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House of Representatives                                Ch 17                                                 p 605

Copyright

In recent years the issue of copyright has arisen in connection with parliamentary publications, principally bills. Parliament has taken the position that it is important that it facilitate access by interested persons to its proceedings and publications. As is to be expected, requests have often been made for the use of various items, and permission has been given on many occasions. To ensure that the administrative arrangements are as straightforward and clear as possible on these matters, especially from the point of view of persons making inquiries, parliamentary authorities have agreed that the responsible area of the Executive ¹ may serve as a single contact point for persons or organisations with copyright queries. Under the arrangements any relevant matter concerning Parliament must then be referred to the appropriate parliamentary department. The Parliament has been careful to ensure that, whilst agreeing to certain administrative arrangements for reasons of practicality, it has never countenanced the concept that parliamentary publications, such as bills, should in any sense be regarded as the ‘property’ of the Executive. ²

A legal opinion given in respect of the Yirrkala bark petitions ( see p. 615 ) indicated that the fact that the petitions had been presented to the House did not extinguish the copyright interest of the persons who had created them. Special arrangements were made in respect of requests to publish images of these items, in recognition of their unique status and significance, but it was considered that the Houses of the Parliament, and committees, had undoubted rights in respect of the publication of documents presented to them or in their possession. ³

At the time of publication this was Commonwealth Copyright Administration (CCA), Attorney-General’s Department.

See for example correspondence between Presiding Officers and Attorneys-General. In the United Kingdom the Copyright , Designs and Patents Act 1988 gives statutory recognition to the principle of ‘parliamentary copyright’.

And see H.R. Deb. (7.12.2000) 23810.