Australian parliaments inherited an ancient power from the United Kingdom’s House of Commons: the order for the production of documents (or OPD). These orders require the government to hand over to the Parliament (and make public) documents, reports, data and any other kind of information.
Wed 22 Jul 2026 11.12 AEST
Photo: AAP Image/Bianca De Marchi
Australian parliaments inherited an ancient power from the United Kingdom’s House of Commons: the order for the production of documents (or OPD). These orders require the government to hand over to the Parliament (and make public) documents, reports, data and any other kind of information. It is thanks to these orders that the public – and our elected representatives – have a better idea of what the government is doing in our name.
The website listing all government contracts, AusTender, has its origins in an order for documents, and it is thanks to a different order that Australia’s quarterly greenhouse gas emissions data is published promptly. The ABC’s very good (but very distressing) reporting on abuse in childcare centres is based in part on information produced after an order for documents from the NSW Parliament.
So too the recent news that when a compulsive gambler wrote to the NSW Government describing how his life had been harmed by highly addictive poker machines and that the self-exclusion scheme wasn’t working, “eleven public servants spent 12 weeks massaging their cold response”.
Of course, anyone can make a freedom of information request – including parliamentarians. But, at least in theory, the order for documents is much broader: covering cabinet documents, national security information and documents that do not currently exist (in which case the government is required to assemble the information and then publish it).
A house of parliament can make an order for documents to its government. At the national level, this means the House of Representatives and the Senate can order documents from the federal government. The Victorian Parliament can make an order for documents of the Victorian Government, and so on.
Only one house needs to order the documents. In practice, this means federal orders mostly come from the Senate because the government has the numbers to block orders in the House of Representatives. (If the party in government wanted to release the information, they don’t need to order themselves to do so.)
The use of orders for documents has ebbed and flowed: between 1901 and 1906, the Senate issued over a hundred orders for the production of documents before the practice fell into disuse in the 1910s. It was revived in the 1970s, and the Senate’s annual volume of orders for the production of documents in its first six years was not matched until the 1990s.
Some orders for documents are “standing” orders, remaining in force indefinitely and changing the culture and practice of government departments.
Governments complain that orders for documents are more numerous than ever, which is true.
Occasionally, orders for documents seem trivial or intended just to score a political point. But often, orders for documents are a response to government secrecy and are on issues of serious public interest. And since no one party has majority control of the Senate, the Senate’s orders only pass when they have the support of two or more parties (and possibly independents). They are never the result of just one party’s agenda.
The consequences are political, not legal. The Parliament is within its rights to stop voting on the government’s legislation until it gets the relevant information, recall parliament or to take away some of the government’s symbolic privileges.
For example, when the Albanese Government refused to produce a report into “jobs for mates”, the Senate found a creative response. The Senate said that since the government will not be transparent on this issue, the Senate will demand more transparency in other areas: by extending the length of Senate Question Time.
Recently, the NSW Legislative Council suspended two government ministers – Penny Sharpe and John Graham – in protest at the Minns Labor Government’s refusal to comply with two different orders for documents. The more recent order is for the public release of a report by former judge John Sackar KC into hate speech protections.
The Liberal–National Opposition, Greens and independents united to suspend the ministers to make the Government feel consequences for its lack of transparency. In the short term, it also made it harder for Labor to pass new laws. Premier Chris Minns complained that a “cabal” is holding up legislation, but the holdup could be resolved by respecting the centuries-old rights of parliament and publishing the information it seeks.
Australia’s Westminster system gives executive governments (prime ministers, premiers and ministers) enormous powers. The democratically elected parliament is responsible for scrutinising and constraining that power. To do that in a measured way, they need access to information.
For more on the powers of the Senate, read Representative, still: The role of the Senate in our democracy or watch Ben Oquist and Bill Browne’s contribution to the Senate lecture series.
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