Queensland Consolidated Acts

EVIDENCE ACT 1977 - SECT 106

106 Admissibility of reproductions of business documents destroyed, lost or unavailable

(1) Subject to this part, a document that purports to be a copy of an original document made or used in the course of a business shall, upon proof that it is a reproduction made in good faith and that the original document has been destroyed or lost, whether wholly or in part, or that it is not reasonably practicable to produce the original document or to secure its production, be admissible in evidence in any proceeding to the extent to which the contents of the original document of which it purports to be a copy would have been admissible and it shall, subject to proof of the same matters, be a sufficient answer to legal process issued by a court, requiring production of a document to the court, for the person required by that process to produce the document to produce such a reproduction of the document.

(2) Without prejudice to any other mode of proof an affidavit purporting to have been made by a person at or about the time the person made a machine copy of or photographed a document—

(a) stating the person’s full name, address and occupation; and

(b) identifying or describing the document and indicating whether the document is itself a reproduction; and

(c) stating the day upon which the person made the machine copy or photograph, the condition of the document at that time with respect to legibility and the extent of any damage thereto; and

(d) describing the machine or process by which the person made the machine copy or photograph; and

(e) stating that the making of the machine copy or photograph was properly carried out by the use of apparatus or materials in good working condition with the object of making a machine copy or, as the case may be, a transparency of the document; and

(f) stating that the machine copy or photograph is a machine copy or photograph made in good faith;

shall be evidence, whether or not such person is available to be called as a witness, that the machine copy or, as the case may be, a transparency of the document referred to in the affidavit is a machine copy or transparency made in good faith and, in the case of a machine copy is, or in the case of a transparency can be used to produce, a reproduction of the document.