96.
correspondence at Government House even after Sir John had left office; (ii) the separate arrangements made by Sir John for copies to be made for his own personal purposes; (iii) the description of the originals as part of a "file"; and (iv) the high security within Government House which was given to the file containing the originals.
248 Fifthly, it was an agreed fact that Mr Smith lodged the originals of the correspondence with the Australian Archives on 26 August 1978 (at which time the Governor-General was Sir Zelman Cowen) as the Official Secretary to the Governor-General. Although Mr Smith referred in the letter of deposit to various caveats by Sir John Kerr including that the "papers are to remain closed until 60 years after the end of his appointment as Governor-General", he did not sign the letter of deposit as an agent for Sir John. He signed it as the "Official Secretary to the Governor-General".
249 Each of these five matters points to the character of the correspondence between the Governor-General and the Queen as being created or received officially and kept institutionally. As I explain below, some of the content of that correspondence might have been confidential, and some might have contained observations of a personal nature, akin to those in correspondence between State Governors and the Queen concerning "reports relating to affairs in the State", which were described as "most helpful to Her Majesty" when containing information "of a general nature, from … personal enquiries or experiences, and impressions gained during travel". Nevertheless, the agreed fact in this case was that the correspondence "relat[ed] to the official duties and responsibilities of the Governor-General".
There was no convention that the correspondence was not official or institutional
250 The respondent supported the contrary conclusion by relying upon the references by the primary judge to correspondence that suggested that several people subjectively held the view that title to the documents was held by Sir John Kerr. The people said to have held that subjective view were Sir John himself, one former Director-General of the Australian Archives, the executor of Lady Kerr's estate, and some previous Governors-General, namely Lord Stonehaven, Lord Casey, and Sir Paul Hasluck[1]. The respondent also relied upon the subjective view of the Private Secretary to the Queen, who, in replying to a letter from Sir John, referred to the letters as "your papers".
- ↑ Hocking v Director-General of National Archives of Australia (2018) 255 FCR 1 at 11 [15], 29 [108], 30–31 [113]–[117(a)–(e)].
