Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Perhaps, when this bill was passing through your party room originally, you should have actually been awake at the time and asked these questions of your own government, who actually drafted, created and endorsed this, which was passed by your party room. But the point is that with the general agreement of everybody in the chamber, it seems, there will be a Senate committee to investigate thoroughly all of those matters. In fact, if you are quick I am sure Senator Ronaldson will take shorthand for you and actually write all of those issues into the terms of reference of the committee, Senator Joyce.

The depth and scale of those questions go well beyond the capacity for the officers in the chamber to deal with. These are matters that should have been raised last week when this bill was actually debated. They should have been considered in an inquiry that took place prior to the legislation appearing in the chamber. But that is spilt milk, if you like. To address those questions, there seems to be a general agreement that we have an inquiry.