26.
Governor-General from the application of Divs 2 and 3 of Pt V. The other was the insertion of the reference to "the official establishment of the Governor-General" into the definition of "Commonwealth institution". In his second reading speech in the Senate, the Attorney-General explained the relevantly altered policy intent to be that "[t]he provisions of the legislation will apply to the records of the official establishment of the Governor-General, but not to his private or personal records"[1].
67 Another significant departure from the text of the earlier versions of the Archives Bill was then made by amendment moved on behalf of the Government during the committee stage in the Senate. The amendment involved the insertion of the provision which came to be enacted as s 6(3). The policy intent, as explained in a Revised Explanatory Memorandum, was "to ensure that normal government controls over Commonwealth records … will apply to any Commonwealth records which might appear in collections of personal papers deposited with the Archives" but "not in any way [to] affect the freedom of a donor to determine conditions of access to personal papers"[2].
68 The net result of those departures in 1983 from the Archives Bill as first introduced in 1978 and as reintroduced in 1981 was that, although the machinery provisions of ss 5(2)(f), 6(2) and 70(3) were retained in the Archives Act as enacted, donors of records were no longer to have what Professor Neale had described as "the right to state conditions of access on the whole of their deposits". Instead, s 6(3) would ensure that Div 3 of Pt V would govern access to any Commonwealth records deposited under any new arrangement with the Archives in the exercise of the function conferred on it by s 5(2)(f) and would govern as well access to any Commonwealth records already deposited under any pre-existing arrangement with the Australian Archives to be given ongoing effect by s 70(3). That was to be so irrespective of the terms of the arrangement. At the same time, the insertion of the reference to "the official establishment of the GovernorGeneral" into the definition of "Commonwealth institution" would both expand the category of "Commonwealth records" and narrow the category of arrangements to be given ongoing effect by s 70(3) as arrangements by which the custody of records "was accepted from a person other than a Commonwealth institution".
69 As will be seen, those changes to the scheme of the Archives Act as enacted in November 1983 from the scheme of the Archives Bill as first introduced in June 1978 are significant both to the characterisation for the purpose of s 70(3) of the
