Thousands of Western Australian state and local government agency archives collated up to 37 years ago are at risk of being lost or damaged due to a lack of storage capacity at the State Records Office. Documents at risk include birth, death and marriage certificates, prisoner and government employee records and Supreme Court records from 1976 to 1987.

Government organisations must transfer all archives to the director of state records after 25 years under Section 32 of the State Records Act 2000. However, with no storage space in the State Records Office since 2001, the office has been unable to accept transfers from government agencies. So archives meant for the state repository remain in agency hands, in a clear breach of the statutory requirements.

According to the History Council of Western Australia, there are up to 45 shelf kilometres of records from over 300 agencies remaining outside the SRO, unsecured and unprotected. The council said the failure of the state government to provide an archives repository with adequate storage for hard copy and digital archives, put the history of Western Australia at risk.

Department of Culture and the Arts director general Allanah Lucas denies the history of Western Australia is being compromised.

“Yes, the State Records Office has a shortage of storage capacity for both hard copy and digital archives,” Lucas said. “So in accordance with s32 (4) of the State Records Act, the state archivist has issued directions to government agencies to retain archives awaiting transfer. While those records identified as having archival value are waiting to be transferred to the SRO, it is the responsibility of government organisations to manage those records — both hard copy and digital, in accordance with their record-keeping plans and directions from the state archivist.”

The SRO’s standards and operating procedures demand maintenance of digital records of archival value and warn poor preservation can render digital records inaccessible and unusable. Digital archives are susceptible to loss, damage, and/or alteration, and demand appropriate storage to ensure preservation, which is why a centralised archive repository is vital.

The WA government need look no further than the east coast, where a recent security breach in Queensland, described as a lapse in governance, resulted in the unlawful dissemination and destruction of secret evidence and intelligence from the 1980s Fitzgerald corruption inquiry, which put confidential informants and police officers at risk.

WA state government files from 1976 to 1987, may contain similar sensitive content such as records on the forced deportation of orphans from the UK to Western Australia, women’s refuge records, youth remand centre records, and even WA Inc files. The office of Premier Colin Barnett was contacted but they declined to comment.

*This article was originally published at student news service 3rd Degree