Senators instructed the home affairs minister to hand over information about the contract to ensure taxpayers were getting value for money, given it was awarded to the small company in a closed tender process.

In a letter to the Senate president tabled late on Tuesday night, Mr Dutton said tens of thousands of documents were potentially within scope of the order.

"Due to the significant volume of documents, I assess compliance with the order would result in an unreasonable diversion of significant resources," he said.

"I will therefore not be tabling any documents on 23 July 2019 as stipulated in the original order."

Mr Dutton is now locked in talks with Labor's home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally to reduce the scope of required documents, pushing the deadline out by another month.

"Negotiations regarding the scope of the documents to be provided by this date are ongoing," he said.

Australian Associated Press