annual report 2012 – 13 - Australian Government Solicitor

AGS at workL–R: Robert Orr PSM QC, Adam Kirk, Carmel Meiklejohn, James Faulkner PSM SC and Peter BensonHistoric legal opinions database, book and websiteOn Tuesday 28 May 2013, the Attorney-General the Hon Mark Dreyfus QC MP launched the third volumeof Opinions of Attorneys-General of the Commonwealth of Australia with opinions of Solicitors-Generaland the Attorney-General’s Department. It tells the national story in the period 1923–45 from a uniqueperspective. The legal advice published in this volume grapples with the significant challenges to thewelfare of Australia’s people during this time, including the Great Depression and the Second World War.The publication was a joint project of AGS and the Attorney-General’s Department (AGD).The first and second volumes were published in 1981 and 1988 respectively and, until now, were onlyavailable in print. However, with the publication of the third volume, the content of all 3 volumes – coveringselected opinions from federation and the creation of the Commonwealth in 1901 to shortly after theSecond World War in 1945 – was published online at the new Legal Opinions website (www.legalopinions.ags.gov.au) as a combined project of AGS, AGD and the National Archives of Australia (NAA).The launch also marked the completion of the project to digitise significant opinions from 1901 to 1923which were not in either the published volumes or our internal 85,000-strong electronic OpinionsDatabase. The only copy of many opinions in this period, including opinions by Alfred Deakin and otherearly Attorneys, was the hard-copy bound year-by-year volumes of the Opinion Book which were held bythe NAA. However, these are in a poor condition and deteriorating rapidly and, without digitisation, theywould have been lost forever. So AGS, AGD and the NAA jointly funded this project that digitised all thepaper opinions from 1901 to 1923.Attended by an audience of 95, the launch was held in the conference centre of 4 National Circuit,which will be the new office location for AGS Canberra from September 2013. The speakers included theAttorney-General the Hon Mark Dreyfus QC MP; James Faulkner SC, General Counsel (Constitutional), Officeof Constitutional Law, AGD; Roger Wilkins AO, Secretary, AGD; CEO Ian Govey; and Robert Orr PSM QC.In his speech, Ian Govey noted that the projects met AGS’s mandate of maintaining the corporate memoryof Commonwealth legal practice and advice and that, ‘one important way we fulfil this role is by keepingthe electronic database of current and historical legal advice to the Commonwealth. There are no betterexamples of our delivery on this mandate to maintain the Commonwealth’s corporate memory of legalpractice than the 3 projects we launch today, the third volume of the opinions book, the website of all3 volumes of opinions and the digitisation of significant opinions from 1901 to 1923.’He continued: ‘The availability of all 3 volumes of opinions online gives greater exposure to these opinions.It will make them much more accessible to historians, students and generally to the citizens of Australia.The Freedom of Information Act notes the strong link between principles of representative democracy andavailability of government information. While this initiative makes available historical legal advice, and notcurrent advice, it is nonetheless a significant step in providing much greater accessibility to legal opinionswhich formed a key part of the working of the Commonwealth Government.’AGS Annual report 2012–13 41