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1998 ARANZ conference review
Battle for New Zealand National Archives status goes public
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Provide a stronger focus for Government’s role in heritage,
- Enable resources to be better utilised in order to gain the best return on investments,
- Realise opportunities in building heritage products and services,
- Focus and strengthen business development and generate third-party revenue, and
- Enhance service delivery.
Evidence of the organisation, functions and transactions of Government offices;
- Evidence of public and private personal and property or civic rights; and
- Historical and general information.
- Evidence of public and private personal and property or civic rights; and
by Michael Steemson
Abstract
The 1998 annual conference of the Archives and Records Association of New Zealand for the first time openly debated its two-year campaign to stop the merger of the National Archives of New Zealand with a Government business unit, the Heritage Group. Caldeson Consultancy Principal, Michael Steemson, an adviser to the campaign, reviews the conference debate in this article which is being published in both the Records Management Society of Great Britain's journal, the RM Bulletin, and the Records Management Association of Australia's Informaa Quarterly. The conference was held at the Public Art Gallery in Dunedin, from September 3 to 5.
A battle for the heart and soul of the National Archives of New Zealand, which has been raging for months between the country’s information managers and the Government, has been discussed openly for the first time in the country. Academics, historians and an MP controversially debated what one called the great "risk to our rights and our power as citizens" at a national conference in August.
The argument was the dramatic high-point of the annual meeting of the Archives and Records Association of New Zealand (ARANZ) in Dunedin. The association had earlier that month lodged Appeal Court papers against a New Zealand High Court judgment which had disallowed its action opposing Government plans to subsume the National Archives into a new, state business unit, the Heritage Group.
Days before the conference, on legal advice, the association had controversially withdrawn an invitation to its member, Dr J.O.C. ("Jock") Phillips, the newly-appointed historian head of the Heritage Group, to present a paper on the subject. He attended the conference as a delegate.
The debate’s stark sentiments will be grimly familiar Australian state archive authorities, notably Western Australia’s, Queensland’s and Victoria’s, and the British Public Record Office. Each has faced similar battles against political efforts, some open, others clandestine, to hobble funding, status and/or authority.
 James Traue |
Attention and attendance were high among the 90 Dunedin delegates when retiring ARANZ vice-president Mr James Traue (1), a teaching fellow at the Department of Library and Information Studies at Wellington’s Victoria University, spoke of control of "those entrusted with the power of governance" and the "slimy creatures lurking under our own doorsteps".
Need for more investment
He said that archives and records managers, as citizens, had a vital interest in good record-keeping "to maintain control over those to whom we entrust our governance". As increasing amounts of government activity passed to the private sector and large corporations controlled greater parts of society, information managers should be pressing for more formal controls, higher standards and more investment in record-keeping. Mr Traue warned:
"What has been happening is the very reverse - a decline in the investment in and standards of record-keeping with the constitutional risks increasingly being transferred to the citizen."
In the private sector "light" regulation had become the norm and the role of National Archives in surveillance of overall Government record-keeping had been curtailed by financial restrictions.
He spoke of the review of the Australian Archives Act, 1983, by the Australian Law Reform Commission which saw the primary job of the National Archives of Australia as guaranteeing the integrity of the country’s records system from the cradle to the grave. It recommended the Archives be established as an independent statutory body, separate from executive government and free from ministerial direction. It said that the current "laissez-faire approach to record-keeping" within government agencies was inadequate.
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"National Archives is being diverted down that same historical heritage blind alley that others have long since exited."
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Mr Traue told delegates: "The laissez-faire approach, condemned by the Commission, rules in New Zealand. At a time when National Archives, in the public interest, should be strengthened and directed towards a whole-of-government approach to records creation and maintenance, it is being diverted in another direction, down that same historical heritage blind alley that others have long since exited."
He said the new Heritage Group had brought together the Government’s Historical Branch, the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Historical Properties (war graves and monuments) and the National Archives. The Government’s justification for the moves – " … and here I am quoting verbatim from departmental documents otherwise you wouldn’t believe me …" – was to:
The Department of Internal Affairs, the managing government ministry, had spelled out the benefits as "a heightening of New Zealanders’ sense of their own unique traditions and history, bringing the past alive and making the records of our people and our government accessible to all New Zealanders".
Mr Traue said: "I am not saying that we do not need wisely-selected, reliable evidence for the longer-term auditing of governance that the Greeks bequeathed to the world, something we call history, (but) I doubt the wisdom of the Heritage Group in achieving these ends.
"We don’t have the instruments of direct democracy that were available to the Greeks to control the performance of our governors - death, removal of citizenship, exile - but we have developed alternatives appropriate to modern societies, and one of those is comprehensive and reliable record-keeping for the short-term auditing of governance.
"We need to make a greater public investment in National Archives to enable it to fulfil its proper constitutional role. The alternative of allowing the records of governance to be further weakened, poses a far greater risk to our rights and powers as a citizen."
 Dr Michael Cullen, M.P. |
MP slates "intellectual
barbarians"
Dunedin Member of Parliament, Dr Michael Cullen (2), the deputy leader of the New Zealand Labour Party, the parliamentary Opposition, said he believed the National Archives was being submerged into the Heritage Group in order to shore up the "shaky" Internal Affairs department and was designed by its Chief Executive, Dr Roger Blakeley, to give the department "an air of dynamism and indispensability".
Dr Cullen said: "Underlying the drive for reform was a mixture of pragmatic considerations - notably the need to save money - and high ideology, notably public choice theory and other offshoots of the revival of neo-classical economics.
"As with nearly all theories, there were important kernels of truth embedded within it. And as with all theories taken to extremes, the results could be a peculiar combination of the absurd and the destructive. Institutions, cultures, fabrics built up over many decades were all too easily swept aside as lusty young intellectual barbarians acted in a way in which lusty young barbarians are wont to do, intellectual or otherwise."
The plan involve separating policy and purchasing functions from the National Archives, a recipe for instability and witless change, he said, and "the product of third-rate minds struggling with second-rate ideas".
What was needed, Dr Cullen said, was an affirmation of the internationally accepted view of the purposes of the archives; a consideration of what other existing archives-related bodies should be bought together with National Archives; new legislation, and the separation of National Archives into an independent organisation.
He outlined the purposes of the archives as preserving:
"What in fact is clear is that the fundamental purpose of the National Archives is to preserve the record of government. The English term, Public Record Office, is in many ways much more descriptive of the true nature of the beast.
"That fundamental purpose is a constitutional not an academic one. It is about the accountability of governments to the people, now and in the future. It is in this fundamental purpose that the department’s reorganisation seems to misunderstand, almost recklessly so."
The M.P., who described himself as a lapsed historian and "the Treasurer/Minister of Finance in waiting", called for the Archives to be made independent of other government departments or agencies and for that independence to be clearly defined in statute. The Archivist should also be chief executive of the Archives, directly responsible to a Cabinet Minister. He said:
"One reason for that is so simple and overwhelming that I am surprised it has not been mentioned more often: the New Zealand Archivist must have the power over other heads of departments in relation to the disposal and transfer of records subject only, perhaps, to strictly defined and time-limited security provisions. That function is not consistent with any kind of subordinate role.
"I do not believe the New Zealand Archivist should be a parliamentary office for, in the end, the public records being kept are most of all those of government itself. The great complaint of most politicians who think long term is ‘what has posterity done for me?’ We will never know the answer, but at least we can do something for posterity."
 Dr J. O. C. Phillips |
"Maintenance scandal": Heritage
head
Dr Phillips, speaking from the floor of the conference, denied suggestions that the Heritage Group had been formed to merely to save the small history units from closure. The Dictionary of Biographies was due to complete its work shortly and the Historical Branch, "one of the crown jewels of the department", was not under threat.
He told delegates that the National Archives needed much costly work done on its building but its status gave it little chance of success getting funds for such work. "It was much more likely to get additional funding from this Government under the Heritage banner than a constitutional banner. Heritage affairs is recognised by Treasury as a legitimate activity for governments."
He said: "The condition of Archives House storage and maintenance is a considerable scandal and a major issue to be addressed as urgently as possible. This month, we got almost $2 million from Government to address the urgent problems."
He said that the New Zealand Government was considering a major review of governance in the areas of culture and heritage. The Department of Conservation had called for a full review of historic and heritage concerns. His department, Internal Affairs, had argued in favour of the plan, agreeing that there was great advantage in a re-organisation. It would be concerned with governance as a whole.
The department was preparing proposals for the National Archives to become a separate entity, like the National Museum of New Zealand, and hoped to have is recommendations ready for the Government by the end of November. They would have huge implications, especially for information managers.
 Prof. Sue McKemmish |
Earlier, the conference keynote speaker, Prof. Sue McKemmish, Associate Professor of the Department of Librarianship, Archives and Records at Melbourne’s Monash University, in a paper entitled "The Smoking Gun: Record-keeping and Accountability", outlined the role of record-keeping in public accountability.
"Its purpose is facilitating good governance in underpinning accountability mechanisms constituting national and societal memory. It must take part in constructing individual, community and national identity proving authoritative sources of information.
"Proper record-keeping serves two purposes. First, it is a pre-requisite to effective accountability. Without it, scrutiny by the Parliament, Auditor-General or Ombudsman can be blunted. Secondly, records themselves form an integral part of the historical memory of the State itself. A record-keeping regime that does not address both requirements is inadequate."
The Professor cited recent official Australian enquiries into record-keeping failings in public bodies. At high levels, they had found piecemeal record-keeping regimes, inadequate record-keeping law, weak or non-existent links with other accountability players and mechanisms and a lack of professional standards and benchmarks for best practice. Archival authorities were not "equipped with powers adequate to their purpose"
The enquiries had exposed failures by cabinet and other senior ministers, public servants, police officers, directors, businessmen and women to make records or to "keep them faithfully" once made. They found deliberate cases of illegal destruction and inadequate corporate record-keeping systems in both public and private sectors.
Professor McKemmish told the conference: "Over and over again, the point is made that inadequate record-keeping regimes limit the ability of society’s watchdogs and corporate compliance managers to enforce accountability in governance and corporate affairs -- and in record-keeping."
"Adequate Archive powers"
What was necessary was accountable record-keeping regimes at top levels and compliant systems with which to apply them. She continued:
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"There must be an independent record-keeping authority with the powers adequate to its purpose."
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"There must be an independent record-keeping authority with the powers adequate to its purpose - an independent status within the jurisdiction in which it is placed. It must follow professional standards and best practice promulgated and accepted by society. It must create beneficial alliances with other accountability players, which include chief executives, freedom of information officers, information and IT managers, and trusted relationships with its stakeholders, the citizens, its clients and consumers, individually and collectively."
All this had enormous implications for modern archives and information managers, Prof. McKemmish said. They must decide if they were passive keepers of documentary detritus, neutral custodians of inherited records, or active shapers of archival heritage.
"As agents of corporate and societal memory, are we builders of memory palaces, validators of memory? In which case, whose memory are we validating? What is our role in structuring societal and organisational; remembering and forgetting? What imprint do we leave on the record?
"Re-inventing record-keeping and archiving means going back to fundamentals, building post-custodial regimes that integrated them. It means re-conceptualising appraisal, description and access in the records continuum and developing new roles as policy makers, standard setters, strategic planners, system designers, educators, advocates and auditors. And it means forging new partnerships and defining new accountabilities."
Professor McKemmish left a scary question for information managers to consider. She told the conference: "What is the specific role of record-keeping in structuring corporate and societal remembering and forgetting? A key insight in this unravelling might relate to the notion that record-keeping is essentially about the validation of the processes of remembering and forgetting. But whose remembering and whose forgetting?"
Footnotes
1. Mr Traue's paper to the conference: "National Archives and Records: Who Cares?" may be found on the Records and Information Management On-line Service (RIMOS) at http://www.caldeson.com/RIMOS/traue.html
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2. Dr Cullen's paper to the conference: "New Zealand Archives should stay separate" may be found on the Records and Information Management On-line Service (RIMOS) at http://www.caldeson.com/RIMOS/cullen.html
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3. The Archives and Records Association of New Zealand (ARANZ), P.O. Box 11-553, Manners Street, Wellington, N.Z.
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 Michael Steemson |
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