Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Kitching, for your question. Across the whole of the Social Services portfolio more than 500 questions on notice have been lodged for response, and many of them have had quite complex data and analysis requirements. We've also attended numerous COVID committee hearings and responded to an additional approximately 80 questions on notice as a result of attendance at that committee. As part of the response to the COVID committee, the department, across both portfolio areas, agreed to provide comprehensive fortnightly datasets to the committee to ensure that we were providing information in the most timely way possible to assure transparency and to ensure that the information was available for anybody to see.

I understand that, as a general rule, my department is regularly on time with questions on notice; however, with the COVID environment as it has been over the past 12 months, there has been a significant increase in the amount of information that has been sought from the departments that sit within the Social Services portfolio. We obviously are very keen to be able to provide the necessary information to this place and to ministers who ask questions on notice, so, in requesting that information, we thought the provision of fortnightly datasets and the like would be of assistance, but, Senator, I will certainly take the request that you've provided in relation to ensuring that the remainder of the questions that are still on notice and are yet to be answered are answered and are tabled as soon as possible.