Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on the answers provided, through Minister Farrell, from Minister Shorten. I have been involved in this place in a couple of capacities for quite a long time now, coming on 13 years, five of them as a senator, and I probably read more answers to questions on notice as a member of staff in my previous life. I have read, literally, many thousands of answers to questions on notice. I cannot recall answers that are as sneeringly contemptuous, as my good friend Senator Scarr described them, as arrogant, as patronising and as hubristic as the answers we are looking at here today.

To give those listening or reading Hansard an idea of the questions—you might think they were highly politically charged questions, questions that deserved a political answer in some way. Let me read a couple of the questions to you, just to demonstrate that they are completely reasonable, legitimate, straightforward questions. The first is:

What is the current efficiency dividend rate for your department and any relevant agencies;

Are any agencies or another entities within the portfolio exempt from the efficiency dividend; if so, please list them;

Is the efficiency dividend referenced in the Portfolio Budget Statement for your department; if so, where; and

Are there any agencies or entities that have an efficiency dividend that is higher or lower than the rate applied to the department; if so, please list them.

That's a fairly straightforward question asking about a technical matter in the budget.

No question deserves such a contemptuous answer, but if you are listening to that question then the answer served up by the minister displays such a level of contempt—not for us, not for the askers of the questions, although there is contempt for that, but for this place, for this chamber. We speak a lot in this chamber about the need for civility, order and maintaining the comity of this chamber. This flies directly in the face of those demands, those requests from the chair, on a regular occurrence. In fact, just this morning the President of the Senate asked that we respect the chamber. These answers do not respect the chamber.

Let's look at the second question under consideration today. It's not a highly politically charged question. It's a very straightforward question that deserves a straightforward answer:

Has the Minister, the Minister's office or the Minister's department met with any representative or employee of Anacta Strategies Pty Ltd in relation to TikTok, either in person, via video conference or phone.

If so, what was the date, time and duration of the meeting.

That's a very straightforward question. All it requires is a very simple answer. It does not require a political attack on us. It does not deserve the contempt displayed of this parliament and its processes that we received from the minister.