Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Minister, I am sure you would have listened to my second reading debate contribution to this bill.

Senator Conroy interjecting—

I am sure you would have been listening, Minister. I was just making the point that I hope you make better decisions on the appointments to this commission of inquiry than you did, for example, to the climate commission. I will not repeat it and malign the chairman yet again, but clearly the government has shown a lack of any sense or reasonableness in the appointment of some of its committee chairmen, and I gave an instance. I would just like to know, before voting on this bill, what the process is going to be. Is the minister just going to slip around to the local Labor Party branch and see which members might be looking for a job this week, or is there some process or some form for how people who have a real interest in this have an input into the selection process? If this is to work it has to be a genuine, above board and competence based process. I am interested to know, before I vote on the bill, just what the process is going to be.