New South Wales Consolidated Acts

STATE RECORDS ACT 1998 - SECT 21

21 Protection measures

(1) A person must not--

(a) abandon or dispose of a State record, or

(b) transfer or offer to transfer, or be a party to arrangements for the transfer of, the possession or ownership of a State record, or

(c) take or send a State record out of New South Wales, or

(d) damage or alter a State record, or

(e) neglect a State record in a way that causes or is likely to cause damage to the State record.

: Maximum penalty--100 penalty units.

(2) None of the following is a contravention of this section--

(a) anything done in accordance with normal administrative practice in a public office (as provided by section 22),

(b) anything that is authorised or required to be done by or under this Act, or by or under a provision of any other Act that is prescribed by the regulations as being an exception to this Part,

(c) anything done by or with the permission of the Authority or in accordance with any practice or procedure approved by the Authority either generally or in a particular case or class of cases (including any practice or procedure approved of under any standards and codes of best practice for records management formulated by the Authority),

(d) anything done pursuant to an order or determination of a court or tribunal,

(e) the disposal, in accordance with a resolution of a House of Parliament, of a State record for which the House is the responsible public office,

(f) anything done for the purpose of placing a record under the control of a public office,

(g) the transfer or disposal, in accordance with the Members of Parliament Staff Act 2013 , of a record of information created or received by a political office holder (within the meaning of that Act) or the staff of such an office holder.

(3) The Authority must not do, or give permission or approval for or with respect to the doing of, anything referred to in subsection (1) except with the approval of the Board given either generally or in a particular case or class of cases.

(4) Anything done by a person (
"the employee" ) at the direction of some other person given in the course of the employee's employment is taken for the purposes of this section not to have been done by the employee and instead to have been done by that other person.

(5) It is a defence to a prosecution for an offence under this section for the defendant to establish that he or she did not know and had no reasonable cause to suspect that the record was a State record.

(6) This section prevails over a provision of any other Act enacted before the commencement of this section.

(7) An Act enacted after the commencement of this section is not to be interpreted as prevailing over or otherwise altering the effect or operation of this section except in so far as that Act provides expressly for that Act to have effect despite this section.