John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very concerned about the number of referrals coming through and inquiries we are having. I support inquiries. This chamber has achieved so much through inquiries over the many years I have been here. But we run the risk of overloading the secretariat staff with work. I was just talking to Senator Reynolds. She is on 23 to 24 inquiries at the moment. How can you read all the submissions? How can you do the work? How can you do it properly? I urge the Senate leadership—Senator Wong, Senator Brandis and the crossbench—to get together and work out some coherent way to bring these inquiries forward so that the staff are not overworked and overloaded, so that we can do our work properly and not rush the recommendations, and so that we bring justice to the good work the Senate has done for so many years. I hope everyone gets together and thinks of the staff, who have so much work to do with so many inquiries. I support Senator Roberts, and perhaps we can have an inquiry later on. But let's not overload everyone with work, and let's do our job properly.