Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Ronaldson for drawing this matter to the government’s attention. As I understand, Senator Ronaldson has listed a range of numbers. So that we do not end up at cross-purposes, I can certainly provide a more definitive list at some point. A range of answers have been provided today in response to the email that was sent, and I indicated that a range of those were tabled today. Rather than go through the numbers to try to work out which they relate to, can I say more broadly that a range of them are across all of the portfolios and are quite detailed and complex questions. Therefore, to provide the specific answers that Senator Ronaldson has sought, the government is working diligently on those and will provide them as soon as practicable. One of the challenges is, of course, that there are a significant number of questions which are very broad in their nature and ask for a significant amount of information. The government, far be it from when the Howard government was in place, has taken on the duty responsibly and is providing and gathering that information as we speak. Some were tabled, as I have said, and the information on others will be provided in due course.

In addition, some were misplaced, specifically, 888 and 897; they should have been referred to other portfolio areas. We have indicated that they are matters that should be directed to the health and sports areas respectively. I did not want to go into the specifics, because we might want to argue over those, but, in the interim, there are a range of answers from my portfolio which, it appears from the list that I have, have been tabled or for which we are coordinating a response. It does take, unfortunately, a little bit of time to ensure that we provide a full answer. What I can say, though, more broadly, is that these matters do receive our attention and are ones which we take seriously. Far be it for us to indicate that the previous government did not take, in my view, these matters as seriously as they should have. It is not unusual to look through the Hansard and find that I have raised this in the past when in opposition and felt that the response by the government—