Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Either, indeed, a miracle, Senator McGrath, happened in Services Australia, or perhaps it was artificial intelligence. Perhaps an hour ago they fed all of those unanswered questions into ChatGPT, and within the space of an hour it spat out all these answers, and we have a whole lot of robotic artificial answers that we will now work our way through. Or perhaps it's my theory that, instead, these answers have languished in Minister Shorten's office from where they have refused to actually provide them to the Senate. They have refused to give those answers to the Senate in a timely way.

It is actually more outrageous in many ways to know that they were all there and they were already to go, but not a single one of them had been provided. Why is it more outrageous to know that? Because parliament is in session this week, and it was in session last week, too. Have these answers been sitting there for the last two weeks and yet weren't provided to the parliament? I'm willing to take a gamble that the answers were probably overwhelmingly provided more than 26 days ago because I would bet that Services Australia ensured that they met the deadline and they provided them to the minister, and it is the minister's office that has held them up. And why would the minister's office seek to hold them up? To avoid scrutiny in the parliament and to ensure that it'll be only after we're all out of here tomorrow that the answers are provided.

That, I am sure, is the reason why these answers have sat around in a minister's office for so long so that they can avoid scrutiny. We'll have to see whether these answers actually address the questions, whether they are ChatGPT generated and whether, of course, they didn't show the same degree of contempt and Mr Shorten has taken the last few weeks for his office to rewrite them, to put in the type of partisan political commentary that we saw previously in his answers to questions in relation to the NDIS. Those opposite have sought to interject along the way and challenge the opposition in relation to our track record. And challenge they may, challenge they can. But they also set some pretty lofty standards themselves when they were in opposition and attacking the then government. Senator Watt argued that it was not negotiable and should not be negotiable to comply with the standing orders and properly answer questions on notice. That was the standard set by Minister Watt in this place. Indeed, what we have seen is a government that thinks timing of answers to questions on notice is negotiable. Minister Shorten, in particular, is someone who seems to think it is negotiable as to their timing, their nature and whether or not they are answered.

Senator Ayres argued previously for a change in approach. He was particularly critical in relation to a refusal to provide timely responses to questions on notice—timely responses. That is all that we are asking for right now. At this time we're asking for timely responses, responsible responses and relevant responses to questions that are asked. I welcome the fact that the opposition's intervention on this matter has seen these answers to questions on notice tabled today. It is regrettable that it has taken this type of intervention and this use of the Senate's time to get the government to act. But, of course, that is what we will do if that is what it takes to get the answers and to get those answers in a timely way. I hope that, when we scrutinise these answers, they meet the types of standards the government promised prior to the last election, that they are actually answers and not simply political swipes, that they do address the questions that had been asked and that they do lend themselves to the proper scrutiny and functions of the Senate and this parliament. But, based on the track record of Mr Shorten to date, the games he's played in the content of previous answers and the games that have been played in relation to not providing these answers even though they have been sitting in his office, thereby delaying the provision of them until after the parliament has essentially risen for a number of weeks, I am guessing that we will find there are many, many holes in these answers as well.