David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Chair, for the correction. I was just holding up a document we received back in response to an OPD, and, curiously, there were a bunch of redactions to the talking points for a public event that the minister was giving, which just seems extraordinary by any measure

There is so much urgent stuff that this parliament should be dealing with. There are Australians struggling out there under housing pressures and cost-of-living pressures. Yes, we've seen this ridiculous approach to essentially double the votes that this chamber takes. I don't know if you're looking for a record number of defeats in a week or what it might be. I welcome this. I think that we should move forward. Yes, there's potentially a debate about the scope of some OPDs, but I think they are an incredibly valuable thing and an important part of the Senate.

You have to ask the larger question, in the context of a government that at the same time brings forward an FOI bill to reduce transparency—an FOI bill that actually goes against a recommendation of the robodebt royal commission and actually reduces transparency. That doesn't cut it. You can't just keep pointing to the Morrison government and saying, 'Well, at least we're a little bit better than them.' Australians want better, and rightly. They deserve better. So I urge you to do better on this. We have a Senate that wants more transparency.

In fact, we read in the media—and I've spoken to some of these companies—that we have local AI companies who have solutions that are ready to go and that will cut down your processing time. They can actually help you with your OPDs. It seems to me that the problem we're facing is not actually the time it takes to gather the documents but the time it takes to go through and redact the talking points for a public event. That must take a lot of time. That must take a huge amount of time and a lot of ink.