Page 5735 - Week 13 - Thursday, 18 November 2010
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act said that making this amendment is “a matter of some urgency”. The Council of Australasian Archives and Records Authorities has been calling for a speedy resolution to the problems caused by the lack of this power. I am satisfied that this is a good amendment to make and that it will better records management. Given that the government will now move an amendment to ensure that there is not an unreasonable delegation of power to the executive, I am satisfied that the amendment should stay.
I will briefly refer to the other improvements to record management made through this bill. It has picked up new definitions of records, territory records and records of an agency, as recommended by the review and as requested by those intimately involved in the administration of this act. These now basically parallel the definitions in the international standard.
These new amendments also affect the management of health records. They allow people who manage health records to utilise the standards for records management established in the act, as well as to develop records disposal schedules to manage and eventually dispose of the records. I consider this a useful amendment from a management perspective, while not impacting on any of the special privacy requirements that exist in relation to health records.
As I mentioned, the bill will give the director of records a new power to authorise the transfer of a record to another jurisdiction following the transfer of a person or responsibility to that jurisdiction. This is particularly relevant in relation to personal security files of people who move interstate. It also takes account of the movement of responsibilities between jurisdictions.
A new part of the act also establishes a common release date for territory and executive records as Canberra Day each year. I think this is a good idea, and I hope that it helps to foster an increased interest in the territory’s history and the rich source of knowledge contained in the territory records.
I want to specifically discuss electronic records. I note that recommendations about electronic records are not being dealt with through this amendment bill. However, I am assured that they are being picked up and that they are just being dealt with through other avenues. Mr Macpherson’s review acknowledged that the recommendations around electronic records were not suitable for implementation through legislation. He did note that it requires “advice, assistance and monitoring from the Territory Records Office and adherence to standards by agencies when resources allow for the implementation of electronic record-keeping or business systems”.
I am looking forward to hearing more about how the government is addressing this issue. The review identified electronic record-keeping and the problems related to it as a significant issue. This is an issue that has been raised with me a number of times. It is not a lot of use just to have a good records management act if it then falls down in compliance and implementation because people are creating electronic records, emails and the like and then not archiving them for later use. It becomes more and more of a problem as more and more of our records become electronic, and increasingly email based.
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