Departmental File Listing

On 28 June 1994, the Senate agreed to a motion proposed by Senator Brian Harradine relating to an Order for the regular production of indexed lists of files.

The Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration reported to the Senate on 20 September 1994 in response to a reference relating to the practicality, cost effectiveness and usefulness of the Senate Order. After extensive debate amendments to the order were agreed upon on 14 November 1994. The Order remains in place though the Senate has varied compliance dates and added provisions relating to tabling the lists on the Department’s Internet.

The file listings have been edited in accordance with the terms of the Order, which specified that the list need not include:

• Files transferred to the National Archives of Australia;
• Files essentially related to the internal administration of the department (staff or personnel, accounts, training or general administrative matters);
• Case related files (for example personal representations or dealing with the personal affairs of departmental or agency clients);
• File titles whose national security classification is 'Confidential', 'Secret' or 'Top Secret' or their equivalent.

The Senate Order asked for the lists to be ‘indexed’. A subject index is not readily available from the departmental records system, which uses a combination of keywords to retrieve data. The file lists are divided into six monthly periods.

• 1 Jan 2008 to 30 June 2008 (PDF 10KB)
• 1 July 2007 to 31 December 2007 (PDF 15KB)
• 1 Jan 2007 to 30 June 2007 (PDF 12KB)
• 1 July 2006 to 31 December 2006 (PDF 16KB)
• 1 Jan 2006 to 30 June 2006 (PDF 15KB)
• 1 July 2005 to 31 December 2005 (PDF 39KB)
• 1 Jan 2005 to 30 June 2005 (PDF 85KB)