Our purpose

Rationale and Background

Our purpose is derived from the proposition that government recordkeeping and the retention of some of these records as the State’s archives, are central elements of the structure of a democratic society. This was succinctly expressed when, in the early 1980s, the International Law Commission of the United Nation's General Assembly declared "it is impossible to imagine [a State] without a currency, without a treasury, without food, and without archives...". This echoes the statement made by George Arthur, then Governor of Tasmania in 1826 when he referred to those “…valuable Archives which in time are objects in every community of vital importance to the People at large…”.

In democratic states the community has vested much of the responsibility for the way in which the society operates in their elected representatives and the organisations which enable them to undertake the role and functions that the community has determined. This establishes an organisational framework within which records are created as an integral part of, and evidence of, these activities.

There is also a need to retain some of these records beyond their immediate or short term use. For the organisation that is our State’s government, these records – some of which will in the longer term. be the State’s archives – form its corporate documentary memory and are used by it as evidence of its activities, its legal transactions, its precedents and policies, and as a research basis for its continuing programs.

The relationship between government and citizens means that these records are also the evidence of the activities of the government on behalf of its constituency, the Tasmanian community and therefore enable government accountability to be monitored and assessed. This can only be effective if the integrity and availability of the records are assured by an independent authority acting on behalf of the community.

Those records which are kept for the long term as the State’s archives also constitute a large and significant portion of the “memory” of our community which helps make up its identity, and the information they contain and the evidence of the activities they provide, help us to explain our present by understanding our past. There can be little doubt that a society, like an individual, without a clear memory of its change and development will not easily maintain its identity and cohesion and the base of knowledge and understanding that helps create the future. A society’s archives contribute greatly to this.

Purpose

Within this context, and the legislative framework in which we operate, our purpose is to:

Provide a regulatory and assistance framework for effective recordkeeping in government organisations
Regulate the disposal of records kept by government authorising the legal destruction of identified records after the expiration of appropriate lengths of time, and assume custody of those records identified for ongoing retention as the State’s archives
Preserve the records identified as the State’s archives
Enable effective public access to these records

In doing this our actions and policies are underpinned by the following values:

That records which are the evidence of the activities of Government on behalf of its community and of their rights, obligations and transactions, should be preserved or disposed of independently of the political process.
That members of the community should have free and equitable access to such records subject to constraints such as privacy, confidentiality and effective government.
That access to, and the availability of, records which document the community’s past enhances the community’s cohesiveness, identity, and understanding of its past, present, and future.