National Archives gets $67.7m injection to save decaying documents

Almost 300,000 pieces of Australian history including radio recordings of former prime minister John Curtin and a petition to King George V for Indigenous representation in Federal Parliament will be saved after a $67.7 million funding injection into the National Archives.

But the government is facing calls for extra money to protect even more documents, recordings and images as part of an overhaul of an archival system pushed to the brink of collapse by years of funding shortfalls.

Senator Amanda Stoker says the extra money to the National Archives will ensure it can digitise its most at-risk documents.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer/Supplied.

After months of revelations in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age about the plight of the National Archives, the federal government’s expenditure review committee on Wednesday signed off on the money to accelerate a program to digitise at-risk documents.

David Fricker, the director-general of the Archives, which in May resorted to asking for donations, said it had been overwhelmed by the level of public support over recent weeks. He said that money, plus the government funding, would protect vital pieces of Australian history.

“I’m so happy to be able to report to you tonight that this funding will rescue those records that were at risk of loss,” he told ABC TV.

Assistant Minister to the Attorney-General Amanda Stoker said the government money would help protect Australia’s history.

“This funding shows the Morrison government isn’t just committed to protecting the at-risk digital records. It shows we’re prepared to build the capability of the National Archives of Australia to make it a world leader in its operations for decades to come,” she said.

The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age revealed in June the money was poised to flow to the Archives, which has struggled to protect 384 kilometres of records under the weight of years of funding cuts.

The Tune review of the National Archives, delivered to the government last year and released in March, recommended a $67.7 million, seven-year project to urgently digitise the records most at risk.

The money will instead be invested over four years and includes being pushed into enhancing cyber security around the Archives’ huge collection.

Some of the money will go towards addressing the years-long backlog of applications from historians and students to access particular Commonwealth records and to digitise documents that are vetted for access after requests from the public.

The Archives receives tens of thousands of applications for access to records but is unable to process them all. Part of the problem is that many documents are vetted by departments such as Defence and Foreign Affairs, slowing down the process, or in some cases stopping it almost completely.

In March, the Archives was consulting with agencies over 5400 separate applications.

While investing in the short-term, the government is yet to release its full response to the Tune review, which also recommended the government spend $167. 4 million to help the institution establish a fifth-generation digital archive with state-of-the-art technology and expertise to make sure digital records are properly preserved.

The National Archives has already started work to develop this. However, the Tune review says it is not sustainable for it to pay for this out of its existing budget and the government must allocate specific funding.

The review suggests putting the National Archives in charge of managing information across the entire Commonwealth government to standardise record-keeping. This would involve 630 records and information management staff from the largest agencies transferring to the National Archives. The Archives has lost about a quarter of its staff over recent years due to ongoing efficiency dividends.

Michelle Arrow, co-editor of History Australia and a former member of the advisory panel for the Prime Minister’s Prize for Australian History, said the $67.7 million allocation was a welcome response to the issues facing the Archives.

But she stressed more would have to be spent to ensure the Archives was able to secure its precious material for future generations.

“The Archives will likely need further injections of funding in order to fulfil its critical role in our democracy. These archives belong to all of us; it is vital that all Australian citizens can access records of government decision-making,” she said.

“Currently, there are a number of roadblocks in place to impede this access. Perhaps most important is the loss of Archives staff, which has produced enormous delays for people seeking access to records.”

Professor Arrow said even with the extra money, most of the Archives’ material would never be digitised.

Labor’s arts spokesman Tony Burke said the government had been dragged to providing money to the Archives.

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s the Archives, whether it’s our other collecting institutions, or whether it’s something as simple as Australian stories being told on film and TV,” he said. “Every chance the government gets, their first attempt is to trash our history. They’ll run a culture war where they can, but if it’s about Australians actually hearing our stories, preserving documents, preserving the history of the nation – this government only gets there if they are dragged there.”

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