Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

NGHAM (—) (): I thank Senator Gallagher for her question. As I've observed a few times in the life of this parliament, over the last year there've been not dozens, not hundreds, not thousands but tens of thousands of questions that have filtered through the parliamentary proceedings of this chamber, the other chamber, estimates committees and different select and standing committees that the government has received and, overwhelmingly, worked through responses to. I acknowledge that, with what is a flow of not just more questions than were received in the last parliament but, as I understand it, more questions than were received in the previous couple of parliaments combined, there are challenges in working through all of them. Some questions come with additional sensitivities—including, in some cases, legal sensitivities—to be worked through, and sometimes that adds time to the responses there. Whilst I am sure, as is relatively predictable in these debates, a raft of criticisms about the timeliness of responses to questions and so on will follow, I would note and contend that, in terms of the government's responsiveness to the sheer volume of questions and accountability in responding to such a large number of questions, we've demonstrated a very strong and significant effort in our accountability through the term of this parliament. We'll of course continue to make best endeavours in relation to the many questions that we continue to receive on a regular basis.