House Speaker Wade Mark says there is a need for Hansard editors throughout the Commonwealth to use technology to ensure accurate transcripts of proceedings in Parliaments are available instantaneously.Mark said so during his address at the opening of yesterday's five-day Triennial Conference of the Commonwealth Hansard Editors Association at the Hilton Trinidad and Conference Centre, Port-of-Spain.He said measures should be put in place to ensure "as soon as a debate takes place in Parliament, it can be found on a Web site...evolve into agencies with the ability to provide almost instantaneous, accurate, digitised information."Mark said that would eliminate the need to use volumes of paper which still existed in many jurisdictions.The move was supported by president of the T&T Hansard Editors, Kathleen Mohammed. She said it was hoped that the means to achieve that objective would be found in the conference. She said the advance of technology posed no threat for the Hansard editors.
Meanwhile, Mark said Hansard had to keep up with those technological advances.Senate President Timothy Hamel-Smith, in his address, said Hansard editors were among the "unsung heroes of democracy."Editor of the House of Commons, London, and Secretary to the Commonwealth Hansard Association, Lorraine Sutherland, said Hansard wasn't "just a historical record, it is a means of holding governments and politicians to account and it is a window for the general public into the lawmaking process which affects all our lives."