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. In this series of questions, the senator has sought to seek information on three different issues in three different states and pretended that they are supplementary to the major question. Clearly, they are not supplementary when he is seeking that sort of information. The idea of supplementary questions is to elicit further information on the topic of the primary question. I accept that they are legitimate questions, but they are not legitimate supplementary questions. If the opposition want to ask questions on issues in three different questions they should use three separate primary questions. This is a misuse of the supplementary question system.