Summary heading

Descriptive Note

Function and purpose

This series consists of records documenting the verbal evidence given at formal hearings of the Royal Commission, including tape recordings; notes in support of the tapes; and draft and final versions of transcripts. The formal hearings provided a structure for standardising and making known the status of the information given. Justice Hope outlined this issue at the start of each session. Justice Hope made orders under section 6D of the Royal Commission Act prohibiting publication of certain evidence.

Verbal evidence given to the Royal Commission outside the formal hearings structure (in casual meetings and conversations) is recorded mostly in the form of Notes for File or ROC (Records of Conversation) in series A12385, one of the main correspondence file series. Non-verbal, written evidence is mostly in the form of submissions from private persons (A12385) and from official sources (correspondence series A12381, A12382, A12383 and A12384). Written evidence tendered during the course of formal hearings is in the ‘Exhibits’ series A12388.

The formal hearings of the Royal Commission fall into five categories:

Public hearings: The evidence given at public hearings was, by definition, in the public domain from the time it was given. The Royal Commission placed advertisements in the press invited public submissions in late 1974 and subsequently conducted public hearings in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth from March to May 1975, Sydney again in July 1975 and Melbourne again in March 1976.

In Camera hearings: Evidence given at In Camera hearings was not to be made public. These hearings usually occurred during the course of a public hearing when a witness expressed a wish to be heard in private or the Commissioner judged it advisable to do so – the public hearing process was suspended while a witness gave all or part of their evidence to Justice Hope in private. However there were formal hearings in Canberra on 28 May 1975 and again on 6 and 7 August 1975 which were entirely In Camera.  There were no hearings open to the public in Canberra.

In Chambers hearings: These were formally constituted hearings on the same basis as public hearings – that is evidence was not subject to any limitation regarding publication - but they were more of an ad hoc nature, complementing the advertised public hearings, and might be attended only by the witness himself. (For definition of this category by Justice Hope see transcript page 1 (item 2/1 of this series) and page 18 (item 2/2 of this series).

Official Hearings: Evidence given formally by officers of Australian security and intelligence agencies speaking in their capacity as official representatives of their organisation. This category was limited in fact to officers of the Joint Intelligence Office (JIO) and related defence agencies. There was often more than one officer attending a session, giving in effect ‘joint evidence’. Official hearings were not open to the public; evidence related to the structure and operations of the agencies and was often highly sensitive.

Private or ‘secret’ hearings: Evidence given formally by private persons, including officers of Australian security and intelligence agencies speaking in their capacity as private citizens. Only the officer himself/herself attended and the evidence was secret because, like the official hearings, the evidence related to the structure and operations of the agencies and was often highly sensitive.  Undertakings were also given regarding confidentially.

Note that the terminology that occurs in the records themselves is not always consistent with the definition described above. For example the term ‘official’ is sometimes used in the sense in which the term ‘formal’ has been used above. ‘Secret’ is sometimes used to mean just the private category (as used above) but in other contexts appears to embrace the ‘official’ hearings as well.

The following notes explain how records were generated at the hearings to explain the sometimes complex and incomplete numbering or control systems. At the beginning of each transcript are the dates of hearing and lists of witnesses. The notes help explain why some items may not appear in the correct sequence or why the control numbers or symbols are inconsistent.

Public Hearings

The responsibility for recording proceedings of the public hearings was undertaken by the Australian Government Reporting Service (AGRS), later known as the Commonwealth Reporting Service and then Auscript. The Reporting Services provided final hard copy transcripts only of these hearings to the Royal Commission; any tapes and notes or draft transcripts that were created were retained in the Reporting Service (and presumably re-used/destroyed in accordance with the established procedure for sensitive records).

An exception is the public hearings in Perth on 14 May 1975 which were not recorded by the AGRS but by an organisation called Verbatim Reporters. The tape recordings of this hearing are in the Royal Commission records; these tapes bear control numbers in a sequence that related to the business of Verbatim reporters and is otherwise without meaning in the context of the Royal Commission records. There is a list of these tapes at item 1/2/7 attachment. Most are cassette tapes but item 1/2/7 is a reel tape and may contain data transferred from some of the listed cassette tapes. The final transcript is incorporated in the sequence produced by the AGRS (item 1/1/4).

The transcripts of public hearings are paginated in one sequence throughout, from opening of the Sydney hearings on 5 March 1975 at page 1 (item 1/1/1) to end of Melbourne hearings on 2 March 1976 at page 647 (item 1/1/10). (Note that the actual page numbering is fairly elastic – there are instances of supplementary pages distinguished by alpha suffixes eg ‘ … 164, 164A, 165, ...’ and  ‘ … 429, 429A, 429B, 430, …’ and some of two or three pages coalesced into one eg ‘… 167, 168/9, 170, …’ and ‘… 424, 425/7, 428, …’).

This pagination sequence includes the transcripts of the In Camera hearings which are present in these items. For this reason, items under primary number 1 of this series are titled ‘Public and In Camera Hearings’.

The items in this sequence (1/1/1 to 1/1/10) each consist of one day’s hearing only – which is as the records were created and maintained by the Royal Commission. In 1977 a copy of all the public hearings were placed in one folder and transferred to National Archives for use by a public researcher. This composite item was controlled as ‘Box 1’ of this series. In this copy there are gaps in the pagination where copies of the In Camera hearings have been omitted.

The Inventory of Records (CRS A12396) refers to 2 sets of these transcripts (‘Set A’ and ‘Set B’). Only Set A was present in the records transferred to the custody of the National Archives in November 2001. The draft of section 16.5.2 of the inventory, which lists contents of the cabinet drawers in which the RCIS records were stored at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C), shows Set B crossed through – so it can be assumed this copy has been retained at PM&C.

There are three notebooks relating to the In Camera hearings at Canberra on 28 May 1975 (items of 1/3/…. sequence). This transcription service was provided by Intelsec. The Intelsec control appears in the lower left corner of the transcript page – the initials indicate the staff person. Each notebook appears to have been for dedicated use by one staff person (1/3/1 is annotated ‘G West’ on the front cover) and the chronological sequence of the notes is consequently dispersed through the three books.

In Chambers hearings

These records are controlled under primary number 2 in this series.  Hearings of this type occurred in Melbourne on 7 May 1975, Sydney on 23 May 1975, Canberra on 6 August 1975 and Adelaide on 18 August 1975. There are final transcripts only, numbered in one pagination sequence throughout (Inventory of Records, A12396, series HB2). There are no tapes or notes.

Private (or ‘Secret’) hearings

These records are controlled under primary number 3 in this series. There were extensive hearings in this category. There are final transcripts (sequence 3/1/..), draft transcripts (sequence 3/2/..) and tape recordings (sequence 3/3/..). The final transcripts are in one on-going paginating sequence throughout from beginning of first hearing in Sydney on 6 March 1975 (page 1) to end of final hearing at Sydney on 1 March 1976 (page 675).

The draft transcripts are page numbered from 1 for each witness.

The tapes extant in this sequence (items 3/3/1 to 3/3/11) cover only hearings to 19August 1975 (ie to end of page 419 of transcripts). The tapes of the 1976 hearings were made on tapes which were also used for the second round of Official Joint Intelligence Organisation (JIO) hearings and the sequence is intermixed, as explained below.

Official (‘JIO’) hearings

There were two rounds of hearings of official representation by JIO.

Round 1: The records relating to Round 1 (September 1975) are controlled under primary number 4 in this series.

Final transcripts are in one on-going pagination sequence through both rounds (Inventory of Records series HB7). Transcripts for Round 1 hearings (page numbers 1 to 404) are in items 4/1/1 to 4/1/6

There are also draft transcripts (4/2/.. sequence) , tapes (4/3/.. sequence) and notebooks (4/4/.. sequence) for round 1 (Series HB5B, HB5 and HB5A respectively in the Inventory of Records).

Round 2: The records relating to Round 2 (February 1976) are controlled under primary number 5 in this series. Transcripts of the Official hearings (pages 405 to 620) are in items 5/1/1 to 5/1/3.

The complication for the control scheme is that the tapes recording the hearing of the second round of JIO officers (Feb 1976) are interspersed with the hearings of the second round of private hearings (Feb/Mar 1976). Tapes 1,2,6,7 and 8 are each entirely one or the other. However tapes 3,4, and 5 have both official and private hearings recorded thereon. It is not possible to physically separate the record items into the two categories. The notebooks and the draft transcripts also reflect this intersorting of categories that occurs on the tapes. For this reason the entries under primary number 5 are headed ‘Second Round (Feb/Mar 1976 of (i) Official Hearings: Joint Intelligence Organisation and related Defence intelligence organisations and of (ii) Private hearings ………”.

The final transcripts are discrete - the transcripts for the Second Round of Private hearings are in items 3/1/10 to 3/1/14. Tapes notes and drafts were all described in the Inventory of Records series HB6).

There is much over-lapping of the information from one format to the next and this complexity is best clarified by a table of all items relating to the second round of hearings, Official and Private.

Date and place of hearings        Session No       Hearing Type    Tape Item No               Notebook Item No       Draft Transcript No   Final Transcript No

9 Feb 1976 -    Canberra          Session 1A       Private              5/3/1 (Tape 1)              5/4/1                            5/2/1                            3/1/10 (pp 419-441)

9 Feb 1976      Canberra          Session 1B       Private              5/3/1 (Tape 1)              5/4/1                            5/2/1                            3/1/10 (pp 442-457)

9 Feb 1976      Canberra          Session 1C       Private              5/3/1 (Tape 1)              5/4/1                            5/2/1                            3/1/10 (pp 458-475)

10 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 2A       Official             5/3/2 (Tape 2)              5/4/2                            5/2/2                            5/1/1   (pp 405-411)

10 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 2B       Official             5/3/2 (Tape 2)              5/4/2                            5/2/2                            5/1/1   (pp 412-418)

10 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 2C       Official             5/3/2 (Tape 2)              5/4/2                            5/2/2                            5/1/1   (pp 419-426)

10 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 2D       Official             5/3/2 (Tape 2)              5/4/2                            5/2/2                            5/1/1   (pp 427-432)

10 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 2E       Official             5/3/2 (Tape 2)              5/4/2                            5/2/2                            5/1/1   (pp 433-442)

10 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 2F       Official             5/3/2 (Tape 2)              5/4/2                            5/2/2                            5/1/1   (pp 443-456)

10 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 2G       Official             5/3/2 (Tape 2)              5/4/2                            5/2/2                            5/1/1   (pp 457-472)

10 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 3A       Official             5/3/3 (Tape 3)              5/4/2                            5/2/3                            3/1/10 (pp 473-485)

11 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 3B       Private              5/3/3 (Tape 3)              5/4/3                            5/2/3                            5/1/2   (pp 486-517)

11 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 3C       Official             5/3/3 (Tape 3)              5/4/3                            5/2/3                            5/1/1   (pp 476-482)

11 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 4A       Official             5/3/4 (Tape 4)              5/4/3                            5/2/4                            5/1/2   (pp 518-554)

11 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 4B       Private              5/3/4 (Tape 4)              5/4/3                            5/2/4                            3/1/10 (pp 483-495)

12 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 5A       Official             5/3/5 (Tape 5)              5/4/4                            5/2/5                            5/1/3   (pp 555-587)

12 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 5B       Official             5/3/5 (Tape 5)              5/4/4                            5/2/5                            5/1/3   (pp 588-608)

12 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 5C       Private              5/3/5 (Tape 5)              5/4/4                            5/2/5                            3/1/10 (pp 497-499)

12 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 5D       Official             5/3/5 (Tape 5)              5/4/4                            5/2/5                            5/1/3   (pp 609-620)

16 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 6A       Private              5/3/6 (Tape 6)              5/4/5                            5/2/6                            3/1/11 (pp 500-529)

16 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 6B       Private              5/3/6 (Tape 6)              5/4/5                            5/2/6                            3/1/11 (pp 530-544)

16 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 6C

                                                & Session 7A- Private              (i) 5/3/6 (Tape 6)

                                                                                                cont. on

                                                                                                (ii) 5/3/7 (Tape 7)         5/4/5                            5/2/7                            3/1/11  (pp 545-556)

20 Feb 1976    Canberra          Session 7B       Private              5/3/7 (Tape 7)              5/4/5                            5/2/7                            3/1/12  (pp 557-605)

27 Feb 1976    Sydney             Session 8A       Private              5/3/8 (Tape 8)              5/4/6                            5/2/8                            3/1/13  (pp 606-635)

1 Mar 1976      Sydney             Session 9A       Private              5/3/9 (Tape 9)              None                            5/2/9                            3/1/14  (pp 635-655)

1 Mar 1976      Sydney             Session 9B       Private              5/3/9 (Tape 9)              None                            5/2/9                            3/1/14  (pp 656-675)

(Official) Hearings related to draft 3rd report

These records are controlled under primary number 6 in this series. A draft of the Commission’s Third Report was issued in September 1976; the response, notably in Department of Defence, prompted a further hearing in Canberra on 29 September 1976. This session is referred to in some places as the ‘Tange’ hearings.

There are transcripts (6/1/… sequence; Inventory of Records series HB9) and tapes (6/2/… sequence; Inventory of Records HB8). The transcripts are referred to as ‘Draft transcripts’ in the Inventory of Records series HB9, however they give the appearance of final versions rather than drafts. There are no other transcripts of these hearings among the records.

Related legislation

 

Using the series

 

Language of material

 

Physical characteristics

 

System of arrangement and control

In the initial serialisation of the Royal Commission records in 1977, the records that now comprise one series of transcripts of hearings were described as 14 discrete series. The categorisation was based primarily on the format of the records and then more-or-less in accordance with the categorization above. See description in the Inventory of Records, CRS A12396, for series HB1, HB1A, HB2, HB3, HB3A, HB4, HB5, HB5A, HB6, HB7, HB8, HB9 and HB10. The alpha suffixes were employed to indicate some of the relationships. The difficulty with this approach is that each small accumulation is described discretely and therefore requires very extensive elaboration of the relationships (or links) between the series in order to establish an accurate overview of the record accumulation (and thereby an understanding of how each part relates to the whole).

The current serialisation is based primarily on the type of hearing, arranged in chronological sequence. See full description of system of arrangement and control below. The records of this series are controlled by a multiple number system, partly imposed by the National Archives, in accordance with the scheme outlined in the following information:

* a primary number for the types of hearings;

* a secondary number for the format of the recording of the hearings; and

* a third number for each item within that format.

Generally the records lend themselves to separation into the categorisation adopted.  The one complication is that the one set of cassette tapes have been used to record both the second round of Official hearings (JIO officers) and the second round of Private hearings, both of which occurred in February to March 1976. Tapes 1, 2, 6, 7 and 8 are each entirely one or the other. Tapes 3, 4 and 5 have both official and private hearings recorded thereon.

1. Public hearings, including In Camera hearings, 1975

        1              Final transcripts

2              Tapes (Perth hearings only)

3              Notes (Shorthand notes of in camera hearing, Canberra 28 May 1975 only)

2. ‘In Chambers’ hearings, 1975

        1              Final transcripts

3. ‘Private’ hearings (ie secret hearings of non-official evidence), 1975

        1              Final transcripts

        2              Draft transcripts

        3              Tapes

4. Official (JIO) hearings, first round, September 1975 – hearings of official evidence by JIO and related defence intelligence personnel

        1              Final transcripts

        2              Draft transcripts

        3              Tapes

        4              Notes supporting tapes

5. Official (JIO) hearings, second round, February 1976 and ‘private hearings’, second round, February/March 1976

        1              Final transcripts

        2              Draft transcripts

        3              Tapes

        4              Notes supporting tapes

6. Hearings in response to draft third report, 29 September 1976

        1              Final transcripts

        2              Tapes

Relationships with other records

 

Finding aids

While the records were in active use it appears the ‘submission’ files (CRS A12385) were used as the main reference to and source of non-official information contained in these records (often parts of transcripts were copies to the files).  The Nominal index to transcripts (CRS A12397) is not an index to witnesses but a partial index to persons mentioned in the transcripts.

Access conditions

 

Series history

 

Provenance

 

Immediate source of acquisition

 

Custodial history

Following the closure of the Royal Commission in 1977 the records were transferred to the custody of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (in Canberra) where they remained until transferred to National Archives of Australia in 2001.

Quantity in agency custody

 

Disposal history

 

Publication note

 

Additional information

 

End notes

 

Sources