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A watered-down 'McHistory' view of reality could be all we get if tighter controls on access to public information go ahead, leading historians say.
The Births, Death, Marriages and Relationships Amendment Bill clamps down on access to information, currently available to virtually anyone. It follows concerns about identity
fraud and the ease of accessing official records.
Under the bill's provisions, an individual will be able to access only personal birth records, details of those of an immediate family member, or someone born more than 100 years ago. For information about anyone else, authorisation from the person concerned would be needed.
The planned legislation has some top historians up in arms. They say it is likely to have a huge impact on future reading of 20th century history, and runs counter to the freeing up of similar information in other countries.
"Probably what concerns me the most is that the whole idea of public registration was to ensure that this information was on the public record. Making that information private is an attack on freedom of expression," says forensic researcher and author Graeme Hunt.
"It is a breach of human rights."
Hunt, who wrote Black Prince, a biography of unionist Fintan Patrick Walsh, and who is currently working on a book about New Zealand spies, argues that the restrictions will make it impossible for him and others to write "real" history.
Without access to public records historians would have been unable to write many of the books and papers they have produced, Hunt says.
"What will happen is that we're going to get a whole lot of glossed over history. Seeing an original document tells you so much about our history, and it often differs from what a family will tell you or what conventional history says."
During research for Black Prince, Hunt discovered Walsh had lied about his name - it was actually Patrick Tuohy - and where he was born. He also discovered that one of Walsh's brothers was an alcoholic and another had died in a mental institution.
"I was able to put together an unvarnished family history, not some bulls*** the family had told me about someone dying of old age..."
Political scientist Barry Gustafson has written biographies of Robert Muldoon and Michael Savage, and is currently working on former Prime Minister David Lange's entry for the Dictionary of New Zealand, as well as completing a biography of Sir Keith Holyoake.
Like Hunt, he says he would have been unable to write accurate accounts of their lives without being able to research public records.
"In Muldoon's case, his father died in a mental institution. Now, of course, people don't want things like that broadcast, but I was able to find out what he died of and whether the rumours that were going around about venereal disease and syphilis were true. They were.
"And Holyoake married the same person [Norma Ingram] twice, about six months apart. He eloped the first time - he was engaged [to Norma] and there was some suggestion she wasn't quite as acceptable to his mother as she might have been - so they simply caught a boat across Cook Strait to Wellington, had a registry marriage and then went back to Nelson. Then, because his mother was particularly religious, had a second full church wedding with a much larger cast and all the trimmings.
"With these new regulations I may never have been able to find that out and that's ridiculous."
Britain is not only making information available but also making it easier to access. Gustafson receives updates of newly archived material online and "even top secret cabinet and government papers" from Britain only have a 30-year restriction, he says.
Hunt says it is a similar story in the United States, with FBI records available on the internet.
"I've been looking up records involving some spies linked to a New Zealander. You can download whole case records, including interception records by listening agencies."
He notes that under the bill, which has had its first reading in Parliament, anyone publishing unauthorised information inside protected periods (for a death certificate, the death must have been 50 years ago or the person at least 80 when they died) could be fined up to $10,000.
"We won't be able to do a damn thing. I can understand that we shouldn't be writing just to hurt or humiliate living people, but part of the price of living in a democratic society is free flow of information.
"I can understand why people might want their criminal records protected, and none of us want to see people getting false passports or stealing identities, but the way it's being done is draconian, basically privacy through the backdoor. I feel quite pissed off about the whole business."
Former Labour MP, political historian Michael Bassett, says there is an automatic entitlement to access to information about anyone in public life. He also has concerns about probable cost increases.
"It will be a very sad day for historians if this goes ahead," he says.
Special provisions in the bill allow the police, Security Intelligence Service and other officials access to the records. Others protect the identities of witnesses, people associated with the SIS, and police officers.
The National Party has said it will oppose the bill, which now goes to select committee.
Things you wouldn't have known if the bill was law
* Unionist Fintan Patrick Walsh's name was really Patrick Tuohy and he was born in Poverty Bay, not Ireland as he had claimed. One of his brothers was an alcoholic while another died in a mental institution.
* He also had an illegitimate daughter, Una Cargill, who died last year aged 82.
* Former National Prime Minister Sir Robert Muldoon's father had syphilis and died in a mental institution.
* Former National Prime Minister Sir Keith Holyoake married his wife Norma Ingram twice, the first time eloping with her to Wellington because his mother disapproved of the match.
