Summary heading

A6223 – Printed copies of Royal Commission on Espionage Official Transcripts of In Camera Proceedings.

Function and purpose

This series consists of one item: a binder of printed copies of the official transcript of in-camera hearings dated August 1955. The transcripts cover in camera hearings for the following dates:

20 July 1954 and 21 July 1954 (both Melbourne), 11 November 1954, 1 December 1954, 3 December 1954, 6 December 1954, 8 December 1954, 28 January 1955, 28 February 1955, 1 March 1955, 2 March 1955, 3 March 1955, 4 March 1955, 8 March 1955, 9 March 1955 and 10 March 1955 (all Sydney).  These individual transcripts were published with sequential page numbering, from 2799 – 2925. These page numbers correspond to Volume 6 of the bound version of the transcripts.

The Royal Commission on Espionage held 126 days of hearings in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne between 17 May 1954 and 31 March 1955. Despite the subject matter of the Royal Commission’s inquiries, most of the hearings were held in public, but in certain cases, evidence was held in private ‘in camera’ sessions where the Royal Commissioners felt the national interest demanded this. The circumstances in which the proceedings were held ‘in camera’ fell into four broad categories:

a)     where the evidence was known to be of such a nature that, for reasons of security, it should not be made public;

b)    where a witness was engaged in counter-intelligence work and its was not desirable to disclose their identity;

c)     where it was uncertain until a matter had been investigated whether the answers to the questions would involve security consideration; and

d)    where the relations of Australia with other countries made it desirable that evidence concerning their nationals either should not be published or should be made known to the governments of those countries before publication (1).

In camera evidence was recorded in the normal way by court reporters of the Commonwealth Reporting Branch, who then handed over their notebooks at the end of each day’s hearings. An unedited and uncorrected typescript transcript was then made within the Royal Commission Secretariat and for limited distribution to government officials and counsel appearing before the Royal Commission. This was later edited and corrected and 2,000 copies of the official transcript were produced per sitting. These were then distributed with a wider circulation (2).

Although some of the in-camera proceedings of 20 July 1954 were published in September 1954 (2), the in-camera proceedings were only published after the Royal Commission’s final report had been submitted in August 1955. Certain exceptions were made to this, and no transcripts for in camera sittings held on 18 October, 22 October, 1 November and 2 November 1954 were ever published. The sorts of information excluded from publication included the private evidence of former and serving ‘senior servants of the Crown’, such as the Director General of Security, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Defence, particular security officers and the former Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, Dr John Wear Burton (3).  

Physical characteristics

Each transcript is foolscap in size. They are housed in an unlabelled brown cardboard ‘Visidex’ binder.   

System of arrangement and control

The transcripts are arranged within the binder in chronological order, from 20 July 1954 to 10 March 1955. A single number system has been imposed on the series, with the only item allocated the control symbol [1] 

Relationships with other records

This series forms part of the body of records created by the Royal Commission on Espionage. These records can be broadly divided into three categories: the Records of the Royal Commissioners (series A6214 and A6215), the Records of the Secretariat (A6213) and the records that were assembled as a result of the Royal Commission’s investigations (exhibits, transcripts of in camera proceedings and reports etc).

There are extensive references throughout the transcripts to exhibits tendered before the Royal Commission. The exhibits are now in two separate record series:

A6201 – Exhibits, single number series

A6202 – Exhibits, single letter series

In themselves, the hearings were an important source of information that helped inform the Royal Commissioners’ findings. Copies of their final report can be found in various series, such as A6216, A6217, A6218 and A6235.

The original short hand notes / workbooks used to initial transcribe these proceedings are now in series A6222. The main correspondence file series of the Royal Commission Secretariat (A6213) contains typescripts made from the short hand notes and workbooks (files RCE/Z/1 – RCE/Z/44). A6213 also contains a number of indices to the in-camera transcripts (see ‘finding aids’ below). 

A10930 is an unbound set of official transcripts of proceedings (including in-camera proceedings) with index formerly in the custody of the Official Secretary to the Governor General. Six bound volumes of the official transcripts of proceedings are also held by the National Archives in its Sydney office as SP950/2.

Finding aids

A6213 contains both a nominal index (RCE/Z/47) and an alphabetical index (RCE/Q/6 and RCE/Z/46) to the published in camera proceedings transcript. A6213, RCE/P/5 is another index to the in-camera proceedings. A10930, [1] is an index to the entire set of printed official transcripts, both public and in-camera.

Series history

Along with other Royal Commission on Espionage records, this series was received into Archives custody from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in 1984. It was formerly accessioned as A1984/503. The original series title was “Printed copy of the Transcript for ‘in camera’ hearings”. Arrangement and description work was undertaken in April 2005 as part of a Collection Development Project involving multiple series of records associated with the Royal Commission on Espionage. As a result of this work, a single number system for control was imposed, the series descriptive note updated, and the item rehoused in an acid free container. The series title was also amended to better reflect and describe the actual contents of the series.      

End notes

(1)  Royal Commission on Espionage, Report of the Royal Commission on Espionage (22 August 1955), p. 7.

(2)  KH Herde, Secretary to the Royal Commission to the Government Solicitor, 13 Jul 1954. A6213, RCE/T/8.

(3)  The transcript for 20 July 1954 released in September 1954 was foliated A-N; whereas the portion of that day’s proceedings released in August 1955 was foliated with page numbers 2799-2803.  

(4)  Report of the Royal Commission on Espionage, p. 8