QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS
Senator PAYMAN (Western Australia—Australia's Voice Whip) (15:30): I move: That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy (Senator Ayres) to the question without notice I asked during question time today. It was a very simple question about what Australia, as the President of Negotiations for COP31, is going to do when it comes to ensuring that women's welfare remains front and centre of our agenda when it comes to climate action, and yet the minister just seemed to be way too obsessed with the coalition and way too obsessed with Senator Canavan and completely dodged my question, but that's not new from this government, unfortunately.
They love dodging questions and avoiding giving answers that Australians deserve to know. Since July 2025, I've put on the record and requested 69 OPDs. For those watching, OPDs are orders for production of documents.
Essentially, any senator in this place can ask the government to release documents and information about a particular matter. I've moved 69 OPDs, and I can't tell you how many of those OPDs have come back completely redacted. The government have time to sit there and redact every single paragraph, every single line item, of the 144 pages that get delivered to my office, yet they don't have the time or the capacity to actually show the answers to the Australian people.
It would actually save them a lot more time to just be upfront with everybody. The redactions are ridiculous. The lack of transparency we see is ridiculous.
This isn't the government that Australian people elected. You've got a big mandate. Just be honest with the people.
It's not hard. Like Senator Thorpe said, people want to know the truth. People want to know what's going on.
The decisions you get to make on behalf of people without their input—we're seeing the undermining of our democracy and of our processes, and Australians deserve better, and they're watching you. I'm not surprised, but I'm disappointed that this is the choice the government's made. Question agreed to.