George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Conroy gave it away yesterday when at the end of question time he merrily waved across to the opposition benches and said, ‘Happy Christmas. See you next year.’ So Senator Conroy was in on the fix. He well knew that there would be no question time today, Thursday. That is why at the end of question time yesterday it caused some of us to be a little curious, I might say, as to why Senator Conroy would anticipate that he would not be here to answer questions the next day. The reason was that the government had already decided as early as question time yesterday that yesterday’s question time would be the last question time of the year.

Now, we can understand why this government would want to protect from scrutiny a struggling, weak and failing minister in Senator Stephen Conroy—