A parliamentary committee has been told the Senate has limited tested powers to enforce its demand for release of government documents relating to Operation Sovereign Borders.
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison is relying on a public interest immunity by refusing to table information other than publicly-available transcripts of the operation's weekly briefings and media releases.
Documents obtained under Freedom of Information applications also have been tabled.
The Clerk of the Senate, Rosemary Laing, said the issue of finding a lower house government minister guilty of contempt and imposing penalties was a "potential grey area".
Nor had the issue been tested in the courts.
But the Senate could find the minister's representative in the upper house - in this case Michaelia Cash - guilty of contempt and impose penalties including imprisonment if the government continued to defy an order.
Dr Laing said it was not unusual for a minister to refuse to table documents by making a public interest immunity claim.
But the Senate, unlike the NSW Legislative Council, had no formal system in place to adjudicate any claim.
"It is up to the committee or the Senate to determine whether that claim has legs," Dr Laing told a hearing of the chamber's legal and constitutional committee in Canberra on Friday.
"It's like a tennis volley - the ball is in the Senate's court."
In NSW an independent arbiter, often a retired Supreme Court judge, decides the validity of a public interest immunity while the documents demanded are held by the upper house clerk.
The committee is due to hear from Mr Morrison and senior border operations and defence officials later on Friday.
Labor senator Joe Ludwig said the committee wanted to "throw light in dark corners" so there was no secrecy about Operation Sovereign Borders.
Outside the hearing, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said finding a minister guilty of contempt and imposing penalties would be a long process.
When asked by reporters whether the minister's refusal to meet the Senate's demand warranted jail time, she said: "We're nowhere near that."
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