Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the government's response to the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade on the Review of the Defence annual report 2009-10 and seek leave to have the document incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The document read as follows—

JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, DEFENCE AND TRADE

Review of the Defence Annual Report 2009-2010

Government Response

Department of Defence

Recommendation 1

The Department of Defence review its practices and procedures to ensure that answers to the Committee's questions on notice are provided in a more timely manner.

Government Response

Agreed

The Department agrees with Recommendation 1 and has recently implemented new practices and procedures relating to questions on notice to support more timely responses. A key advance was the implementation of a new electronic tracking system that has resulted in considerable improvements in responding to both Parliamentary and Committee questions. In opening remarks to the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade's Legislation Committee at the Additional Estimates hearing in February 2012, the Secretary for Defence highlighted the large number of complex questions on notice received by Defence through both Parliament and the Parliamentary Committees, emphasised Defence's improvement in responding to questions on notice on time, and reiterated Defence's commitment to continuing to seek further improvements in this area.