Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Pursuant to standing order 74(5), I ask the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs for an explanation as to why answers have not been provided to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee to a number of questions on notice which I asked on 22 May 2006.

Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is true that some questions on notice asked by Senator Carr, and possibly some other senators, have not yet been answered. They were meant to be answered by 14 July. My advice is that on 10 July the first assistant secretary responsible for managing the flow of answers to the committee in fact wrote to the committee and indicated that the department was having some difficulty on this occasion because of both the volume of questions that were taken on notice and the level of detail putting a burden on the department. I do not have the advice with me at the moment, because I was only told during question time that this question was going to be asked, as to what has happened since 10 July—because it is now four weeks further on since then—but I undertake, Senator Carr, to get some advice from the department as to where they are with not just your questions but any others. I will try to give you some advice as to when you can expect whatever answers are today outstanding.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

I appreciate that the minister will come back to the Senate with a detailed explanation for the lack of answers. It is an extraordinary situation. On 10 July the first assistant secretary wrote to the committee but on 14 August the answers are still not delivered. I understand there are 73 unanswered questions from the last round of estimates. I know that 54 or so were from me. Most of them relate to 457 visas. It strikes me that there is a pattern of maladministration within the department on this issue which requires a much more detailed explanation than just a simple proposition as to why these answers have not been presented. It is quite apparent that the government has a great deal of answering to do on this matter.

There are fundamental problems with this visa class. Last week we witnessed a tirade of abuse against Senator Lundy in question time when it was declared that a problem of employer rorts in Canberra restaurants was negligible. The minister has identified in various correspondence with the states and others that the hospitality industry is a key problem industry with regard to 457 visas. The government has now acknowledged publicly, through The 7.30 Report and elsewhere, that there are a whole range of problems which have been identified through the estimates process. But, despite the minister’s acknowledgement that these problems exist, no formal answers have been given to this chamber.

I take the view that they are important questions. We have properly used the estimates process to establish what is going on within the public administration of this department and we have yet to get proper explanations back to this chamber, despite the fact that the minister is on the public record having acknowledged the profound problems with this program. Despite that, we have had abuse of Labor senators in this chamber. I trust that when the minister does come back—and I trust that she will come back tomorrow with an explanation—she will be able to clear up that inconsistency.

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the Chair of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee, which deals with these matters at great length, particularly in the estimates context, I think it is very important to note for the record that the committee and the departments which engage with it and support it in the estimates process—one of which is the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs—are the recipients of an enormous volume of questions on notice taken through the estimates process, both in writing and verbally, during the hours and days of questioning. I want to note for the record that, in my experience, except on a couple of minor occasions, the secretaries and the senior officers of the department go out of their way to ensure that questions are returned as promptly as possible, and when they are not the committee takes it up with them in a formal process. It lays its concerns on the record and they are usually acknowledged and dealt with. So, whilst I note Senator Carr’s intervention, I do think it is very important to record that the department does make due effort to assist the committee in terms of responses to questions taken on notice. But the volume is phenomenal, without any shadow of a doubt, by comparison to any other committee. I think it is important to have that on the record.

Question agreed to.