Items medium note

Series M170consists of media related material regarding the Hon Edward “Gough” Whitlam, which was compiled by Press Office staff. Papers include master and duplicate sets of: press releases, statements, press conferences, interviews and speeches. In addition to records created during his term as Prime Minister of Australia, the series contains some documents from the period prior to his election when Mr Whitlam was Leader of the Opposition. For the purposes of control, an annual single number system with year prefix was imposed on the items by the Australian Archives.

When in business use, the records were kept in three separate sets and this original order has been maintained. Sets 1 and 2 were arranged using headed divider cards, which contained a short (typed) title of the item and its date. Set 3 was arranged in folders by month in chronological order. Set 1 (original box numbers 1-36) is the most complete set. It was collected from Mr Whitlam's office in old Parliament House and is presumed to consist of copies kept for his personal reference. Set 2 (original box numbers 112-118) was collected from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet’s West Block office in Canberra and appears to be the reference set used by departmental staff. Set 3 (original box numbers 100-111) was stored in room U.50 in old Parliament House. Unlike sets 1 and 2, this third set contained a large number of duplicates of material issued for press and publicity purposes. It was arranged haphazardly and is therefore thought unlikely to have been used for reference purposes. Duplicate material, which was originally contained in all sets, has been removed.

In September 2020, the duplicate material was listed in two sets: one set containing two copies of each item, where available, controlled at item level using an annual single number system of arrangement; and another set consisting of box-level entries of duplicate material. Item titles in the first set were expanded occasionally and a small number of new item entries were created. In order to maintain the chronological arrangement of the entries, the control symbols for some of the new entries were selected by using the same root of the control symbol for the item entry immediately preceding the new item entry but with an alphabetical suffix to separate it from the preceding entry. Where an exact match of the material was made the items in sets 1, 2 or 3, the same control symbol was used. In addition, where a close relationship with the items in sets 1, 2 and 3 was made, the same control symbol was used. The contents date ranges for a small number of items was approximated. Occasional differences in dates attributed to item entries between the sets were observed.