Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

This is linked. Convention was ripped up on the floor, led by a senator who hadn't sought any information about the work that I am currently doing. It has ramifications. We've been seeing that over the last couple of days. I wish it had been dealt with differently, but that was the choice of a senator who, working with others, passed this motion. We are trying to make that work, as we did on Thursday, when we all sat here and were prepared to sit here for as long as you had questions. We tried to stay till midnight. We kept question time going. We were the ones that were directing the show. And those opposite, in all these calls for transparency, left. The exodus out of those doors was something I haven't seen before.

So don't lecture this government about transparency. As Senator Wong said, we have answered more OPDs than any other government in the history of this parliament. OPDs are being misused by the Senate right now. They're being used as the first point of research, not the last. There are OPDs being used that have 1.8 million documents under their scope.