- Email: [email protected]
Australian official publications
Government Publications Review, Vol. 17, pp. 213-219, Printed in the USA. All rights reserved.
1990
0277-9390/90 $3.00 + .OO 0 1990 Pergamon Press plc
Copyright
AUSTRALIAN OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS An Update HOWARD Parliamentary
Librarian,
COXON
Parliamentary Library of South Australia, South Australia 5000, Australia
Parliament
House, Adelaide,
Abstract - Ten years ago official publishing in Australia was on the crest of a wave after more than 15 years of active government interest in the subject. Now, as a result of changed economic circumstances, that interest is lessened and official publishing is in decline. This article reviews the principal areas affected and discusses the wider implications of the decline.
INTRODUCTION Ten years ago this author wrote a book entitled Australian Oficial Publications [l]. The book was published at what now can be seen to have been clearly the height of a period of increasing interest in the promotion and organization of official information in Australia [2]. That period can be said to have begun in the early 1960s with the landmark publication of the Erwin Committee Report [3], which introduced a policy for government publishing that had hitherto been lacking. Indeed, official publishing had up to that time been a rather hit and miss affair. As a result of the Erwin Committee’s recommendations the Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS) came to be established. Departments were encouraged to use the AGPS for their publications programs and greater attention was paid to standards of production. Major series such as the Parliamentary Papers series were henceforth to be inclusive and to be regarded as having an archival function as the principal records of the activities of the government of the nation. Deposit schemes for state and university libraries were established. Further the dissemination of information via government publishing was accepted as a clear government responsibility. At intervals, a Joint Committee on Publications of the Commonwealth Parliament produced reports that maintained the impetus created by the Erwin Committee. Freedom of information legislation was introduced. For those interested in government publishing these were heady days. There is now a period of decline. The curve of interest in official publishing is decreasing and it is worthwhile both to update briefly at least some aspects of Australian Oj5cial Publications and to describe the changing attitudes to government information in Australia. Changed economic circumstances probably account for the principal changes discussed below. The optimism and good intentions fueled by the postwar economic boom are long past. Concern for value for money; the theories of economic rationalism; and, above all, the implementation of the “user-pays” principle have all eroded government information programs. Cost-consciousness has had a major impact on the availability of information and cost-cutting exercises have had an effect in a wide variety of ways [4]. Australia has not, of course, been alone in experiencing these pressures. In the United States, Great Britain, and Canada similar tales are told. The force of the pressure, though, is illustrated by the fact that while these other countries have had governments of a conservative political cast throughout the 198Os, since 1983 Australia has had a Labor
213
214
H. COXON
government predominating at both the federal and state levels. It has been for many Australians a perplexing situation to see a political party, the Australian Labor Party, concerned historically with social reform now more concerned to portray itself in government as a sound financial manager, embracing many of the nostrums of the economic right including deregulation of financial markets, the reduction of taxation, means-testing welfare benefits and reductions in public sector spending [ 51.
EVIDENCE
OF DECLINE
In the years since 1980 major publications have ceased to be published. Perhaps most glaring was the cost-cutting decision by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) not to produce yearbooks, either for the Commonwealth or any of the states in 1987. Thus the flagship publications of the ABS failed to appear at all. That the yearbooks appeared in 1988 was probably prompted by the fact that this was the year of Australia’s bicentenary celebrations. Certainly, the Commonwealth Statistician was unwilling to commit himself in 1986 about the long-term future of the yearbooks [6]. At the time of writing only two state yearbooks for 1989 have been published. Cost-cutting has also meant that some publications have been replaced by a lower-quality product though ironically the price for the information may rise as part of the drive to maximize revenue. Thus the Commonwealth Record, an invaluable regular compendium of press releases fully indexed, ceased publication in April 1988; its place was taken by a revamped edition of the Ministerial Document Service, for the first time made generally available by way of subscription but at a user cost in excess of double the price of the Commonwealth Record. Price structures are regularly reviewed so that the Commonwealth Government Gazette subscription now stands at over A$1000 per year. In 1980 it was A$36.50. Price setting henceforth is generally designed to recover the full cost of a publication. Free lists have been reviewed too. One major organization that severely pruned its free lists was the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) reducing the availability of, among other things, the various Australian journals of science published by the CSIRO as well as more popular journals such as Ecos. In January 1989, the Attorney-General’s Department, which has been responsible for the distribution of legislation, announced that “in line with Government policy to introduce the user-pays principle” the issue of free legislation would cease in February 1989. The Secretary of the Department tersely stated: Legislation is available for purchase from the Australian either by subscription or standing order [7].
Government
Publishing
Service
Some serial titles have been transferred out of the sphere of official publishing to the private sector. Thus the Department of Trade’s Overseas Trading is no longer published by the AGPS but is presently published as an Australian business monthly by a private concern, Bell Publishing, of Perth, Western Australia. Another concern has centered on the way government information has been made cheaply available to private companies to develop online systems commercially for private gain rather than as public services. Concomitantly, government departments have been encouraged, in order to keep costs down, to use the new technology of desk-top publishing thereby obviating the AGPS.
AUSTRALIAN
GOVERNMENT
PUBLISHING
SERVICE
The AGPS itself has been placed on a more business-like footing. An efficiency audit carried out by the Auditor-General in 1987 [8] found there was scope to improve the efficiency of the
Australian
official publications:
An update
215
operations of the Government Printing Office (the major part of the AGPS) to achieve a more cost-effective use of its resources. The Auditor-General’s report pressed for the adoption of a user-pays principle for publishing services [9]. Significantly the AGPS in its response noted that the question of numbers of free issues “is being addressed” [lo]. At the same time the government, following on an announcement of the Prime Minister in July 1987 of major reforms intended to streamline the structure of Commonwealth administration, adopted certain guidelines according to which various government services to departments and public services would be reviewed [ 111. These services included printing and the AGPS thereafter suffered a dramatic reduction in appropriation funding from A$12.7m in 1986/87 to A$6.084m in 1987/88 in order to meet the requirement to move towards self-sufficiency by mid-1990 [ 121. At the end of May 1989 the Minister for Administrative Services announced a new charter for the AGPS. Under the revised arrangements new administrative and charging procedures would be introduced to enable AGPS to recover a greater proportion of its operating costs and to operate on a more commercial basis. While the AGPS would remain the sole supplier of printing and publishing work of the Parliament and of the urgent, confidential, or otherwise sensitive printing and publishing requirements of the federal government, henceforth it would charge on the basis of full cost recovery. At the same time the AGPS would be free to undertake printing and publishing jobs outside of its traditional core work. However, by the same token, commercial printers would be able to undertake non-core general printing work thus providing a degree of competition for the AGPS that it had not previously experienced [ 131. The application of market forces to government printing operations has had even more startling repercussions. In July 1989 the New South Wales Government Printing Office was closed. The Minister for Administrative Services, giving four weeks notice of the closure of the GPO, said: The simple fact is that the Government can no longer afford [ 141.
Printer is a luxury that New South Wales taxpayers
The full implications of this action have yet to be seen, both within New South Wales and in other states. One commentator has noted: The thing to understand about Nick Greiner [the NSW Premier] is that he’s just the first Soon all the premiers will be cutting swathes through their public sectors [15].
Confusion meanwhile seems to reign over the whole area of official publishing Wales at the time of writing. JOINT
COMMITTEE
in New South
ON PUBLICATIONS
It was ironic that the Joint Committee on Publications in a review of the Auditor-General’s report on the AGPS [ 161 recommended that Commonwealth departments no longer be tied to the AGPS for non-core general printing. This directly contradicted the Erwin Committee’s recommendation that the (then proposed) AGPS be responsible for printing all departmental publications. It is illustrative of the thrall that market forces have for those who seek (legitimately) to ensure efficient public administration and the extent to which these are allowed to override all other considerations. Nor has this been the only area examined by the Joint Committee on Publications. The Commonwealth Parliamentar?, Papers have been examined. The enquiry the committee undertook regarding the parliamentary papers series had, at its root, concern at the cost of producing the publication. Indeed the word the committee used was “alarm” rather than concern [ 171. A variety of options was considered, including production in some sort of microformat, an expedient already adopted by the Western Australian Parliament for its parliamentary papers series. In the end the
216
H. COXON
committee recommended that the blue covers for unbound papers be dispensed with and replaced by a simple stamp on the verso of the title page; that the number of copies distributed free be reduced by excluding henceforth secondary schools and the press gallery from the distribution lists; that the number of bound sets produced be reduced to 27 thus excluding previous recipients such as Commonwealth government departments, university and college libraries and municipal libraries; and that the number of papers included in the series be reduced by not recommending for publication anything other than the final report of any inquiry, reports of delegations overseas and other reports regarded as having only short-term historical or political interest. The example has been followed in Victoria where Parliament has also conducted a review into the printing, distribution, and binding of its parliamentary papers [18]. The recommendations of that review have included restricting the free distribution of the series and, significantly, reducing the number of papers included in the series (by, for example, excluding henceforth annual reports of government departments). Reducing the production of bound volumes has been a strategy adopted in other quarters also. For instance, the South Australian Industrial Reports will henceforth appear in only paperback editions. The Joint Committee on Publications has latterly begun an inquiry into the distribution of bound volumes of Hansard. Seemingly the committee intends to seek to reduce costs over the range of parliamentary materials. One matter being looked at in the current inquiry is “the desirability of those on the official distribution list being asked to pay a subscription fee and the subscription fee being raised to cost recovery plus 10 percent (i.e., printing, binding, and distribution).” RECIPROCAL
ARRANGEMENTS
Traditional and long-standing exchange arrangements between libraries have also been affected, most noticeably as a result of the implementation of the user-pays principle. The decision of the British Library around 1980 to reduce the number of sets of series of British official publications deposited in Australian libraries was the first example of this. The syndrome was soon observed in Australia. In 1982 the New South Wales Government Printer announced his intention to no longer underwrite the cost of publications distributed by him on behalf of the State Librarian and the Parliamentary Librarian. He was quickly followed in this action by the South Australian Government Printer. Suddenly, libraries that had received significant series of publications free were receiving invoices and where these went unpaid found themselves dropped from distribution lists. Various strategems have been developed to try to shore up the existing arrangements, but they are essentially makeshift and there must be doubt about how much longer “free” distribution will continue. FREEDOM
OF INFORMATION
Freedom of information (FOI) was touched on briefly in Australian Ojjicial Publications as likely to have some ramifications for official publishing programs [ 191. But economies have also been affected here, most noticeably by the steep rise in charges for searches of government files undertaken by a government agency at the request of an enquirer. The charging system introduced as of November 1986 introduced an application fee of A$30, a new internal review charge of A$40, an increase in the hourly charge for search and retrieval from A$12 to A$lS, and most significant, a decision-making fee of A$20 per hour for time spent by public servants in deciding whether information should be released at all [20]. As has been noted, “Placing a fee on every step of a person’s access rights is a deterrent and a penalty” [21]. The perceived cost of freedom of information has also slowed its further extension within the states. Victoria legislated for FOI in 1982. New South Wales after evincing interest in the subject
Australian
official publications:
An update
217
for many years had to wait until the election of a Liberal Government for the introduction of legislation in 1989. In some ways the NSW legislation is more far-reaching than that of either the Commonwealth or Victoria in that it reaches into local government decision-making. The other states have so far failed to act. In South Australia the government has claimed to remain committed to introducing legislation while the Attorney-General has indicated that cost is a most significant factor in the timing of introduction of legislation. Even some proposals that were floated in 1983 for a scaled-down version based on the creation of a minimal number of new positions did not proceed. The government seems finally to have decided to deal with the issue in a restricted way by making available, via administrative decision, public access to personal files maintained by government agencies. CONCLUSION Three main results have emerged as a consequence of these trends. The emphasis on cost and the withdrawal of the government from a commitment to information dissemination means that there is a lower level of awareness of government actions and greater difficulty in providing access to information about government activities. Withdrawal from deposit arrangements, the steeply rising prices of publications, the falling apart of reciprocal arrangements, the cessation of publications, and the increases in charges for freedom of information searches all tend to this result. Bibliographic control will remain a problem. Indeed the position is likely to deteriorate with desk-top publishing, the transfer of publishing responsibilities to private companies, and the growth in grey literature (those publications produced in limited number and usually of indifferent physical appearance that circulate to limited audiences outside the normal channels of publications and distributions) [22]. Finally, cost-cutting often involves the transfer of costs rather than the elimination of a charge; monetary or financial economies may create other less tangible costs. For instance, as individuals find government publications priced out of their reach, libraries may come under increasing pressure to supply the information required-a demand that has been made more difficult to fulfill for all the reasons given above. Poor bibliographic control generally means increased time costs in searching for and identifying items. To take a specific example the decision by one agency no longer to provide bound copies of its publications simply transfers the cost of binding to the end user, a practice that is usually less efficient and overall more (rather than less) costly. So as not to paint too dark a picture it should be noted that some things remain from the Erwin Committee. The AGPS Sfyle Manual, which continues to be a model of its kind, has recently been published in a fourth edition [23]. The AGPS bookshops remain [24]. The depository system for libraries, though not extended as had been hoped, continues in operation although it is difficult to be wholly optimistic about the future of either of these means of disseminating information. The new technologies are being taken up. Online systems continue to develop. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has made AUSTATS publicly available; the Attorney-General’s Department has incorporated its system, SCALE, into INFO-ONE (previously called CLIRS); and online access to their respective Hansards is available in the Commonwealth Parliament and in the Parliament of South Australia. Census data has been made available on CD-ROM. Some might, and do, wish to argue that government has a responsibility to be cost-effective in its programs and that information dissemination should be no less subject to such a responsibility. Equally, it can be argued that the right to know is so basic a right in a democratic and open society that its cost must be borne whatever it might be. What appears clear is: the sheer volume of information generated by government and the massive cost imposed by this have now finally come into focus as a major management challenge [25].
218
H. COXON
This short paper can hardly serve as a major influence on the debate but it is hoped that it will alert a wider community to that fact that some librarians at least are concerned about the situation despite any major contribution to the debate by the library community. The literature of the last 10 years shows a remarkable shortage of comment by librarians on official publishing in general [26]. Australian librarians by and large have not responded to the challenge thrown down to them by the makers of policy [27]. Their response to matters continues too often to be reactive which is a cause of some disappointment. NOTES 1. H. F. Coxon, Australian OfJicial Publications, Guides to Official Publications no. 5 (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1980). 2. That some sort of high water mark had been reached is further evidenced by the fact that another book, confusingly of the same title, was published around the same time, viz. D. H. Borchardt, ed., Australian Official Publicarions (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1979). 3. Australia, Parliament, Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary and Government Publications, Report (Canberra: Government Printer, 1964). The government’s decision to 4. Even an important constitutional change has been based on a greater cost-effectiveness. proceed with self-government for the Australian Capital Territory was influenced in large measure by a desire to increase the level of accountability for the expenditure of public funds on services enjoyed by the residents of the national capital. These, hitherto, had been handled by a variety of government departments. Certainly when the federal government, having allowed the advisory ACT House of Assembly to lapse in 1987, decided to institute self-government in 1989, it did so not in response to public demand but actually counter to the wishes of the people. Opinion polls indicated that over 50 percent of the electorate opposed it. The support given to a plethora of small parties (including the No Self-Government Party, the Abolish Self-Government Party, the Surprise Party, the Sun-Ripened Warm Tomato Party, and the Party Party Party Party) led to the failure of any major party to secure a majority in the new Legislative Assembly elected in March 1989 and for government to depend on a coalition. 5. The perplexity has been widely recorded, and has become the subject of academic study, including C. Johnson, The Labor Legacy (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1988), G. Maddox, The HaM,ke Government and Labor Tradition (Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin, 1989) and D. Jaensch, The Hawke-Keafing Hijack: the ALP in Transition (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1989). 6. Letter of the Commonwealth Statistician, Ian Castles, to the President of the Association of Parliamentary Librarians of Australasia, dated 11 November 1986. Department, dated 31 January 1989. 7. Letter from F. Travers on behalf of the Secretary of the Attorney-General’s Eficiency Audir Report: Australian Government Publishing Service (Canberra: AGPS, 8. Australia, Auditor-General, 1987). 9. Eficiency Audir Report, 10. 10. Efficiency Audit Report, 14. 11. “Guidelines to Government Services: April 6 1988” Ministerial Document Service 5211988, 7 April 1988, 5494-9. 12. Australia, Department of Administrative Services, Annual Report 1987188 (Canberra: AGPS). 13. “New Charter for Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS): 30 May 1989.” Ministerial Document Service 211188-89, 31 May 1989, 7115-6. of Government Printing.” Press Release of the Minister for Administrative Services, 27 June 1989. 14. “Rationalisation 15. A. Mitchell, “Greiner Separates the Flock and Makes Straight the Paths of the State,” Sydney Morning Herald, 22 August 1989. 3. EfJiciency Audit Reporr on 16. Australia. Parliament, Joint Committee on Publications, Revierr of the Audiror-General’s the AGPS (Canberra: Government Printer, 1987) (p.45011986). 17. Australia, Parliament, Joint Committee on Publications, Revie+\, of rhe Cosr and Disfriburion of the Parliamenfaq Paper Series 1986 (Canberra: Government Printer, 1987) (p. 45011986). 18. Australia, Victoria, Parliament, Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly Printing Committees, Joint Report upon the Priming, Distribution and Binding of Parliamenmy Documenrs: May 1989 (Melbourne: Government Printer, 1989). 19. Coxon, Australian OJ&Yal Publications, 121-26. 20. A. Ardagh, “The Walls of Secrecy are Going Up Again,” Legal Service Bulletin 12 (1987): 21-24 and “New User-Pays Charges Will Deter FOI Access,” Freedom of Information Review 1 (1987): 26-27. 21. Ardagh, “Walls of Secrecy,” 24. Canadian Parliamentary Review, 12 no. I (1989). 17-20. 22. B. Gnassi, “Grey Literature: the Librarian as Facilitator,” 23. The new section on gender-free language received some criticism in the popular press. 24. There has nevertheless been criticism that since the bookshops were placed on a more commercial basis they have been stocking more limited numbers of titles and emphasizing popular titles at the expense of the full range of publications. 18. 25. Gnassi, “Gray Literature,” 26. The bibliography of offictal publications has been hardly extended at all in the last 10 years. 21. One exception is John Brudenhall, Deputy Parliamentary Librarian, Commonwealth Parliamentary Library, who at
Australian
official publications:
An update
219
least has brought the matter before the library profession. A paper of his prepared for the Australian Advisory Council on Bibliographical Services has been reprinted in the AACOBS Newsletter 7 no. 3 (1987): 34 and he also prepared a discussion paper on similar themes for the National Libraries Summit held in Canberra in October 1988.
1990
0277-9390/90 $3.00 + .OO 0 1990 Pergamon Press plc
Copyright
AUSTRALIAN OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS An Update HOWARD Parliamentary
Librarian,
COXON
Parliamentary Library of South Australia, South Australia 5000, Australia
Parliament
House, Adelaide,
Abstract - Ten years ago official publishing in Australia was on the crest of a wave after more than 15 years of active government interest in the subject. Now, as a result of changed economic circumstances, that interest is lessened and official publishing is in decline. This article reviews the principal areas affected and discusses the wider implications of the decline.
INTRODUCTION Ten years ago this author wrote a book entitled Australian Oficial Publications [l]. The book was published at what now can be seen to have been clearly the height of a period of increasing interest in the promotion and organization of official information in Australia [2]. That period can be said to have begun in the early 1960s with the landmark publication of the Erwin Committee Report [3], which introduced a policy for government publishing that had hitherto been lacking. Indeed, official publishing had up to that time been a rather hit and miss affair. As a result of the Erwin Committee’s recommendations the Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS) came to be established. Departments were encouraged to use the AGPS for their publications programs and greater attention was paid to standards of production. Major series such as the Parliamentary Papers series were henceforth to be inclusive and to be regarded as having an archival function as the principal records of the activities of the government of the nation. Deposit schemes for state and university libraries were established. Further the dissemination of information via government publishing was accepted as a clear government responsibility. At intervals, a Joint Committee on Publications of the Commonwealth Parliament produced reports that maintained the impetus created by the Erwin Committee. Freedom of information legislation was introduced. For those interested in government publishing these were heady days. There is now a period of decline. The curve of interest in official publishing is decreasing and it is worthwhile both to update briefly at least some aspects of Australian Oj5cial Publications and to describe the changing attitudes to government information in Australia. Changed economic circumstances probably account for the principal changes discussed below. The optimism and good intentions fueled by the postwar economic boom are long past. Concern for value for money; the theories of economic rationalism; and, above all, the implementation of the “user-pays” principle have all eroded government information programs. Cost-consciousness has had a major impact on the availability of information and cost-cutting exercises have had an effect in a wide variety of ways [4]. Australia has not, of course, been alone in experiencing these pressures. In the United States, Great Britain, and Canada similar tales are told. The force of the pressure, though, is illustrated by the fact that while these other countries have had governments of a conservative political cast throughout the 198Os, since 1983 Australia has had a Labor
213
214
H. COXON
government predominating at both the federal and state levels. It has been for many Australians a perplexing situation to see a political party, the Australian Labor Party, concerned historically with social reform now more concerned to portray itself in government as a sound financial manager, embracing many of the nostrums of the economic right including deregulation of financial markets, the reduction of taxation, means-testing welfare benefits and reductions in public sector spending [ 51.
EVIDENCE
OF DECLINE
In the years since 1980 major publications have ceased to be published. Perhaps most glaring was the cost-cutting decision by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) not to produce yearbooks, either for the Commonwealth or any of the states in 1987. Thus the flagship publications of the ABS failed to appear at all. That the yearbooks appeared in 1988 was probably prompted by the fact that this was the year of Australia’s bicentenary celebrations. Certainly, the Commonwealth Statistician was unwilling to commit himself in 1986 about the long-term future of the yearbooks [6]. At the time of writing only two state yearbooks for 1989 have been published. Cost-cutting has also meant that some publications have been replaced by a lower-quality product though ironically the price for the information may rise as part of the drive to maximize revenue. Thus the Commonwealth Record, an invaluable regular compendium of press releases fully indexed, ceased publication in April 1988; its place was taken by a revamped edition of the Ministerial Document Service, for the first time made generally available by way of subscription but at a user cost in excess of double the price of the Commonwealth Record. Price structures are regularly reviewed so that the Commonwealth Government Gazette subscription now stands at over A$1000 per year. In 1980 it was A$36.50. Price setting henceforth is generally designed to recover the full cost of a publication. Free lists have been reviewed too. One major organization that severely pruned its free lists was the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) reducing the availability of, among other things, the various Australian journals of science published by the CSIRO as well as more popular journals such as Ecos. In January 1989, the Attorney-General’s Department, which has been responsible for the distribution of legislation, announced that “in line with Government policy to introduce the user-pays principle” the issue of free legislation would cease in February 1989. The Secretary of the Department tersely stated: Legislation is available for purchase from the Australian either by subscription or standing order [7].
Government
Publishing
Service
Some serial titles have been transferred out of the sphere of official publishing to the private sector. Thus the Department of Trade’s Overseas Trading is no longer published by the AGPS but is presently published as an Australian business monthly by a private concern, Bell Publishing, of Perth, Western Australia. Another concern has centered on the way government information has been made cheaply available to private companies to develop online systems commercially for private gain rather than as public services. Concomitantly, government departments have been encouraged, in order to keep costs down, to use the new technology of desk-top publishing thereby obviating the AGPS.
AUSTRALIAN
GOVERNMENT
PUBLISHING
SERVICE
The AGPS itself has been placed on a more business-like footing. An efficiency audit carried out by the Auditor-General in 1987 [8] found there was scope to improve the efficiency of the
Australian
official publications:
An update
215
operations of the Government Printing Office (the major part of the AGPS) to achieve a more cost-effective use of its resources. The Auditor-General’s report pressed for the adoption of a user-pays principle for publishing services [9]. Significantly the AGPS in its response noted that the question of numbers of free issues “is being addressed” [lo]. At the same time the government, following on an announcement of the Prime Minister in July 1987 of major reforms intended to streamline the structure of Commonwealth administration, adopted certain guidelines according to which various government services to departments and public services would be reviewed [ 111. These services included printing and the AGPS thereafter suffered a dramatic reduction in appropriation funding from A$12.7m in 1986/87 to A$6.084m in 1987/88 in order to meet the requirement to move towards self-sufficiency by mid-1990 [ 121. At the end of May 1989 the Minister for Administrative Services announced a new charter for the AGPS. Under the revised arrangements new administrative and charging procedures would be introduced to enable AGPS to recover a greater proportion of its operating costs and to operate on a more commercial basis. While the AGPS would remain the sole supplier of printing and publishing work of the Parliament and of the urgent, confidential, or otherwise sensitive printing and publishing requirements of the federal government, henceforth it would charge on the basis of full cost recovery. At the same time the AGPS would be free to undertake printing and publishing jobs outside of its traditional core work. However, by the same token, commercial printers would be able to undertake non-core general printing work thus providing a degree of competition for the AGPS that it had not previously experienced [ 131. The application of market forces to government printing operations has had even more startling repercussions. In July 1989 the New South Wales Government Printing Office was closed. The Minister for Administrative Services, giving four weeks notice of the closure of the GPO, said: The simple fact is that the Government can no longer afford [ 141.
Printer is a luxury that New South Wales taxpayers
The full implications of this action have yet to be seen, both within New South Wales and in other states. One commentator has noted: The thing to understand about Nick Greiner [the NSW Premier] is that he’s just the first Soon all the premiers will be cutting swathes through their public sectors [15].
Confusion meanwhile seems to reign over the whole area of official publishing Wales at the time of writing. JOINT
COMMITTEE
in New South
ON PUBLICATIONS
It was ironic that the Joint Committee on Publications in a review of the Auditor-General’s report on the AGPS [ 161 recommended that Commonwealth departments no longer be tied to the AGPS for non-core general printing. This directly contradicted the Erwin Committee’s recommendation that the (then proposed) AGPS be responsible for printing all departmental publications. It is illustrative of the thrall that market forces have for those who seek (legitimately) to ensure efficient public administration and the extent to which these are allowed to override all other considerations. Nor has this been the only area examined by the Joint Committee on Publications. The Commonwealth Parliamentar?, Papers have been examined. The enquiry the committee undertook regarding the parliamentary papers series had, at its root, concern at the cost of producing the publication. Indeed the word the committee used was “alarm” rather than concern [ 171. A variety of options was considered, including production in some sort of microformat, an expedient already adopted by the Western Australian Parliament for its parliamentary papers series. In the end the
216
H. COXON
committee recommended that the blue covers for unbound papers be dispensed with and replaced by a simple stamp on the verso of the title page; that the number of copies distributed free be reduced by excluding henceforth secondary schools and the press gallery from the distribution lists; that the number of bound sets produced be reduced to 27 thus excluding previous recipients such as Commonwealth government departments, university and college libraries and municipal libraries; and that the number of papers included in the series be reduced by not recommending for publication anything other than the final report of any inquiry, reports of delegations overseas and other reports regarded as having only short-term historical or political interest. The example has been followed in Victoria where Parliament has also conducted a review into the printing, distribution, and binding of its parliamentary papers [18]. The recommendations of that review have included restricting the free distribution of the series and, significantly, reducing the number of papers included in the series (by, for example, excluding henceforth annual reports of government departments). Reducing the production of bound volumes has been a strategy adopted in other quarters also. For instance, the South Australian Industrial Reports will henceforth appear in only paperback editions. The Joint Committee on Publications has latterly begun an inquiry into the distribution of bound volumes of Hansard. Seemingly the committee intends to seek to reduce costs over the range of parliamentary materials. One matter being looked at in the current inquiry is “the desirability of those on the official distribution list being asked to pay a subscription fee and the subscription fee being raised to cost recovery plus 10 percent (i.e., printing, binding, and distribution).” RECIPROCAL
ARRANGEMENTS
Traditional and long-standing exchange arrangements between libraries have also been affected, most noticeably as a result of the implementation of the user-pays principle. The decision of the British Library around 1980 to reduce the number of sets of series of British official publications deposited in Australian libraries was the first example of this. The syndrome was soon observed in Australia. In 1982 the New South Wales Government Printer announced his intention to no longer underwrite the cost of publications distributed by him on behalf of the State Librarian and the Parliamentary Librarian. He was quickly followed in this action by the South Australian Government Printer. Suddenly, libraries that had received significant series of publications free were receiving invoices and where these went unpaid found themselves dropped from distribution lists. Various strategems have been developed to try to shore up the existing arrangements, but they are essentially makeshift and there must be doubt about how much longer “free” distribution will continue. FREEDOM
OF INFORMATION
Freedom of information (FOI) was touched on briefly in Australian Ojjicial Publications as likely to have some ramifications for official publishing programs [ 191. But economies have also been affected here, most noticeably by the steep rise in charges for searches of government files undertaken by a government agency at the request of an enquirer. The charging system introduced as of November 1986 introduced an application fee of A$30, a new internal review charge of A$40, an increase in the hourly charge for search and retrieval from A$12 to A$lS, and most significant, a decision-making fee of A$20 per hour for time spent by public servants in deciding whether information should be released at all [20]. As has been noted, “Placing a fee on every step of a person’s access rights is a deterrent and a penalty” [21]. The perceived cost of freedom of information has also slowed its further extension within the states. Victoria legislated for FOI in 1982. New South Wales after evincing interest in the subject
Australian
official publications:
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for many years had to wait until the election of a Liberal Government for the introduction of legislation in 1989. In some ways the NSW legislation is more far-reaching than that of either the Commonwealth or Victoria in that it reaches into local government decision-making. The other states have so far failed to act. In South Australia the government has claimed to remain committed to introducing legislation while the Attorney-General has indicated that cost is a most significant factor in the timing of introduction of legislation. Even some proposals that were floated in 1983 for a scaled-down version based on the creation of a minimal number of new positions did not proceed. The government seems finally to have decided to deal with the issue in a restricted way by making available, via administrative decision, public access to personal files maintained by government agencies. CONCLUSION Three main results have emerged as a consequence of these trends. The emphasis on cost and the withdrawal of the government from a commitment to information dissemination means that there is a lower level of awareness of government actions and greater difficulty in providing access to information about government activities. Withdrawal from deposit arrangements, the steeply rising prices of publications, the falling apart of reciprocal arrangements, the cessation of publications, and the increases in charges for freedom of information searches all tend to this result. Bibliographic control will remain a problem. Indeed the position is likely to deteriorate with desk-top publishing, the transfer of publishing responsibilities to private companies, and the growth in grey literature (those publications produced in limited number and usually of indifferent physical appearance that circulate to limited audiences outside the normal channels of publications and distributions) [22]. Finally, cost-cutting often involves the transfer of costs rather than the elimination of a charge; monetary or financial economies may create other less tangible costs. For instance, as individuals find government publications priced out of their reach, libraries may come under increasing pressure to supply the information required-a demand that has been made more difficult to fulfill for all the reasons given above. Poor bibliographic control generally means increased time costs in searching for and identifying items. To take a specific example the decision by one agency no longer to provide bound copies of its publications simply transfers the cost of binding to the end user, a practice that is usually less efficient and overall more (rather than less) costly. So as not to paint too dark a picture it should be noted that some things remain from the Erwin Committee. The AGPS Sfyle Manual, which continues to be a model of its kind, has recently been published in a fourth edition [23]. The AGPS bookshops remain [24]. The depository system for libraries, though not extended as had been hoped, continues in operation although it is difficult to be wholly optimistic about the future of either of these means of disseminating information. The new technologies are being taken up. Online systems continue to develop. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has made AUSTATS publicly available; the Attorney-General’s Department has incorporated its system, SCALE, into INFO-ONE (previously called CLIRS); and online access to their respective Hansards is available in the Commonwealth Parliament and in the Parliament of South Australia. Census data has been made available on CD-ROM. Some might, and do, wish to argue that government has a responsibility to be cost-effective in its programs and that information dissemination should be no less subject to such a responsibility. Equally, it can be argued that the right to know is so basic a right in a democratic and open society that its cost must be borne whatever it might be. What appears clear is: the sheer volume of information generated by government and the massive cost imposed by this have now finally come into focus as a major management challenge [25].
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This short paper can hardly serve as a major influence on the debate but it is hoped that it will alert a wider community to that fact that some librarians at least are concerned about the situation despite any major contribution to the debate by the library community. The literature of the last 10 years shows a remarkable shortage of comment by librarians on official publishing in general [26]. Australian librarians by and large have not responded to the challenge thrown down to them by the makers of policy [27]. Their response to matters continues too often to be reactive which is a cause of some disappointment. NOTES 1. H. F. Coxon, Australian OfJicial Publications, Guides to Official Publications no. 5 (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1980). 2. That some sort of high water mark had been reached is further evidenced by the fact that another book, confusingly of the same title, was published around the same time, viz. D. H. Borchardt, ed., Australian Official Publicarions (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire, 1979). 3. Australia, Parliament, Joint Select Committee on Parliamentary and Government Publications, Report (Canberra: Government Printer, 1964). The government’s decision to 4. Even an important constitutional change has been based on a greater cost-effectiveness. proceed with self-government for the Australian Capital Territory was influenced in large measure by a desire to increase the level of accountability for the expenditure of public funds on services enjoyed by the residents of the national capital. These, hitherto, had been handled by a variety of government departments. Certainly when the federal government, having allowed the advisory ACT House of Assembly to lapse in 1987, decided to institute self-government in 1989, it did so not in response to public demand but actually counter to the wishes of the people. Opinion polls indicated that over 50 percent of the electorate opposed it. The support given to a plethora of small parties (including the No Self-Government Party, the Abolish Self-Government Party, the Surprise Party, the Sun-Ripened Warm Tomato Party, and the Party Party Party Party) led to the failure of any major party to secure a majority in the new Legislative Assembly elected in March 1989 and for government to depend on a coalition. 5. The perplexity has been widely recorded, and has become the subject of academic study, including C. Johnson, The Labor Legacy (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1988), G. Maddox, The HaM,ke Government and Labor Tradition (Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin, 1989) and D. Jaensch, The Hawke-Keafing Hijack: the ALP in Transition (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1989). 6. Letter of the Commonwealth Statistician, Ian Castles, to the President of the Association of Parliamentary Librarians of Australasia, dated 11 November 1986. Department, dated 31 January 1989. 7. Letter from F. Travers on behalf of the Secretary of the Attorney-General’s Eficiency Audir Report: Australian Government Publishing Service (Canberra: AGPS, 8. Australia, Auditor-General, 1987). 9. Eficiency Audir Report, 10. 10. Efficiency Audit Report, 14. 11. “Guidelines to Government Services: April 6 1988” Ministerial Document Service 5211988, 7 April 1988, 5494-9. 12. Australia, Department of Administrative Services, Annual Report 1987188 (Canberra: AGPS). 13. “New Charter for Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS): 30 May 1989.” Ministerial Document Service 211188-89, 31 May 1989, 7115-6. of Government Printing.” Press Release of the Minister for Administrative Services, 27 June 1989. 14. “Rationalisation 15. A. Mitchell, “Greiner Separates the Flock and Makes Straight the Paths of the State,” Sydney Morning Herald, 22 August 1989. 3. EfJiciency Audit Reporr on 16. Australia. Parliament, Joint Committee on Publications, Revierr of the Audiror-General’s the AGPS (Canberra: Government Printer, 1987) (p.45011986). 17. Australia, Parliament, Joint Committee on Publications, Revie+\, of rhe Cosr and Disfriburion of the Parliamenfaq Paper Series 1986 (Canberra: Government Printer, 1987) (p. 45011986). 18. Australia, Victoria, Parliament, Legislative Council and Legislative Assembly Printing Committees, Joint Report upon the Priming, Distribution and Binding of Parliamenmy Documenrs: May 1989 (Melbourne: Government Printer, 1989). 19. Coxon, Australian OJ&Yal Publications, 121-26. 20. A. Ardagh, “The Walls of Secrecy are Going Up Again,” Legal Service Bulletin 12 (1987): 21-24 and “New User-Pays Charges Will Deter FOI Access,” Freedom of Information Review 1 (1987): 26-27. 21. Ardagh, “Walls of Secrecy,” 24. Canadian Parliamentary Review, 12 no. I (1989). 17-20. 22. B. Gnassi, “Grey Literature: the Librarian as Facilitator,” 23. The new section on gender-free language received some criticism in the popular press. 24. There has nevertheless been criticism that since the bookshops were placed on a more commercial basis they have been stocking more limited numbers of titles and emphasizing popular titles at the expense of the full range of publications. 18. 25. Gnassi, “Gray Literature,” 26. The bibliography of offictal publications has been hardly extended at all in the last 10 years. 21. One exception is John Brudenhall, Deputy Parliamentary Librarian, Commonwealth Parliamentary Library, who at
Australian
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least has brought the matter before the library profession. A paper of his prepared for the Australian Advisory Council on Bibliographical Services has been reprinted in the AACOBS Newsletter 7 no. 3 (1987): 34 and he also prepared a discussion paper on similar themes for the National Libraries Summit held in Canberra in October 1988.