Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I rise on a point of order. My point of order is that the second supplementary question asks the minister to give the answer he gave 30 seconds before, which went through exactly that subject matter. I think this is the danger of senators writing out their supplementary questions and then reading them despite the answer given by the minister. The minister replied directly to that and provided that information in his last answer. I do not know if Senator Abetz was listening—clearly he was not. It destroys the whole purpose of supplementary questions if the supplementary question results from the questioner not listening to the earlier answer.