House of Assembly Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2) 52 2 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Question Time State Records STATE RECORDS Mr MARSHALL House of Assembly Norwood Leader of the Opposition STATE RECORDS Mr MARSHALL (Norwood—Leader of the Opposition) (14:55): Has the Attorney-General made a request of the Director of State Records to make a determination on the official status of the forwarded email and also inquiries as to whether or not this is recoverable from Telstra? The Hon. J.R. RAU House of Assembly Enfield Deputy Premier Attorney-General Minister for Planning Minister for Industrial Relations Minister for Business Services and Consumers STATE RECORDS The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (14:55): First of all, I believe this was dealt with by Mr Debelle. Secondly and most importantly—as I was trying to explain in my last answer—for the Director of State Records to make that determination about the document he would need to actually sight the document. He has sighted the document which everyone has seen and he has formed the view that that document, in and of itself, is an official record, and nobody is arguing about that. Because he has not seen the other document, he is obviously unable to make a determination on the document. I am simply trying to explain to members (so that that doesn't sound like it is peculiar) that it would depend upon, to some degree, what the document looked like. Can I come back to this: if the document was literally the same document we have all been looking at since October replicated on another computer—if that is all it was—then we already have that document and State Records management requirements do not require the same document to be retained in multiple copies. Mrs Redmond House of Assembly Mrs Redmond: But we would know who got it. The Hon. J.R. RAU House of Assembly The Hon. J.R. RAU: The member for Heysen interjects and the point is the only thing that is likely to be on that document is the name of the addressee. According to Mr Debelle we know the addressee wasn't the Premier, because the Premier's computer was available. Beyond that, it is impossible for me to get the State Records officer to declassify a document that he hasn't seen. All I can say with confidence is the bit of the document that is a replication of the document that we have had in the public domain since October last year is, and was, and remains, a document which was properly classified as an official record.