I know the Senate is responsible for approving appointments to various roles, including cabinet positions and senior civil servant positions. I know there's something about needing a majority in some cases but a supermajority in others, and I believe that's related to times you can and can't use a filibuster.

From what I gather it seems like they do some of these appointments in batches, unless an individual senator disapproves of that. (In the Australian context, this is probably similar to what our Senators and Representatives call "seeking leave".) In which case apparently they have to do them one-by-one, which is slower.

Seeking leave to do something outside the standing orders is a really basic procedural motion, and denying leave is the most minute act of resistance. By all means, use it if you've got it, but it's hardly praiseworthy, to my view. Real action would have been abolishing the filibuster back when you had control over it, rather than using the fact that you only have a bare majority in the Senate as an excuse for not getting anything done. The filibuster is such a grotesque anti-democratic figment of history. It's astonishing that it's lasted as long as it has. I guess because both sides praise it when they're the ones doing it?