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

I rise to make some remarks about the use of orders for the production of documents. It's a longstanding power of the Senate and was, until recently, used sparingly for many decades, presumably to preserve its impact. Odgers says:

Orders for production of documents are among the most significant procedures available to the Senate to deal with matters of public interest …

The government respects the powers of parliament to call for documents, but this is a power that needs to be used responsibly and in good faith. Without both of those things—respect for the power and proper use of the power—how the Senate operates will be compromised.

When you look back historically at the Senate and its practice, the use of OPDs in the first decade averaged around 14 times per year. For the next four decades or so, up until the late 1960s, the practice virtually ceased, as questions on notice and regular tabling of documents meant the ordering of documents was no longer required. During the 1970s and 1980s, the use of the power remained rare, with about 10 orders agreed to by the Senate throughout a 20-year period. The use of OPDs did increase during the nineties and early 2000s but remained low compared with how OPDs are being used in the Senate today. For example, across the Keating government, 53 orders were agreed to. In the first Howard government, 48 were agreed to. In 2006, one order was agreed to throughout the year, and none were agreed to in 2007.

It wasn't until the reform of formal motions in 2020 that the use of the order for the production of documents accelerated to levels never seen throughout the Senate's 125-year history. This power is now being used very differently to the historical practice of the Senate, particularly over the past three parliaments. In the last parliamentary term, the 47th Parliament, over the 155 sitting days that that parliament ran, the Senate proposed 435 OPDs of which 336 were agreed to. In just one term, more OPDs were agreed to than in the Rudd, Gillard and Abbott governments combined.

In this term, the number is even higher, with 130 OPDs moved and 109 agreed to by the Senate in just the first 21 sitting days of the 48th Parliament. In fact, more orders have been agreed to in just 21 sitting days—since July—than in the parliaments of the Fisher, Hughes, Bruce, Scullin, Lyons, Page, first Menzies, Fadden, Curtin, Forde, Chifley, second Menzies, Holt, McEwen, Gorton, McMahon, Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke and Keating governments combined. In fact, more OPDs have been agreed to this week than were agreed to in the 53 years between 1928 and 1981. On just one day in this parliament, the number of OPDs lodged by one senator—and I'm looking straight at him—was the same as the number of OPDs agreed to by all parliaments from the onset of the Great Depression in 1929—