Senator BIRMINGHAM (South Australia—Minister for Finance, Leader of the Government in the Senate and Vice-President of the Executive Council) (15:33): I thank Senator Gallagher for her question. As I indicated in response to Senator Keneally and have already indicated this week and on previous occasions, the government has been dealing with quite unprecedented numbers of questions posed through the parliament and, in doing so, the government has been providing quite unprecedented numbers of answers to questions posed through the parliament. We're not talking about hundreds of questions. We're not talking about thousands of questions. We're actually talking about tens of thousands of questions in the life of this parliament. The government work to try to provide answers, when we can, to those questions. I know there are some senators who seek to be quite diligent and earnest in the approach that they take most of the time. I acknowledge in Senator Patrick's remarks that he just made that he stuck broadly to the question before the chair around accountability and government responsiveness. He addressed issues in terms of the particular nature of particular answers that are given. So, although I don't accept the premise of all the statements that Senator Patrick made in that regard, I acknowledge he at least stuck to the broad thrust of the debate. I think, if the chamber reflected upon the remarks made by Senator Keneally immediately preceding Senator Patrick, we'd find that it was a much more politicised contribution, reflecting the fact that many times, particularly from those opposite, the questions asked are more about cheap pointscoring, more about trying to advance political agendas, more about trying to seize a cheap headline or the like. It's the right of those senators to spend their time asking those questions, and, again, of the many thousands of such questions that come about, the government responds to them, even where there's a whole swathe of hypocrisy attached to them. Senator Keneally, in her remarks, jumped across many issues beyond the questions that she was asking about. She spent some time talking about grant programs and recent comments in relation to grant programs. I note that among the grant programs that were the subject of such commentary by Senator Keneally and others were the Community Development Grants Program and the Stronger Communities Program. I can't help but notice that so many members of the opposition quite happily take advantage of such programs, promote such programs and advocate for grants under such programs, but then of course, if there's a cheap headline to be had, they're lining up, forming a conga line, to try to go after a cheap headline in the national political debate, while trying to seek out a good headline in their local media or their social media. The Leader of the Opposition himself had the fabulous social media post 'Grants for Grayndler: could your community organisation use a grant?' And there were not one, not two, not three, not four, not five but half-a-dozen different photos of Mr Albanese posing happily with different grant recipients, just in the one post there. Much of the commentary from Senator Keneally and others in this debate has been about whether too many of these grants have been going to city electorates rather than regional electorates. If I'm correct, the electorate of Grayndler is— The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Sorry, Senator Birmingham. Senator Patrick is on his feet. Senator Patrick? Senator Patrick: On a point of order: I note that the minister has wandered off the question that has been asked by Senator Gallagher and is actually referring to debate that took place in relation to a previous question. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: This part of the standing orders is about taking note of unanswered questions, so it's a wideranging debate. I don't have the unanswered questions, so I'm not really in a position, but he's not answering a question; he's responding. Senator Patrick: I was just moved by his statement that it's a good idea to stick to the topic of the question. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thanks, Senator Patrick. I'm sure the minister was listening to your words. Senator BIRMINGHAM: Touche, Senator Patrick. Deputy President, indeed I am responding in a little lengthier way than I did to Senator Keneally's question to me about unanswered questions, because of the way in which Senator Keneally sought to then elaborate more broadly in relation to those matters. I don't wish to take up the time of the Senate at length. I was simply making the point around the highly politicised nature of some questions. In other cases, we have seen, particularly this year, that questions often are in pursuit of sensitive matters, sometimes legally sensitive matters, that do pose extra challenges in responding or answering them. That requires either extra advice being taken by government in response, extra care, or, sometimes, highlighting the fact that such details are difficult to provide without compromising or prejudicing legal proceedings. I again come back to the substantive point that I made, which is that this government, in this parliament, has responded to more questions than were posed in the previous parliament or were posed in the parliament before that. We have been more responsive than any previous government has been asked to be. We continue to seek to be so. We have been handling literally tens of thousands—something close to 35,000—questions posed through estimates or Senate chamber processes. That doesn't take account of House of Representatives questions. It doesn't take account of Senate select committee, Senate standing committee, House of Representatives standing committee, joint standing committee or joint select committee questions. They're all on top of the 35,000 that we have sought to handle to date. Indeed, we'll continue to do so and provide responses in as timely a manner as possible, but it is in the face of record levels of questioning and, in some cases, highly sensitive approaches too.