Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The terms of reference for this inquiry by the Joint Committee on Publications was to inquire and report on the distribution of the parliamentary papers series. The committee was to specifically look into the potential impact of changes to the distribution of the PPS made by the Presiding Officers, namely the tightening of eligibility guidelines; the provision of the PPS in a digital format, either as an alternative or in conjunction with the hard copy series; the feasibility of a subscription service, either in digital or hard copy form; and the possibility of partial or full cost recovery for the series.

By way of some background, the parliamentary papers series has been ongoing since 1901. Documents of a substantial nature that are presented to the parliament are included in the series, normally by a resolution of either house of parliament. On average, as I understand it, 430 documents out of about 800 are presented to the parliament in this way. The documents that are not referred by resolution are considered by the Publications Committee of both houses, which meets on a regular basis. The committee then decides whether to recommend the inclusion of those documents in the parliamentary papers series.

As it stands, the series is available in a loose-leaf pamphlet form. At the end of each financial year, these pamphlet copies are effectively collated and produced in a blister pack, as it is called. That is made available to eligible recipients. These blister packs are often delayed. The delays are due to various reasons but, primarily, they are due to the failure of various agencies to ensure that there are adequate stocks of their particular document with the printers in order for them to be distributed. Unfortunately, these delays have sometimes been in the magnitude of 30 months, which is quite unacceptable and is something this inquiry committee sought to do something about.

Before I go to the actual details of the report, I would like to say that it has been a pleasure working on this committee with my colleague Mr Johnson. The member for Makin held this committee together well. Quite frankly, the work of this committee is quite laborious—going through these papers and making the recommendations as required—and the way the member for Makin has chaired this committee is a credit to her. I have enjoyed working with her and my fellow members on the committee. I would also like to pay regard to the secretariat, Jason Sherd and Vicki Bradley, who have made a sterling contribution to this committee.

Changes to the eligibility have occurred. There was an exclusion of Commonwealth departmental libraries, various foreign embassies, political parties and municipal libraries. However, we understand from the evidence from municipal libraries that two of the three involved would still want to be on our free distribution list. The PPS service provides vital information to these organisations about government and activities in the parliament, including the review of past policies and programs. Therefore the committee recommends that the Commonwealth departmental libraries should be reincluded in those eligibility guidelines. That is included in recommendation 1.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you will recall that I mentioned the composition of these blister packs that occurs at the end of each financial year, but the presiding officer decided that from 1 January of this year those blister packs would cease to be provided. As I explained earlier, the reason is somewhat twofold. Firstly, there are the delays. As I indicated, some delays were for up to 30 months and therefore the documents were hopelessly out of date by the time they were disseminated. Secondly, there was an issue of cost in storing, processing and distributing these materials. In relation to the delays that have been experienced, we as a committee do not believe that the abolition of the blister packs will do anything to address the problem with agencies that are not complying at the moment. The committee has recommended that we should put in effect a procedure monitored by the Government Information Management Office to ensure that agencies are complying, and not abolish blister packs simply because they are not here and available when they are required.

There is a cost factor here and it has been estimated that around $30,000 a year would be saved by the abolition of these compiled blister packs. But, having regard to the evidence that this committee has received, we think that that $30,000 would be something of an exercise in cost-shifting. Those libraries’ evidence to this committee indicates that if they had to go through the process of sourcing the information, collating it and putting it together in its proper order to ensure completeness then the financial and administrative burden placed upon them would be more than offset by the savings that we would seek to make by abolishing this service. Therefore we think that it is not an argument simply on cost to abandon the blister pack process. Therefore this committee has recommended that blister packs be continued. We do so in the full knowledge that that is an effective reversal of the presiding officers’ decision in this regard.

There are issues about duplication and efficiency that we can address. We have sought to task the Australian Government Information Management Office with investigating the prospect of reducing the duplication of a number of reports from various committees and agencies and to report back to our committee within six months, with any recommendations to be implemented in a further six months. We think that is a constructive exercise in trying to address cost and trying to ensure that efficiencies work properly and adequately in our system. Other areas where the committee found the capacity for cost savings include the production of various agencies’ reports. You probably see many yourself; many are in full colour and go to great lengths to advertise their particular positions. However, agencies participating in that style of publication are doing so in excess of the publication guidelines as they are currently dictated. The committee is concerned that if we are going to get value for money we should be encouraging all agencies to adhere to those guidelines.The committee is intending to monitor compliance and will report to the parliament in that regard.

If I had more time I would have spoken about the electoral distribution of parliamentary papers. One issue that is of concern is that at present the National Library of Australia estimates that only 10 per cent of agencies are currently meeting their obligations to publish online. These obligations were spelt out by the government online strategy in 2000, and that has not yet been adhered to. (Time expired)

Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to join my colleague the member for Werriwa in speaking on the report of the inquiry by the Joint Committee on Publications into the distribution of the parliamentary papers series. I am a new member of this committee and it has fallen to me to represent government members in making a presentation to parliament on this subject. The parliamentary papers series has been in existence since 1901, when the Commonwealth of Australia was founded. Documents presented to the parliament of a substantial nature are included in the series by a resolution of either house of parliament, usually on the recommendation of the Publications Committee. On average, some 430 documents out of 800 presented to the parliament are selected in the series. We know that recipients of the series include national, state and parliamentary libraries, as well as university libraries throughout the country.

On 12 May 2005 the Presiding Officers wrote to the committee, informing them of changes to the distribution of the parliamentary papers series to take effect from 1 January of this year and seeking advice on further and more extensive changes to the series. The committee received 20 submissions, and public hearings were held in Canberra from 31 October through to 28 November last year. In February this year members of the joint committee also conducted inspections and received briefings from the National Library of Australia on the PANDORA web archive project and from CanPrint Communications, the parliament’s distributor of the series, regarding the processing of the documents which comprise the series.

The committee considered changes made by the Presiding Officers to take effect from 1 January 2006. I would like to draw to the attention of the parliament two recommendations in particular. Firstly, the committee recommended that the Commonwealth departmental libraries be reincluded in the eligibility guidelines for the series. The Presiding Officers had, in their wisdom, made changes to the series which excluded these libraries. The committee received evidence that departmental libraries considered the series essential in supporting their agencies in the development and delivery of government services. The PPS is a vital source of information on the activities of government and the parliament, including, of course, the reviews of previous policies and programs. Secondly, the committee recommended that the collated set of parliamentary papers, which are commonly known as blister packs, continue to be available as the extra cost for libraries in sourcing, collecting and collating their own sets would turn out to be greater than the savings of $30,000 realised by the chamber departments.

I want to refer to other recommendations in the context of eligibility guidelines. Recommendation 6 contains the amended guidelines for eligibility for the free distribution of the parliamentary papers series. This recommendation takes into account the changes proposed in recommendation 1, 2, 4 and 5. These include limiting the number of free sets of the series to one and instigating regular surveying of recipients to check that they still wish to continue receiving the series. There can be a delay of up to 30 months—somewhat astonishingly—in the supply of the collated blister packs of the parliamentary papers series to recipients. This is caused by agencies not supplying their documents in a timely manner or supplying the incorrect number of copies. The committee made several recommendations to address this noncompliance by agencies with their obligations in respect of not only the parliamentary papers series but other distribution schemes. The recommendation relevant here was to stipulate that the chamber departments notify the committee of any agencies not complying with the requirement of the series; the committee would then report these agencies to parliament, asking the Presiding Officers to seek an explanation from the relevant minister.

In the context of production standards for reports, the committee has identified potential savings across the whole of government in the cost of production of reports presented to parliament. Many reports presented are in full colour, which is contrary to the guidelines set down by this committee. These guidelines encourage restraint in the presentation and quality of documents and state that colour should only be used if necessary to make information more distinctive or clearer, for example with graphs. In most cases, single colour text should suffice. The committee is concerned that agencies get value for money in the production of their reports, recommends that printing standards be adhered to, intends to monitor compliance and will regularly report to the parliament those agencies that fail to adhere to the required standards.

An important aspect is the electronic distribution of the parliamentary papers series. The committee considered the wider issue of electronic availability of all government publications, before turning to the issue of an electronic version of the parliamentary papers series. The recommendations made by the committee attempt to address this issue—of agencies not making their publications available online permanently, or at all—and suggests a method for making a digital version of the parliamentary papers series a reality. Due to the issues surrounding long-term availability of online documents and the uncertainties surrounding digital storage formats such as CD-ROMs, the committee recommends very warmly that any digital version of the series augments the hard-copy series.

The committee recommends that the Australian National Audit Office regularly monitor the online availability of government documents, especially those presented to parliament as part of its regular audit program. We all know that the Australian National Audit Office has great respect throughout the Australian community. The committee also recommends that the Australian Government Information Management Office continue to work with agencies to ensure that all government publications are made available online, in the first instance, followed by being online permanently.

I want to comment on the National Library of Australia and its very generous offer to store a digital version of the series through its PANDORA web archive. The benefits of this are that the National Library of Australia would already have the necessary knowledge and the architecture, but would require additional funding to expand the archive. It would require some $200,000.

The committee has no objection to the National Library hosting a digital repository for the PPS, but this should be done in consultation with the chamber departments. An alternative is, of course, to set up a new repository, or an interim measure could be to utilise the Department of the Senate’s digital imaging project. The project will capture digital images of all documents tabled in the Senate and then place them online. The only parliamentary papers not included in this project are the reports of the House committees tabled only in the House of Representatives and the Department of the House of Representatives’ annual reports. The committee recommends that the Department of the House of Representatives investigate making available online the digital images of the House committee reports and departmental annual reports to complement the Senate’s collection of digital images of reports. This could be used as an alternative to a stand-alone repository.

Finally, I want to touch on the issue of copyright. To aid the National Library in its work with the PANDORA web archive, the committee very strongly recommends that the legal deposit provisions of the Copyright Act 1968 be widened to include electronic copies of documents. This will go a very long way to improving the ability of the National Library to collect and provide access to the publications they store on the PANDORA web archive.

Costs borne by the chamber departments in administering the series are approximately $115,000 to $130,000 per year. The costs of printing the documents for the series are met by author agencies. The committee accepts that cost recovery for the series is feasible. However, it opposes full cost recovery and recommends that any cost recovery measures partially recover the administrative costs of the chamber departments.

I am delighted, on behalf of the government members of the committee, to make comments on the distribution of the parliamentary papers series. As I said, I am a new member of the committee, replacing one of my colleagues. I look forward to making a contribution as a member of that committee.

Debate (on motion by Mr Neville) adjourned.