Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services and Disability Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to place on record my appreciation to the parliament for giving me the privilege of serving as their House of Representatives member on the National Archives Advisory Council. The National Archives of Australia can best be described as the memory of our nation. By preserving and collecting government records, this important institution reflects our Australian history and our identity. With a collection tracing the events and decisions that have shaped the nation and the lives of Australians, the Archives also play a key role in helping to ensure the Australian government and its departments are effective and accountable to the people.

I would like to start by congratulating Mr David Fricker for his well-deserved reappointment as Director-General for the National Archives of Australia. David continues to provide strong leadership to the Archives, and has overseen the achievement of some great successes in this past year. Under the direction of Mr Fricker, the Archives have again achieved high scores against their key performance indicators. In the past financial year, we saw the launch of the Archives Digital Continuity 2020 Policy. This policy builds upon the success of the Digital Transition Policy, supporting the integration of digital information management into all government business practices.

I am also pleased to report that the Archives achieved a 98 per cent user satisfaction rating for their variety of online and face-to-face forums. While we are on the topic of numbers, here are a few facts about Archives storage. As at the end of June 2016, there were 353.6 shelf kilometres of paper and analogue records held, along with more than 700 terabytes of digital records. To put 700 terabytes into perspective, if the average high-definition movie is approximately five gigabytes then the Archives digital records would equate to 140,000 high-definition movies. During this time, the Archives website received nearly 4.7 million visits and more than 36.1 million page views.

Once again this year, the annual release of cabinet records was a significant event for the Archives. On 1 January 2016, key cabinet records from the 1990 and 1991 Hawke government were released for public access. The Archives continue to maintain significant standing in the international archival community. Senior conservators from the Archives provided their expertise to the archival communities in Fiji and Cuba this last year, assisting with the conservation of photographic prints, with training, and even with the preservation of iron gall ink documents dating back to the 1500s. Looking forward to the year ahead, the Archives look to redefine their role as a leader in shaping the digital future. A highlight of the year ahead will undoubtedly be the opening of the National Archives Preservation Facility in Canberra, now in the final stages of construction. I sincerely thank all of the hardworking and dedicated team at the National Archives of Australia.