George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Just briefly, I want to correct a couple of claims made by Senator Wong primarily in relation to the question directed to me. She also, in mentioning the question directed to Senator Fifield, at one stage said that Senator Fifield had refused to answer the question. That is what you said. That is not the case. Neither question 2876, which was the question directed to me, nor the question directed to Senator Fifield, has been the subject of a refusal, as I and Senator Fifield explained initially in this debate.

In relation to question 2876, which was put on notice on from 16 December 2015, some three months ago, which includes the summer break, which is not entirely immaterial. Senator Wong would have us believe that all that was being inquired into was a series of numbers in relation to FOI requests, but that, I am sorry to say, is not the truth. The question—which, as I pointed out before, is in 17 parts and subparts across each of two years, 2014 and 2015—makes extensive inquiries which involve the characterisation and classification of FOI requests and the fate of them, including, for example, subpart 2(c)(i), in relation to certain decisions which were the subject of an extension:

… under which section of the Act was the extension granted …

I merely light upon that by way of illustration to make the point that it is not the truth to say that this is nothing more than a request for a number. The exercise being asked is to undertake the classification into different categories of a very large number of FOI requests across two years according to 17 different lines of inquiry and modes of classification. So the suggestion that there is only a number being sought is not the truth.

I said that Senator Wong had said there was a refusal to answer this question. That is not the truth either. As I said earlier on, because of the exhaustive nature of the question and the very large body of work that officers of my department will be—