Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I do not often agree with Mr Palmer, but I do agree with the letter he distributed to most Queenslanders about the senator. Mr Acting Deputy President, this continues an approach by the Labor-Greens and Greens-Independents senators of disrespect for the Senate and for the once proud record of recognition of the work of Senate committees. More and more inquiries by the legal and constitutional affairs committee go to the references committee, because they know that with the Greens, the Labor Party and the Greens-Independent senator they will always have a majority, they will always be able to predetermine the issue and write the report before the committee even takes any evidence. That is again what happened in this instance.

I draw senators' attention to my additional comments, where I despair at the way in which the Senate committee system is being made farcical by these blatantly political matters—there is always a bit of politics in them. This is about the third inquiry where this committee has dealt with blatantly political matters; there is no policy content, nothing of any substance that anyone is really interested in. The Labor Party and the Greens continue to supplement and support this process, which brings the whole Senate committee system into disrespect.

This committee, of all the committees I have served on in my long term here, is the most outrageous for calling meetings at short notice. We have a chair's draft of what happened this morning—which seems to change every five minutes, because apparently the chair cannot make up his mind—and then we have a meeting at 10.35, and the committee decides by majority—