Federal Labor is trying to push contempt of court proceedings against Attorney-General George Brandis, arguing he is not taking an order relating to his ministerial diary seriously.

Key points: Shadow AG lodged FOI request to access Brandis's diary

Shadow AG lodged FOI request to access Brandis's diary Request blocked by AG's office, arguing it would take too long to process

Request blocked by AG's office, arguing it would take too long to process Federal Court upheld AAT's ruling, ordering Brandis to process the claim

Senator Brandis and his counterpart, Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, have been locked in a stalemate for almost three years.

Mr Dreyfus lodged a freedom of information (FOI) request to access an electronic copy of the Attorney-General's diary, to see who he met with before sweeping cuts hit his portfolio in the 2014 federal budget.

That request was initially blocked by Senator Brandis's office, who argued it would take too long to process because he would have to personally approve the release of every item.

Mr Dreyfus successfully appealed that to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), who told Senator Brandis's office the FOI needed to be processed.

Last September, the full bench of the Federal Court upheld that ruling by the AAT and again ordered the Cabinet minister to process the claim.

But Mr Dreyfus's lawyers have argued nothing has happened since.

They wrote to Senator Brandis' lawyers informing them they would ask the Federal Court to grant a hearing if he did not process the request, so they could argue Senator Brandis was in contempt of that ruling.

The letter, seen by the ABC, stated that Mr Dreyfus's lawyers have not seen any evidence of progress since their last correspondence with the Senator's office in early February.

It stated that no explanation for further delay has been offered, despite it now being six months since the court ruling.

The standard FOI processing time is meant to be 30 days.

When questioned about the latest claim by Labor, the Attorney-General's office directed the ABC to answers he provided on the FOI claim during the last round of Senate Estimates in February.

At the time, Senator Brandis said it had been "disgracefully alleged" that he was in contempt of the court.

He said that when the FOI had been processed by his office, there would be a response provided to Mr Dreyfus.