New South Wales Consolidated Acts

EVIDENCE ACT 1995 - SECT 69

69 Exception: business records

(1) This section applies to a document that:

(a) either:

(i) is or forms part of the records belonging to or kept by a person, body or organisation in the course of, or for the purposes of, a business, or

(ii) at any time was or formed part of such a record, and

(b) contains a previous representation made or recorded in the document in the course of, or for the purposes of, the business.

(2) The hearsay rule does not apply to the document (so far as it contains the representation) if the representation was made:

(a) by a person who had or might reasonably be supposed to have had personal knowledge of the asserted fact, or

(b) on the basis of information directly or indirectly supplied by a person who had or might reasonably be supposed to have had personal knowledge of the asserted fact.

(3) Subsection (2) does not apply if the representation:

(a) was prepared or obtained for the purpose of conducting, or for or in contemplation of or in connection with, an Australian or overseas proceeding, or

(b) was made in connection with an investigation relating or leading to a criminal proceeding.

(4) If:

(a) the occurrence of an event of a particular kind is in question, and

(b) in the course of a business, a system has been followed of making and keeping a record of the occurrence of all events of that kind,

the hearsay rule does not apply to evidence that tends to prove that there is no record kept, in accordance with that system, of the occurrence of the event.

(5) For the purposes of this section, a person is taken to have had personal knowledge of a fact if the person’s knowledge of the fact was or might reasonably be supposed to have been based on what the person saw, heard or otherwise perceived (other than a previous representation made by a person about the fact).

Note:

1 Sections 48, 49, 50, 146, 147 and 150 (1) are relevant to the mode of proof, and authentication, of business records.

2 Section 182 of the Commonwealth Act gives section 69 of the Commonwealth Act a wider application in relation to Commonwealth records.