Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

At the end of the motion add:

(c) if order for the production of documents no. 10 has not been fully complied with by 31 December 2025:

(i) the order of the call for question time be as follows:

(ii) the Senate requires the Minister for the Public Service to attend the Senate at the start of proceedings each sitting day to provide an explanation of the failure to comply with the order, and that:

(A) any senator may move to take note of the explanation, and

(B) any such motion may be debated for no longer than 60 minutes and shall have precedence over all other business until determined, and senators may speak to the motion for not more than 5 minutes each.

It was circulated electronically. Parties may not yet have it, so I'll just speak to it briefly. Our amendment to the motion outlines that if the order for the production of documents hasn't been complied with by the end of this year, 31 December, question time will revert to the order and number of questions as was stipulated in the motion that the government is seeking to overturn—15 questions per day with questions 11 to 15 being for non-government senators only. There's an additional element to the motion which requires the Minister for the Public Service to attend the Senate at the start of proceedings each sitting day to provide an explanation of the failure to comply with the order and that any senator may move to take note of the explanation. Any such motion may be debated for no longer than 60 minutes. It will have precedence over all other business until determined, and senators may speak to the motion for no more than five minutes each.

While we appreciate the government's attempt to comply with an order they should have complied with some time ago, we want to put in place this measure to ensure that this transparency which we are now being told we will be provided—there will be a briefing to the committee, and I accept that. But we want that document tabled. In order to ensure that it is provided—as the government has promised it will be—and in the spirit of seeking transparency and making sure this government actually honours the promises it made not just at the last election but at the one before that, the opposition will be putting in place this amendment.

We hope the crossbench will support this, and, indeed, if the government is true to its word and will table this document by the date that they have specified, it will support this amendment as well.