Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

I've been asked to explain noncompliance with this order. As Senator McKenzie knows, when I'm asked to turn up for these things, I always do. It's order No. 196, relating to the appointment of the observer to the Housing Australia Board, which I'm advised will be made available shortly. But, as the Senate will be aware, this chamber has agreed to a very large number of orders for the production of documents with respect to housing in a very short timeframe. That occurs against the backdrop of a period in Senate procedure where, in fact, the term 'very large' really doesn't do justice to the industrial scale and sometimes automated process of requiring orders to produce that are very difficult for any government to comply with—and I think that's their intent. The Treasury is working to support compliance with these many and varied orders, but processing times are, of course, impacted as a result.

The government is delivering a higher standard of integrity, transparency and accountability. We're upholding a standard that the opposition never did. In fact, their approach to these things was not just to avoid upholding the standard but to avoid being in the same suburb as the standard. This chamber has agreed to an average of four of these orders for the production of documents every single sitting day of this parliament. Recently, the Senate even agreed to 14 orders for the production of documents in a single day. I'll give you a tip: these orders for the production of documents have impact when they're used rarely, when you know you're on to something, not as an industrial-scale fishing operation, which would make some of the large, subsidised, northern fleet operations in the Pacific and the Atlantic blush.

These orders, often with a scope that goes into the thousands of pages and often with a turnaround time of mere hours, do not just sort themselves out. There's no magical safe or filing cabinet in the ministerial wing of this building that will instantly serve up whatever documents Senator Bragg or his artificial intelligence OPD generator can produce. These take work, and the problem, Senator Bragg, is they take the work of people you'll probably never meet, people that Mr Dutton, in the last campaign, was contemptuous of. Public servants, who work hard for Australia every single day, instead of delivering for Australia, are now wandering around the office trying to work out how to comply with the latest 14 Senator Bragg orders for the production of documents. That takes real work from real people, who otherwise would be doing real things, not pandering to your or your team's requirement to try and desperately hang on to something that gives some credence to what otherwise has been one of the worst periods of opposition in Australian political history.

The volume and scope of these orders have blown out of all proportion, not just in recent historical terms but in terms of history since the federation of this great country. I would urge those opposite who are responsible for this malfeasant approach to public administration to spend the Christmas break having a little bit of a think about how to use Senate procedures with a bit of impact and purpose to deliver a few hits for your side—that's okay; that's what it's for. But industrial-scale fishing operations aren't in the public interest.

These documents will be made available shortly.