Probing the past: ideas for a web-based learning resource about the White Australia policy

Only public servants involved in formulating and administering current government policy, and historians, used to access government archives. Until recently, such archives had primarily a curatorial role: that of safeguarding written records related to the formulation and administration of government policy. This focus is still reflected in the legislation governing Australia’s federal archives. According to the Archives Act 1983, nine of the twelve functions of the National Archives of Australia (NAA) are concerned with the collection, preservation and disposal of government records. But today, the NAA is directing many of its resources towards a function that only in the last twenty-five years or so has been added to the catalogue of key tasks government archives are expected to perform, namely the encouragement, facilitation, publicising and sponsoring of the use of archival material (see Section 5(2)(h), Archives Act 1983). [Introduction]