National bodies are bodies established under national schemes where Constitutional powers rest with States and Territories, and not the Commonwealth, and where the bodies concerned are not otherwise Commonwealth bodies. National bodies may be subject to the records and archives laws of multiple State and Territory jurisdictions.

The CAARA general retention and disposal authority for administrative records was developed by the Council of Australasian Archives and Records Authorities (CAARA) National Bodies Working Group to provide agreed and consistent retention and disposal requirements across all Australian States and Territories for the records of common administrative functions that may be performed by national bodies.

The general authority covers records of common administrative functions that may be performed by national bodies. It does not authorise the disposal of records of functions that are unique to a body. Records of functions that are unique should be covered separately by a function or sector specific authority. Records created by the national bodies’ predecessor agencies are not covered by this authority and these must be sentenced in accordance with instruments issued by the relevant State or Territory archival authority for the predecessor agency for the corresponding time period.

National bodies currently include:

• the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (established to manage the registration of health practitioners nationally)
• the Australian Children’s Education & Care Quality Authority(established to regulate education and care services for children up to the age of 13)

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