State Library of South Australia

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (15:09): Glad I survived. My question is to the Attorney-General. Can the minister update the house on when plans to merge or integrate the State Library and State Records functions, as outlined in the report prepared by Angela Allison, will commence?

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Justice Reform, Minister for Planning, Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Child Protection Reform) (15:10): I thank the honourable member for his question—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: And his interest in your attire.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —and his interest in my attire. My recollection is that this was a proposal that was floating around the place going back a year or so. I think there was quite a bit of antipathy, I think is a fair word, maybe an understatement. In fact, I saw a number of people who told me that they were librarians, who I know from my personal experience to be generally quite demure people, wearing T-shirts saying things 'Hands off our library' and—

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: 'Hypatia forever'.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —'Hypatia forever', yes, in support of the great librarian of Alexandria. As far as I can understand it, this proposition was so fulsomely rejected by these otherwise quite—

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon: Militant librarians.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —by a large number of very militant librarians that, as far as I am concerned, it disappeared. I think the advocates of this were so intimidated by this cohort of angry librarians that they receded and, to the best of my knowledge, that's where the matter remains.