In 1994, the Senate agreed to a motion by Senator Brian Harradine requiring that all Australian Government departments and agencies produce an indexed list of their files every six months for tabling before parliament. The production of the list is intended to make the operations of Government more transparent to the Australian public.

As part of the Governments ongoing commitment to give Australians greater access to relevant government information quickly and easily, the original Senate Order was amended in 1998 and now requires departments to also list these files on their Internet websites.

The lists are tabled twice a year, once in the Autumn sittings (files created in the preceding July to December) and once in the Spring sittings (files created in the preceding January to June).

In accordance with the Senate Order, the Authority's list of files does not include:

• files transferred to the National Archives of Australia;

• files related to the internal administration of the Department (staff or personnel, accounts, training, or general administrative matters); and

• case related files (for example personal representation or dealings with the personal affairs of departmental or agency client).

In addition, the Authority's lists do not include files whose titles would disclose the deliberations of Cabinet.

In accordance with the Senate Order, some information in file titles has been deleted, such as:

• commercially confidential information

• identifiably personal information

• any security classified information which is disclosed in, or which could be established from, a file title.