Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The government notes Senator Davey's continued interest in all things water and the Murray-Darling Basin. Obviously, she has had a long history in this area. The reality is that Senator Davey's requests have been so broad that, for the officials in our federal agencies and departments, they initially turned up as many as one million documents in scope. As previously explained to the Senate, the estimated time for a single person to review documents for just one of Senator Davey's requests would be about 8½ years. For the three we are discussing today, there are more than 500 pages of material. I note that, in response to one of Senator Davey's previous requests, we provided 170 pages of documents. I can assure Senator Davey that Minister Plibersek has sought to respond in as timely a manner as possible and can confirm that documents relating to orders for the production of documents Nos 455 and 457 have been provided for tabling today. Documents relating to order No. 456 will be tabled in due course.

I say to Senator Davey, to Senator Fawcett, as a senior senator, and to Senator Duniam, as a frontbencher, in a former party of government, that I would hope that there would be some responsibility taken in the scope of documents sought. That was a discussion that was regularly had when I was Leader of the Opposition in the Senate—to recognise that a scope of documents that extends too widely is often unnecessary. We are keen and willing to provide transparency, but the senator will know there are limits to public resources. It would be useful if senior frontbenchers, as part of a former party of government, could be aware of this.