FUNCTION AND CONTENT

This series consists of 53 special interest correspondence files or special files for short.  Within each special file, there can be one or many records that have been brought together from various existing recordkeeping systems of the Attorney General's department.  The special files cover subject areas in which the department was conducting investigations or where issues were of ongoing legal or constitutional significance.  They were compiled for the information of interested departmental officials including the Attorney-General. 

The contents range from correspondence to transcripts of commissions of inquiry to various publications, including newspaper cuttings and pamphlets of relevance to the subject of the file.  The type of items included in each special file varies according to the subject matter of the special file.  For example, Special File 17 [Ten percent wages reduction – arbitration proceedings] appears to have been compiled for comparative research purposes and the items are a record of the proceedings and outcome of each individual trade union case before the Arbitration Commission.  Whereas Special File 18 [Arbitration Bill 1928] is concerned with amendments to the Arbitration Bill and each item includes either drafts of the bill with annotations and/or issues concerned with the Arbitration Bill.

A complete list of the special file numbers and titles used in the series is set out here:

Special File     Special File Title

Number

SF/1              [Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA)]:

SF/2              [International copyright conferences]:

SF/3              [Special Magistrates]:

SF/4A           [Constitution – General]:

SF/4B           [Constitution – Royal Commission 1928]:

SF/5              [Financial agreements]:

SF/6              [Garden Island and Admiralty House]:

SF/7              [Seditious literature]:

SF/8              [Migrant settlers]:

SF/8A           [Royal Commission – “Daily Telegraph” 1928”]:

SF/9              [Commissioner for Declarations]:

SF/10            [Premiers’ Conference 1934]:

SF/11            [Commonwealth Combing and Spinning Company – High Court Action]:

SF/12            [Walsh and Johnson]:

SF/13            [Sugar Inquiry Committee 1931]:

SF/14            [Timber Workers Dispute 1929]:

SF/15            [Australian Railways Union – arbitration]:

SF/16            [Waterside Workers]:

SF/17            [Ten percent wages reduction – arbitration proceedings]:

SF/18            [Arbitration Bill 1928]:

SF/19            [Industrial Board Ordinance – Federal Capital Territory]:

SF/20            [Extradition]

SF/21            [Transfer of department to Canberra]:

SF/22            [Pillage Commission 1920]:

SF/23C         [Companies legislation]:

SF/24            [Empire Airmail Scheme]:

SF/25            [Air Navigation Regulations]:

SF/26D         [Industrial Property Convention – nomenclature of Australian Wines]:

SF/27            [Commonwealth Government Steamers]:

SF/28            [Commonwealth Statutes – Consolidation]:

SF/29            [Wireless – Royal Commission]:

SF/30            [Inquiry re ‘Kyeama’ Disaster]:

SF/31            [Royal Commission on National Insurance]:

SF/32            [Bankruptcy Rules]

SF/33            [Reports on conditions on waterfront]:

SF/34            [Empire Star and Kairanga collision]:

SF/36            [Amalgamated Wireless Australasia Limited (AWA)]:

SF/38            [Bankruptcy Act – suggested amendments]

SF/39            [National Debt Sinking Fund]:

SF/40            [Nationality and Citizenship Conference 1947]:

SF/41            [Regulations – Advisory Committee]:

SF/42            [Communism]:

SF/43            [Jehovah’s Witness]:

SF/43A         [Australia First Movement]:

SF/44            [Constitutional Alterations]:

SF/45            [James versus Commonwealth – Privy Council Appeal]:

SF/46            [Colonial Sugar Refining Company – Privy Council Appeal]

SF/47            [Commonwealth Public Service Regulations]:

SF/47A         [Tucker conspiracy case]:
SF/48            [Coal Dispute Transcripts – Caledonian Collieries Limited versus Australasian Coal and Shale Employees Federation and Others]:

SF/49            [Commonwealth Industrial Conference 1928]:

SF/50            [Bonython and Others versus the Commonwealth]:

SF/51            [Old age pensions – legal questions]:

USING THE SERIES

All items held by the National Archives of Australia have been entered on to the RecordSearch database.  There are no indexes or other control records to help identify relevant items.  There is a 1974-1975 inventory held in the Canberra Reading Room.  However, the arrangement, description and control of the items has changed somewhat from the inventory, as discussed under the Arrangement and Control Section. Database searching will probably be the best option and this is discussed in this section.

Within the series, the items have been arranged into the special files listed above.  Each special file has a number and a title, based principally on the Attorney-General’s index or list of Special Files found in series A5052.  The special file title has been placed in square brackets at the beginning of each item title, before the title found on the file cover of the item.  Researchers can retrieve items in the series by keyword searches on terms found in the special file title or in the file cover title.  To restrict your search result to items in this series, please key in to the Reference Number field the following:  A467.  For example the special file title of special file 42 is Communism.  To retrieve all the items in this special file, key in to the Keyword field Communism and key in to the Reference Number field A467.  You will also retrieve a few items from other special files that have communism in their file cover title.

The items have been arranged sequentially within the special file.  For example, item 1 of special file 1 will have the following control symbol: SF1/1;  Item 67 will be SF1/67.  These control symbols can be keyed in to the Reference Number field to retrieve that item.  A number of items may have parts or attachments.  To ensure you retrieve all item parts, enter the wildcard symbol (*) after the control symbol.  For example, keying in SF1/40* will retrieve all 4 item parts.  If you keyed in just SF1/40 you would not retrieve any items.

Another way to retrieve all of the items in a special file, is to search on the special file number followed by the component delimiter (/) followed by the wildcard symbol (*).  For special file 42, key in to the Reference Number field as follows: A467 SF42/* .  Please leave one space between the series number and the control symbol. 

Missing special files
There are several special files missing from the list above.  This is either because the National Archives of Australia does not hold any records of these special files or they have come into our custody as part of another recordkeeping system of the department. The missing special files are set out here:

SF23A & SF23B: [Companies Legislation]
No mention of these is made in the 1974-1975 inventory but their existence or former existence is presumed because we have Special File 23C

SF26A  [Industrial Property Convention – Washington 1911 text]
SF26B  [Industrial Property Convention – Hague 1925 text]
SF26C  [Industrial Property Convention – London 1934 text]
These three special files came into custody as part of accession AA1969/224, and are held as part of series A432.  The items are:
SF26A:   A432, 1938/553 Part 1 and A432, 1938/553 Part 2
SF26B:  A432, 1938/554 Part 1 and A432, 1938/554 Part 2
SF26C: A432, 1938/555 Part 1 and A432, 1938/555 Part 2 and A432, 1938/555 Attachment.  Apparently, Part 3 of SF26C was A432, 1960/2116 but this item could not be located by the department.

SF35 [Assignment of Counsel – Judicial Act]
The 1974-1975 inventory states that this special file is not held by the National Archives of Australia.  Apparently it was issued to the department on 22 June 1957
 
SF37 [Royal Commission on Secret Funds]
Not held by the National Archives of Australia as at 17 March 1975.

Previous Special File titles
In order to conform more closely to the Attorney-General’s Special File List found in series A5052, there have been revisions and some complete changes to the Special File section of the item title (the section in square brackets at the beginning of the title).  Please note that the cover title of the item (immediately following the Special File title) has not changed.   The previous versions of the special file titles can be found in the inventory compiled by the National Archives of Australia in 1974-1975.
 
Previous Special File numbers
Items that were in the previous special file numbers set out below can still be identified via the alternative control symbols.  The alternative control symbols for an item can be found by clicking on More information about this item located at the bottom of the individual item display
SF1, SF1A, SF1B, SF1C –  now incorporated into a single sequence within SF1
SF16, SF16A, SF16B – now incorporated into a single sequence within SF16
SF18, SF18A, SF18B – now incorporated into a single sequence within SF18
SF19A, SF19B – now incorporated into a single sequence within SF19
SF24A, SF24B, SF24C – now incorporated into a single sequence within SF24
SF25A, SF25B – now incorporated into a single sequence within SF25

Previous control symbols
During the course of several projects on series A467 many of the item control symbols have changed.  However, previous control symbols should have been automatically recorded and the researcher should still be able to retrieve the relevant item if they search on a previous control symbol.


System of arrangement and control
Unfortunately, there is very little documentation to explain how series A467 was organised by the agency.  It appears that the series had only been organised to bundle level within each special file.  It was originally registered as part of Accession CP157 and the Accession Register states that “Registration of the [special] files seems to have been arbitrary.  They show no logical arrangement other than a consecutive number for each [special] file, and a consecutive bundle number throughout”.  Special File 1 consisted of 7 bundles, numbered 1-7, Special File 2 consisted of 3 bundles, numbered 8-10 and so on up to Special File 51 consisting of one bundle, numbered 114.

Control symbols
The Australian Archives (now National Archives of Australia) appears to have imposed an item numbering system when it completed an inventory for the series in 1974-1975.  The Archives' numbering system is pencilled in on the front cover of the files.  Each item number consisted of the special file number, the bundle number and the sequential number of the item within that bundle.  This system meant that control symbols were quite complicated and led to difficulties with retrieval and ordering of items.

Projects to enhance access, control and preservation of the series were carried out in 2002 and 2003-2004 by the National Archives of Australia.  The bundle numbering was eliminated from the control symbol, and the control symbols became a single sequence of numbers within each special file.  The previous control symbols can still be used for retrieval as they have been recorded as alternative control symbols.

Special files
The only agency control record we have is the list of 46 special file numbers and titles found in series A5052.  The 1974-1975 inventory identifies a further 7 special files.  These are Special Files 47, 47A, 48, 49, 49A, 50 and 51.  The 1974 inventory also has a number of changes from the A5052 list.  This includes changes to special file titles and the addition of a number of subsidiary special files.

 The 2003-2004 project used the Attorney-General’s List of Special Files found in series A5052 as the basis of the special file titles and special file numbers. The project changed some special file titles where they were not consistent with A5052.  It also placed the special file titles in square brackets to indicate firstly, that they do not appear on the file covers and secondly, that we do not know whether the agency intended the special file title to be part of the title of each file.  The project also amalgamated subsidiary special files into a single special file where the subsidiary files were not identified in the A5052 list and where they shared the same special file title and subject matter. For example, SF16, SF16A, and SF16B becomes a single sequence of item numbers within SF16.  The previous control symbols have been recorded as alternative control symbols. 

A special case is Special File 1.  In this case, the Attorney-General’s Special File list did identify three subsidiary special file titles. The main title  - "Australasian Performing Right Association" was shared but the three subsidiary files had different subsidiary titles: SF1A - Voluntary Arbitration "B" Class Stations. Musical Royalties; SF1B: Voluntary Arbitration "A" class stations. Musical Royalties; SF1C - Royal Commission on Performing Rights.   SF1A and SF1B had very specific subsidiary titles concerning copyright negotiations with radio stations.  However, many items in these files concern issues and activities that don't appear to be directly connected with radio stations.  In the 1974 inventory the subsidiary title of SF1A had been changed to "Actions with Australasian Performing Right Association" perhaps in recognition of the need for a broader subsidiary title.  In addition, SF1B included several Royal Commission on Performing Rights files that presumably should have been in SF1C. Given these discrepancies, the arrangement of SF1 items into the subsidiary files may have also been partially determined by the original bundle system rather than the actual subject matter of items - SF1 was bundles 1&2; SF1A was bundles 3&4 etc. Therefore, the 2003-2004 project thought it was more appropriate to opt for the broad agency special file number (SF1) and the main agency title (Australasian Performing Right Association) and leave it to the individual cover title of items to identify its contents. The previous control symbols are recorded as alternative control symbols.

Previous recordkeeping systems
As mentioned above, the records in this series were brought together from various recordkeeping systems of the department.  These include series now registered by the National Archives of Australia as A508, A432 and A472.  In many cases, it appears that the records were simply taken out of one recordkeeping system and placed into the appropriate special file.  Therefore, many files missing from these series may be found in A467.  Where the previous recordkeeping control number can be identified, it has been entered as an alternative control number and the record can be retrieved via that previous recordkeeping control number.  For example, a researcher who enters A432 1929/1839 into the Reference Number field will retrieve A467 SF1/8


Relationships with other records
The List of Special Files, numbers 1-46 is included in item 1 of series A5052.

Language of material
Primarily English, although some international convention papers and overseas publications are included and will contain foreign language material.

Physical characteristics
Paper files and documents.