most items of what is considered important news. I contrast that with say the  
Dominion  
of only 50 years ago which could have had tens of column inches reporting a debate on a significant topic and properly reporting the nuances of each member’s speech. We were a more serious people. Maybe the Pope is right—if we are to spend our time in playing sport and being entertained then there is not much point in keeping enormous records. [ 
Interruption 
] Maybe he has a record! 
Worse we do not believe in history when we pass legislation like the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act which was passed this year and under which the Government instructs probably around 700000 New Zealanders to lie about their past. What use is public records legislation and a pretended respect for history when the Government passed a bill only 6 months ago that says to 700000 New Zealanders that when they are asked about a criminal record they should lie and say they do not have one. It is absolutely hypocritical for us as a people to be doing that. 
It is really interesting how things disappear by rewriting history in that way simply because—and here is the justification that was offered—it shows compassion and it is proper to forgive. How significant is it—of what worth is it—to oblige local authorities all over the country to keep their records for 25 years when if the records become inconvenient and offend someone the ethos of the Government we have now is to wipe them suppress them make sure they are rewritten pretend they do not exist and airbrush them? 
That is what happens when we show through a Government measure the truth that history does not matter. It may seem a bit of stretch to raise the matter of the Public Records Bill in relation to the clean slate legislation the Government forced through such a short time ago but I believe that it shows a deep hypocrisy in the elite ruling classes of this country when they can pretend such respect for history towards things that do not matter then pass a law to instruct people to lie about things that do matter. 
I also sound a note of caution that there are some pretty broad discretions in this bill about declaring things as having to be compulsorily stored. We should remember just how hard it is now to store things. Really interesting things disappear. I am sure we have all had the experience of losing a document we have worked on for a very long time. It vanishes because electronic storage is hard for us to understand and control—and that is the situation when we really want to keep a document. How accurate will our future records be—of what we really thought and meant—when electronic records will be so easily culled and for good reason? People will simply not want ever to dredge through an awful lot of the material now being generated in a modern bureaucracy including material of a modern local authority. 
So I ask the select committee when it looks at this bill to consider and keep in mind the reality of trying to require people to guard and protect records that they do not think are important at the time when it is quite possible that the records that really matter—the records that show what was really thought and why things were really done—will be ephemeral or transitory. Such records can be removed or may not even be kept. 
The other thing I was struck by was the Green member’s contribution that the unintended consequence of trying to force more openness than the actors in an event would want is that they simply will not keep records. In relation to the Official Information Act we have already had something of that effect. People do not keep minutes they do not want disclosed. Even that record from 1974 of the deliberately deceptive comment to the Fretilin member in East Timor referred to in the Green member’s speech may well not have been kept today because it would be known that a record like that would be accessible under the Official Information Act. 
So we should not think there are free lunches; we should not think there are costless solutions. I hope the select committee when it looks at this bill remembers that if it imposes any significant or too heavy obligations the likely result will be that the record will either never be created or will mysteriously disappear. The difficulty of telling whether it is a mysterious and unintended disappearance or a deliberate disappearance will be too great for anyone to revisit. I hope the select committee will be realistic in looking at this bill worthy though its intentions are.