ALIA submission to JCP Inquiry into Electronic Distribution of the Parliamentary Paper Series

May 2010

Introduction
ALIA is pleased to provide a submission to the Joint Committee on Publications Inquiry into the Electronic Distribution of the Parliamentary Paper Series.

The Parliamentary Papers are an enormously important documentary record of the development of national policy and consideration by the parliament of significant issues. The reports of committees are, for example, extremely thoughtful considered works which take into account extensive public consultation in the development of policy recommendations. The Parliamentary Papers also provide a critical resource to enable scrutiny of the work of parliament and development of policy. Access to the set is essential for an informed citizenry and for engagement with Australians.

Increasingly Australians are accessing information such as the Parliamentary Papers online. Finding the papers online is a considerable challenge with some papers simply not being available in electronic form.

ALIA recommendation
ALIA highly recommends the publication of the full text of Parliamentary Papers through a national repository based in the parliamentary network providing long- term access through modern systems supporting full text searching, RSS feeds, alerts and other mechanisms to assist Australians to participate in our great democracy.

Click here to view the ALIA submission [ pdf 261KB ]

Joint Committee on Publications: Inquiry into electronic distribution of the Parliamentary Papers Series

Terms of Reference and submissions
Final report and recommendations: Inquiry into the development of a digital repository and electronic distribution of the Parliamentary Papers Series