The Thousands

On an assignment from my editor, I walked the back streets of our city’s north-west and found the Public Records Office of Victoria. Turns out everything that matters is being stored in North Melbourne! Criminal records sealed in black zip-lock bags; mysterious blueprints; body cards from 1959. Just sitting there! Four enormous underground vaults (“repositories” is what our tour guide, Leigh, called them) storing 100 kilometres of information beneath a specially designed roof. A roof that makes it impossible for helicopters to land on. EVER.

The vaults are kept beyond a system of Get Smart security doors, air locks and walls made of six different types of material. If you were a thief, you would need six different tools to cut through. If you were fire, water or an explosive, you too would fail!

PROV’s documents are kept at 20 degrees, plus or minus one, in row upon row of filing walls. There are criminal records, prison records, records of immigration and shipping, wills and probates, and more. Leigh even showed us a strange-looking locked suitcase in the acts of parliament section. He smiled. I smiled! I accessed the records of anyone who is anyone and now I know everything about everyone. Watch the headlines.