Photo: RNZ /Dom Thomas
Record keepers are warning an amendment bill before Parliament will usher in the destruction or loss of vital public evidence such as from military operations overseas.
They also voiced alarm at a parliamentary select committee on Wednesday morning that public records could be privatised, citing the historical case of Ministry of Works records sold years ago to an engineering company, and no longer accessible to people.
Former chief archivist Richard Foy told MPs that three amendments in particular would weaken the Public Records Act and create loopholes.
Their most urgent worry was the move to let an agency such as the Defence Force get an exemption if it was in a multinational force that did its own record keeping, Foy, president of the Archives and Records Association of NZ, said.
"We think that allowing such exemptions risk creating the conditions for unauthorised destruction and loss of evidence.
"So accountability does not stop at the border. We don't think the Public Records Act should either."
Foy was a member of the Operation Burnham inquiry panel that castigated the NZDF last year for poor military record keeping about operations in Afghanistan. The Defence Force has since been trying [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/519234/nzdf-urgently-looking-to-move-crucial-information-from-obsolete-systems-documents
to update its information management systems].
Burnham was a strong case of "not necessarily destruction of records, but the poor management of them, and therefore the lack of access to evidence", Foy said.
The exemption amendment would let the Chief Archivist grant an exemption to a public entity in an "arrangement" with another country or international organisation if they controlled or managed all or part of the record keeping. So, the NZDF in a NATO force or a US-led force could leave it up to NATO or the US.
The archivists' association also opposed a change to let the minister have a say in destroying public records, Foy added. This would undermine the independence of the chief archivist, who currently had the full say.
As for a third amendment to remove the public status of any records sold, "this single change compromises custody, preservation and public access and risks institutionalising the loss of New Zealand's public history", Foy warned the governance and administration committee.
He gave the example from when records were less protected and the functions of the Ministry of Works and Development were privatised in the 1980s.
"Many of its records were sold to Opus. Those records are now largely inaccessible to the public, effectively lost to researchers and to people seeking information under the Official Information Act.
"Public accountability cannot be privatised."
Records should be assessed by the Chief Archivist and copied if warranted before they were sold, Foy said.
Operation Burnham cited
Chief Ombudsman John Allen warned the best interests of the country could be undermined by introducing an exemption for multinational operations.
He cited Operation Burnham in Afghanistan, too.
"Some records were held by other international parties and, in fact, made it more difficult for NZDF to prove that our military had, in fact, complied with international law because the access to those records, or indeed the knowledge of those records, was not easily retained or understood by NZDF," Allen told the lawmakers.
The Ombudsman proposed changing the bill to add some guidance to the Chief Archivist - and possibly the minister who the NZDF or other agency could appeal to - on how to exercise their discretion over granting any exemption; and secondly, to specify the agency maintained awareness of which records were being controlled by who.
But as it was the amendment bill was not aligned with the recommendations of the Operation Burnham inquiry, Allen said.
"At the moment, it is completely unwritten, therefore, it is extraordinarily broad, and we are concerned that as a consequence of that, decisions will be made that are not in the long-run in the best interests of this country."
His office also told MPs the Public Records Act as it stood was very clear that making records accessible was a priority, so any move to make records less accessible should have to be "fleshed out".
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