Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

The answer, in essence, comes down to the sheer volume of questions on notice that are being asked in the Home Affairs portfolio. At the last round of Senate estimates hearings, more than 1,000 questions on notice were asked in the Home Affairs portfolio. There were 276 from Senator Hume, 264 from Senator Shoebridge, 170 from Senator Paterson and hundreds more from other senators. Of those questions, just under two-thirds have already been answered—672 have been answered, and 376 are unanswered.

The reason some of these questions remain unanswered is the unprecedented explosion in the number of questions on notice so far this term. We've seen repeated questioning from those opposite, for example, about what paper departments are using or what temperature thermostats are set to. They're asking the big issues.

As I said, more than 1,000 questions on notice were asked in the most recent Home Affairs estimates. By comparison, the numbers of questions on notice in the Home Affairs portfolio in the last term of parliament were 563 in 2021-22, 468 in 2020-21 and 109 in 2019-20, so there has been, essentially, a doubling of the number of questions on notice asked in that one portfolio alone. But I'm aware that ministers, ministers' offices and departments are actively working on the answering the remaining questions.