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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-09-11 Daily Xml
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STATE RECORDS

Mr MARSHALL (Norwood—Leader of the Opposition) (14:24): My question is to the Attorney-General. Can the Attorney confirm to the house that the 2010 state records agency review uncovered breaches of the State Records Act in over 100 agencies and that, although action plans were developed in each of these agencies, there will be no verification of the implementation of the action plans until 2014?

The Hon. J.R. RAU (Enfield—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Business Services and Consumers) (14:25): Yes; I thank the honourable member for his question. Again, the question is something that arises from the conversation we had this morning. I quibble with one word in that question, which is the word 'breaches', and I need to explain why I quibble with that. There are two levels of offending against the State Records Act. The first level is basically an agency which is for whatever reason failing to comply with the standard that the State Records people want of the agency (that is under section 23 of the act).

That obviously does not constitute a criminal offence by the agency, because how could it? Whereas, there is another area under the legislation which would apply to an individual who knowingly commits a breach. I think the use of the term 'breach' is unhelpful in this circumstance. I am able to confirm that the information we received this morning was to the effect that 400 and something agencies were involved in the 2010 review. There were 100, or thereabouts, instances which are regarded as of concern by the agency, and they went back to the agencies and said, 'Righty oh, we want you to put in place measures—

Mr Marshall: Action plan.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: —an action plan—to deal with these matters.' In the ordinary course of events it was the intention of the State Records office to follow up on those in the course of 2014, as I understand it. By and large, the question I basically am agreeing with but with the provision I have made. However, I do not believe and the government does not believe that that is enough by itself, because it has become evident to me and it has become evident to the government, as we stated some weeks ago, that the State Records Act of 1997 was not crafted with the current volume or style of information technology in mind. This has meant that there is potential disconnect between the State Records Act, the Freedom of Information Act, the Public Sector Management Act, and privacy principles operating within the state. All of those need to be brought into alignment and become consistent. It is also—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Indeed; and that is why a week or two ago, or more now, we announced that Mr Moss, a former District Court judge, was being commissioned to provide the government with a report which would analyse all of these issues and provide the government with recommendations for appropriate amendments to the State Records Act. I want to make it very clear that the government does not come into this chamber and say the State Records Act in its current form is perfect for contemporary circumstances; in fact, we have made it very clear by commissioning the review by Mr Moss that we recognise the act needs to be made contemporary. Can I just give a couple of very brief pieces of information that might underscore the point?

The SPEAKER: Probably not, because you have 16 seconds left.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Oh, well, never mind.

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