Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Lambie is right when she says one thing, and that's that the order for the production of documents is one of the Senate's most serious powers of scrutiny and accountability. It's a power intended to be used sparingly, in good faith and only once every other avenue for information has been exhausted. Yet what we have witnessed by senators is not a principled use of that power but an unprecedented abuse of it. In the 47th Parliament, 436 OPDs were proposed and 336 were agreed to. In this 48th Parliament, 190 OPDs have been proposed in just 32 days. With the addition of this sitting week, that number is now well above 200. Compare this to the 198 OPDs proposed in the 46th Parliament under the previous Liberal-National coalition government. In just 35 sitting days, we have now well surpassed that number—more OPDs in 35 days than in 139 days of the 46th Parliament, an average of 4.6 per sitting day, in contrast to just 1.22 previously.

This is not scrutiny. This is an abuse of the OPD process. Not only has this quantity of orders exploded; but the character of orders is now completely removed from the power's original intention.

The consequences are real. We have seen orders demanding responses within timeframes that are not just unreasonable but impossible. I remind the chamber of the OPD of former senators Hughes and Davey, an order covering 1.85 million documents with a mere eight days to comply. Meanwhile, freedom-of-information requests and questions-on-notice processes designed for transparency are afforded 30 days as a matter of course. We have seen OPDs seeking documents that are already publicly available—reports that can be found online, reports that have been discussed at press conferences, in media interviews, in this very chamber. We have seen OPDs used where a simple briefing request, a conversation or even a Google search would have sufficed.

So what is being demanded here: that public servants abandon their core work? that they drop their policy development, service delivery and regulatory oversight to chase down documents that are already in the public domain? that they work around the clock to meet arbitrary deadlines on expansive, unfocused requests that do nothing to advance the interests of everyday Australians?

This government takes transparency seriously. We respect the constitutional and legislative role of the Senate in holding the executive to account, but accountability must be meaningful, appropriate and proportionate. It must be grounded in the conventions that have guided the chamber for decades, conventions clearly articulated in Odgers'. There are countless avenues available to senators seeking information, from briefings to questions on notice, question time, estimates and FOIs. These mechanisms exist precisely to ensure transparency without overwhelming the system, yet senators opposite choose to flood the chamber with OPDs and then feign outrage when the Public Service cannot meet impossible demands.

I ask those across the chamber to reflect on what they're asking for. Reflect on whether Australian taxpayers should fund overtime for public servants to expedite requests that have little meaning to the public. Reflect on whether this is truly about accountability or whether it is about political theatre. The amendments that the government has made to OPDs reflect the very fact that Senator Lambie identifies. They put on the record for all to see that those across the chamber are engaging in a ridiculous misuse and abuse of the Senate's most serious power.

On the question of the transparency of the Albanese government, the answer is simple. Over the course of the 47th Parliament, the government complied with the highest number of OPDs in a single term of parliament on record. That is the record of this government.