 I refer to reports in the Fairfax Press this morning that Stratfor, a Texas-based private intelligence firm, has known for more than a year of the existence of a sealed indictment from a secret grand jury against Australian citizen and journalist Julian Assange. Did our ally the United States give the Prime Minister the courtesy of a disclosure, and if so, when, or did she read it in the papers along with all of us? Minister, for how long has the Prime Minister known of the existence of this sealed indictment? Thank you, Mr President. I thank Senator for his question. Mr President, I obviously can't comment on unsubstantiated media reports about sealed documents that have been discovered, because quite frankly all of that is news to me this morning as well. But I can tell you that the Australian Government is not aware of any charges by the US Government against Mr Assange. Our embassy in Washington continues to closely monitor developments. Mr Assange remains in the UK awaiting the outcome of his appeal to the UK Supreme Court regarding his possible extradition to Sweden. We continue to monitor closely Mr Assange's legal situation and have sought and received assurances from Swedish authorities that he will be accorded due process if he is extradited. While Mr Assange was detained in the UK in 2010, Australian consular officials provided him with a high level of consular support. This remains available to him as we have advised his lawyers on a number of occasions. I understand officials were last in contact with Mr Assange's lawyers in late January 2012. Senator Evans, will you resume your seat, please? Senator Ludlum is on his feet. Thank you, President. I will call a port of order on the directness of the relevance of the minister's answer. I did not refer to any of the Swedish prosecution matters or anything that is occurring in the UK. My question goes directly to whether the Australian Government knows of the existence of a sealed indictment. That is a yes or a no. I think the minister is answering the question from what I have heard. The minister has got 48 seconds remaining if there are any other matters in the question. Mr President, I was trying to be helpful to the senator and give him what information I had, but as I said in my first part of my answer, the Australian Government is not aware of any charges by the US Government against Mr Assange. That is all he wants to know. I will stop there. Senator Ludlum. My supplementary question to the minister is whether the Prime Minister proposes to take any action whatsoever relating to the existence of this indictment and the potential for Mr Assange to be transferred not to Sweden or to anywhere else but to the United States. Is the government intending to do anything at all to prevent this from happening? And I'm happy for the minister to provide any details at all about any action of any kind that the government proposes to take to prevent this extradition from occurring. Order. Senator Owens. Thank you Mr President. Mr President, as Senator Ludlum is aware, the government has clarified in answers to questions he's put on notice on this issue that the Australian Government has asked the US Government about these reports. The government has not received any advice of any grand jury investigation. Senator Ludlum. Thank you President. I'll ask my third and final, my second supplementary and perhaps ask the minister to take a matter on notice. Now that the dirty little secret is out, will the government stop the delays and obstructions in fulfilling- Order. Order. President. Order. Order. Senator Ludlum is entitled to be heard in silence on both sides. Thank you President. Order. Senator Ludlum. There was a good deal of shrieking. I'm interested to know whether the government will stop the delays and obstructions in fulfilling my freedom of information requests on this matter that went to the Prime Minister's office last year. And will the minister find out if there is a sealed indictment in the US and report back to the Senate? Will the minister ascertain whether or not such an indictment exists? Time has expired for asking the question. The minister. Well Mr President, if there are dirty little secrets, they've been kept secret from me so I can't help him in that regard. What I can tell him is that I understand he has made a FOI request which was received by DFAT on the 2nd of December last year that the response has been worked on by DFAT. I gather that's in line with Senator Ludlum's agreement on the extension of time. But that's all I can say in response to his question.