Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

I withdraw. Between 2013 and 2022, which is a pretty reasonable sample, this technical order for production of documents was running at one order per sitting week, right? So one request for documents per week to find out what's going on. Between 2022 and 2025, that increased from one per week to one per day. And in this 48th Parliament it has just become a joke. It has gone up to 4.8 requests for documents per day. And remember that when those questions are asked somebody, who could be doing great work building up the capacity to get houses built, is sitting somewhere in an office complying with what I now consider an extraordinary overuse of this tool of the parliament. They are trying to get documents that in no way, shape or form are going to build the houses that this country needs.

The reality is the practical task that lies before us is being really advanced by this Labor government. We put $47 billion into housing investment. That is 10 times what the coalition put in—10 times the investment they made when they were in office for nine years. We've got a bit problem—yes, we have. The problem is that building houses and getting on with the job is not being assisted by this inane continuation every week of trying to bring in this minister, who you saw standing there earlier, to answer questions about why the documents those opposite have got back have redactions in them. They've got redactions in them because when cabinet looks at stuff, they don't tell the whole world about what is going on. That has always been the case. But those opposite just can't seem to get over it. They need to get over it and they need to get on board with Labor's investment in building housing.

We know that too many Australians, too many ordinary Australians, feel like housing is stacked against them, especially our youngest Australians. That is why we have built the most ambitious housing agenda in generations—and we're building on the plan in this budget with some recent changes—to make sure that Australians have a fair crack at getting a house. Having a roof over your head is a big deal. I have been in this parliament for 16 years. In the days when I was handing out in the seat of Robertson for the current member for Robertson, Dr Gordon Reid, people came up to me and said they'd voted Liberal all their lives but they were voting Labor this time because their kids, and their grandchildren particularly, can't get into housing. That should be our focus, not this inane search for documents that won't reveal anything. (Time expired)