Allan Green was born in1924 in western Sydney, NSW. In 1940, as a means of finding employment, Allan learned typing (60wpm) and Pitman shorthand (120wpm). He was then employed as copy-boy at the Daily Telegraph newspaper in Sydney and then as secretary to the manager of heavy industrial and war equipment factory (both jobs thanks to his typing and shorthand ability).
From 1942 Allan spent three years at sea with the Royal Australian Navy during WW2. His role as seaman and 4-inch gun’s crew member did nothing for his unused shorthand and typing skills.
On discharge from the Navy, he found employment operating a cotton-spinning machine at a large cotton mill, and later in 1946 (despite being offered a foreman’s job at the mill) became PA to the managing director of a large importer and manufacturer of earth-moving equipment for use in post-war reconstruction works. He credits obtaining this position to his, notwithstanding diminished, typing and shorthand skills.
From then, at the urging of a former teacher, Allan commenced shorthand speed-building at technical college and in 1948 joined the Court Reporting Branch of the Attorney-General’s Department of NSW, reporting in all jurisdictions, until in 1956 he joined the Sydney office of the Commonwealth Reporting Service, a division of the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department, and there reported in all Commonwealth jurisdictions around Australia.
In 1972 Allan was appointed Principal Reporter NSW, responsible to the Chief Reporter (which was then located in Melbourne) for the NSW operations of the Commonwealth Reporting Service.
During service in NSW, he was regularly engaged as a casual reporter with the Hansard service in the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council of the Parliament of NSW.
Allan also spent time at the Metropolitan Business College in Sydney as an evening-class tutor of Pitman speed shorthand for students preparing for a court reporting career.
In 1975, he transferred to the position of Principal Reporter in the Canberra, ACT, office of the Commonwealth Reporting Service.
In that same year Allan was appointed Chief Reporter of the Commonwealth Reporting Service in Melbourne, responsible to the Secretary of the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department and the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth for the Australia-wide operations of the Service. In that year, with the approval of the Attorney-General and the departmental Secretary, Allan transferred the office of Chief Reporter to Canberra, ACT.
As Chief Reporter, apart from general oversight and administration, Allan’s responsibility to the Attorney-General and the departmental Secretary was to modernise the operations of the Service and to develop and introduce firm principles for providing a completely independent reporting and transcription service.
That independence included, for the first time in the Service, the Chief Reporter assessing the need for and approving the provision of such services. With that responsibility, Allan’s goal was to develop the standards of the Service to meet the needs and rights of tribunals, parties and the public to a service based on timeliness and, especially, complete probity of reporting and transcript, such probity to be the responsibility of the Commonwealth Reporting Service, and not any court, tribunal, inquiry or party.
The implementation of these policies also included introducing the principle of a government reporting service charging clients and parties (including government departments) for the reporting and transcript services provided.
To introduce the most up-to-date methods of reporting and transcription throughout the Service, an examination of reporting methods, services provided and charges levied in the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe had to be undertaken by Allan. This involved several investigative trips overseas and resulted in the introduction of substantive new policies and procedures.
A newly-emerging service being used in the United States was Computer Aided Transcript (so-called in the United States, but changed to Computer Assisted Transcript for Australian usage). What was then a cumbersome technology was first investigated by Allan in Chicago and Minneapolis, USA, in January, 1976 (with many metres of snow and ice blanketing both cities). (In fact, CAT reporting data was being transmitted by land-line from Minneapolis to Chicago for transcription, on mainframe computer, and relayed back to Minneapolis.)
However, the far-sighted Commonwealth Attorney-General accepted Allan’s recommendation that the system be vigorously investigated with a view to its future implementation in the Service. This process took a few years of investigation and observation, in conjunction with administrative, technical and, especially, financial issues having to be agonizingly pursued.
Finally, Cabinet approval was given for financing and implementing computer-assisted reporting and transcription and, for the first time in Australia, Commonwealth Reporting Service introduced CAT into its services. The system quickly became operational in most States and was progressively meshed with the Service’s already-operating computer-linked transcription services throughout Australia.
Allan continued to pursue policy and operational enhancements to court reporting until early in 1990 and, a few months before his 65th birthday, he retired from the Commonwealth Reporting Service and the Commonwealth public service.
On retirement, as a consultant he designed and over-sighted the introduction of a Hansard service in the newly-created Legislative Assembly of the Australian Capital Territory, his final design being that the proceedings were sound-recorded and remotely monitored by television camera link, and transcribed by Commonwealth Reporting Service.
Allan then, after 42 years in court and parliament reporting around Australia, divorced himself completely from that environment and turned his life around to enjoying (and in 2009 is still enjoying) many other social and cultural activities, including an active role in music.
2009 - Allan Green is 85.
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