Address by Senator John Faulkner
Cabinet Secretary
Special Minister of State
23 September 2008
Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, good evening and welcome to “Your Place in History”.
Ladies and gentlemen, the people who work in this building – especially the Members and Senators – are used to thinking about our place in history. Some might say too many of us are obsessed by it.
And the National Archives, with its collection of government and departmental records, not to mention the many personal records collections of parliamentarians, is the custodian of much of our political history. It is the Archives that holds the Government accountable to future generations.
For this reason, the Government sees the National Archives as part of a holistic approach to information management and access, an approach that includes Freedom of Information and privacy reforms. Last week, the Government introduced a Bill to modernize the Archives Act 1983, a modernization that the Australian Law Reform Commission recommended ten years ago. The new Bill will amend the Act to reflect modern archival standards and up to date administrative practice, and takes account of changing technology and electronic records management. It is perhaps ironic that, to preserve our history, the National Archives must stay up-to-date with the present and look always to the future!
But, ladies and gentlemen, tonight’s function is also to introduce you to a way of looking at our history that doesn’t focus on the politicians, the famous or the notorious. “Your Place In History” is not just about your, or my, place in history as a parliamentarian. It is about the place we all occupy in a national history that goes back only a little more than a century, but which is rich and complex.
Ladies and gentlemen, the National Archives is just down the road, near Old Parliament House, but just for tonight, they have decided to bring the Archives to you, including some objects and records which capture unique moments in Australia’s history.
For instance, there is Prime Minister Whitlam’s Notice of Motion from the dismissal in November 1975; Prime Minister Holt’s briefcase, which was in his house on the day he disappeared off Cheviot beach in 1967; the conscription ballot marbles that confirmed the future for many young Australians from the Vietnam War era; and first Australian Prime Minister Sir Edmund Barton’s 1897 draft of the Australian Constitution, complete with his hand-written notes in red pen. Many later Prime Ministers have, I’m sure, wished that they had been able to so easily change the constitution!
Individually, these are certainly interesting – but taken together, they provide a fascinating insight into Australia’s past.
Ladies and gentlemen, just as notes in a Prime Minister’s handwriting and marbles from a conscription lottery, put together, build up a picture of the nation, so too little pieces of information can be put together to draw a picture of a life.
The records held by the Archives cover a range of government departments and agencies and a variety of government activities. As well as documenting the great policy issues and the crucial decisions Cabinets have taken over the years, the National Archives also hold a significant collection of more personal records: records about service personnel, for example, about migrants, about people investigated by ASIO.
Through this service, all Australians have the opportunity to find out more about the way their family history ties in with our national history. And there are many unexpected gems in the Archives’ collections. In the war records of fathers and grandfathers, some find photographs of young men – young men many of whom never got older – looking uncannily like the young men of the current generation of their family. Many learn how their family came to Australia as part of one of the many waves of migration that have enriched and strengthened our country. Even such seemingly trivial details such as where people lived or who they listed as a next-of-kin can bring family history to life.
The Archives’ services put people back into history. Exploring the historical and government documents surrounding a single individual reminds us that history may be made by nations, and written by scholars, but it is experienced by individuals: by young men in uniform, by families leaving everything familiar behind in the search for a new life, by any of the millions of Australians over the last century whose stories can be revealed by the Archives’ collection.
And by looking at their place in history, we can gain a better appreciation of our own
ends.
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