Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I have to say to Senator Ludwig, through you, Mr Deputy President: your face should be the colour of your tie, such is your hypocrisy today. Senator Ludwig, you are right. I stand by the words that I said when, time after time after time after time after time, I stood on that side of the chamber and, a week prior to estimates, we still had answers to questions on notice outstanding under your government. You are right. We have set the bar very, very high for ourselves on the government side and at all times we will strive to ensure that we reach those high standards not only that have we set for ourselves but that should be demanded of us by the public. We will at all times strive to meet those standards, unlike those on the other side when they were in government. There are two choices: you either had no bar—so, quite frankly, you could fail as many times as you liked and it did not matter—or, alternatively, you did have a bar but you set the bar so low that, even if you provided one answer out of several thousand, you considered it a win for your side. That is not how we are going to behave on this side of the chamber.

I timed Senator Ludwig when he read out the question numbers that my department, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, have outstanding from the May 2014 budget estimates. It took him exactly six seconds to put the question numbers on the record. To put that into context, if I were to ask for an explanation as to why, in the October 2012 Senate estimates hearings, the minister had not provided answers to 331 of the questions I had placed on notice and I listed the question numbers, quite frankly, Senator Ludwig, you and I would be here for the rest of the afternoon! But I am quite sure that the chamber has been detained enough today by the rank hypocrisy that is being shown by those on the other side.

In relation to my own portfolio, I place on the record that we took some 616 questions on notice at the May budget estimates hearings earlier this year. Senator Ludwig would be well aware that the questions that my department takes on notice are very complex and, on a number of occasions, will have numerous subparts. To date, two weeks prior to the next round of estimates hearings, I am pleased to advise the Senate that, out of the 616 questions that we took on notice, 598 have been answered.