Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to direct my comments towards what Senator Conroy said at the beginning of this debate. I am battling the temptation of suggesting that he made misrepresentations to the Senate. I will default to the position that he was simply confused. He came into the committee in a blustering manner, did not want to listen to anything that was said and wanted to talk over the top of all the other participants. As is normal with this committee, there had been a meeting four days previously at which all the participating members were invited to make submissions about who should be on the witness list. On the day, as I walked into the committee room and slipped over on the blood of Gary Gray—his read was rolling around under the chamber table—Senator Conroy arrived as a participating member and a protest was made about participating members not having had time to make a submission to the committee. But in fact all committee members had had four clear days.