DOCUMENTS

Senator PAYMAN (Western Australia—Australia's Voice Whip) (15:45): I move: That the Senate— (a) notes that: (i) on 4 February 2026, the Senate agreed to order for the production of documents no. 321, relating to the Minister for Communications' travel to New York in September 2025, (ii) on 4 March 2026, a response was tabled which included a letter from the Minister for Communications which noted that 'My department and eSafety have conducted a search of their systems and have not identified any documents that appear to fall in scope of the order', (iii) on 13 July 2026, a freedom of information request with reference number FOI 27-022 (the request) was lodged with the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts (the department) which had a scope that fell entirely within the scope of documents sought by order for the production of documents no. 321, and (iv) on 14 August 2026, following a request consultation process which led to a further reduction in the scope of the request, an officer of the department denied the request, as they had identified as many as 700 documents which appeared to be captured by the request; and (b) requires the Minister representing the Minister for Communications to attend the Senate at the start of proceedings on 9 September 2026 to provide an explanation of no more than 5 minutes as to why the Minister for Communications asserted that the department was not able to identify any documents within the scope of order for the production of documents no. 321, despite the department identifying numerous documents within the scope of the order in response to a freedom of information request, and that: (i) any senator may move to take note of the explanation, and (ii) any such motion may be debated for no longer than 20 minutes and shall have precedence over all business until determined, and senators may speak to the motion for not more than 5 minutes each.

Question agreed to.