7.
Governor-General or his Office. It seems to me that a proper distinction should be made between Government House records and the records of executive government and this is reflected in the Bill as drafted.
Government House records nevertheless are part of the history of Australia and it is proper that they should receive all the care and protection possible. For that purpose clause 21 provides that Australian Archives may enter into arrangements with a Governor-General to take custody of records under access rules which a Governor-General may lay down. Royal Household records, including The Queen's correspondence with Governors-General, are protected in Britain under special archives rules. I am sure you will agree that there should be no lesser protection in Australia.
You are probably aware that Lord Casey, and now Lady Casey, and Sir Paul Hasluck have made arrangements in respect of the custody of papers relating to their terms as Governor-General. I hope that it will be possible, when the legislation is passed, for your Office to move promptly to enter into arrangements with the Australian Archives for the protection of records arising from your own period in office. In due course I shall be bringing this matter under the notice of the incoming Governor-General."
20 As will appear from the legislative history of the Archives Act to be traced later in these reasons, provisions of the nature described in the Prime Minister's letter were in fact incorporated in the Archives Bill in the form in which it was introduced into the Senate in June 1978, but came to be omitted from the Archives Bill in the form in which it was ultimately reintroduced into the Senate in June 1983 to result in the eventual enactment of the Archives Act. The terms of the letter indicate that the Prime Minister was aware of the existence of correspondence between the Governor-General and the Queen and considered that correspondence to form a special category of records within the general description in his letter of "Government House records". In the penultimate sentence, the Prime Minister was careful to express hope, rather than to give advice, that all Government House records relating to Sir John Kerr's term in the office of Governor-General would soon become the subject of an arrangement between the Governor-General's "Office" and the Australian Archives that would ensure their preservation.
21 Following in chronological sequence soon after the Prime Minister's letter to the Governor-General is a letter sent in November 1977 from the then Director-General of the Australian Archives, Professor R G Neale, to Mr Smith in his capacity as Official Secretary. The letter documents an arrangement the entering into of which can be inferred to have been prompted by the Prime Minister's expression of hope to the Governor-General. Professor Neale confirmed in the letter that, in a conversation between him and Mr Smith on "the question of
