STATE SECRETS

Hokitika Guardian, 21 November 1929, Page 2

STATE SECRETS

DISAPPEARANCE OF DOCUMENTS

PROPOSED A USTRALIAN LEGISLATION. SYDNEY, Nov. 7. High Federal officials have recommended to the new Labour Government the desirability, from an official point of view of enacting an Australian counterpart of the official Secrets Act of Great Britain. This Act provides that certain Government document:-: mav he deciarod secret documents within the meaning of the Act and in the public inteiosts. If the contents of one of these is published, the publisher of the newspaper responsible becomes liable for punishment. The Ministry has not indicated its intentions on the subject. In Australia, under existing laws, public servants may he severely punished for disclosing official secrets. Recently it was found that an airman in the Royal Australian Air Force was

copying documents and selling them to a weekly newspaper He was tried by a L’ourtmartial and sentenced to imprisonment. All avenues for proceeding against the publisher of the newspaper were explored, but no basis was found bn which a charge could belaid with any prospect of success. In another instance a temporary employee of the Prime Minister’s Department was dismissed from the service and punished in the Civil Courts for stealing a Government document, which eventually" came into possession of a newspaper. The proprietor and publisher of the newspaper declined to be questioned on the subject by officials of the Investigating Branch and were found to be within their rights in refusing. The publication and misappropriation of Government documents in Australia are rare. More frequently one Minister has expressed indignation because certain matters within his Department have become known through tlie candour of his colleagues, who did not see the same need for secrecy. Generally, in British practice, only documents that have relation to the safety of the realm, the inviolability of contracts, the mintage of gold, and the note issue are declared to be official documents. : It can now be related how one important document—or file of documents—was missed from Mr Bruce’s office when be was Prime Minister. An employee, not now in the service was smarting under a sense of a personal wrong from the Prime Minister and had the quaint revenge of taking a file fronn the table right under Mr Bruce’s eyes, and later throwing it in me incinerator. He did not concern himself about reading it.