Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet

Monday 1 January 2024 | Media release

Transfer of 2003 Cabinet records to the National Archives of Australia

In 2020 the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (the Department) transferred 2003 Cabinet records, including those prepared for the National Security Committee of Cabinet, to the National Archives of Australia (the Archives).

This is the normal process and allows time for appropriate consultation with relevant agencies to ensure content released is compliant with exemptions in the Archives Act 1983.

The 2020 transfer of a small number of additional 2003 Cabinet records did not take place as it should have due to apparent administrative oversights by the Department, the Archives and security agencies. These oversights were likely as a result of COVID-19 disruptions at the time.

The additional records were located by the Department on 19 December 2023, and the Department and the Archives jointly inspected the records on 22 December 2023. These additional records have now been transferred to the Archives.

The Archives will review the additional records in consultation with relevant agencies, including security agencies, to ensure content released is compliant with exemptions in the Archives Act 1983.

The Secretary of the Department has appointed Mr Dennis Richardson to undertake an independent review of the 2020 transfer process and confirm that all relevant records have been transferred to the Archives. Mr Richardson will complete his review by the end of January 2024.

Only the Archives decides which documents are released and to whom. Neither the Department, nor any Minister, has any role in this decision. [my yellow highlighting]

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How the newspapers saw the situation on 1 January 2024......

The Guardian

On 19 February 2014 the National Archives of Australia and Dept. of Immigration and Border Protection decided to limit information about Anthony John Abbott

While Anthony John Abbott was Federal Leader of the Opposition the National Archives of Australia displayed on its website a digital record of Richard and Fay Abbott’s application for assisted passage to Australia with their first two children, Anthony and Jane.

Sometime after Anthony John ‘Tony’ Abbott became prime minister this digital copy disappeared from view in the original record which still retains its "open" listing.

Now a restricted listing for “Anthony John Abbott” have been posted online by archive staff and, one has to pay $29.90 for a paper copy of an unspecified record pertaining to this person if access is granted.

Snapshot taken on 22 March 2014

http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/NameSearch/Interface/ItemDetail.aspx?Barcode=13147273

The reason given for this apparent desire not to have information on the Prime Minister and his family as freely available to the general public as is the information on other living persons or their parents and grandparents is that: Information or matter the disclosure of which under this Act would involve the unreasonable disclosure of information relating to the personal affairs of any person (including a deceased person).

So it is perfectly acceptable to release the digital records of others and, therefore for the general public to know how many times former Prime Minister John Howard's father was absent without leave when on active duty in France during World War One or how many times many other ordinary servicemen caught a venereal disease or went before courts-martial during both world wars.

It is also acceptable for what sometimes amounts to idle gossip or vindictive accusation about ordinary Australians from as late as the 1950s, 60s and 70s (concerning treason/sedition or membership of the Communist Party) to be digitally available on the National Archives website, as well as copies of ASIO surveillance photographs of May Day marchers and Moratorium protesters, yet Prime Minister Abbott's history is to be hidden from general view. 

One can be forgiven for thinking that there is now one rule for the Prime Minister and another for the rest of Australia.