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

I am the chair of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, to which the citizenship bill has been referred. I have already been in touch with the secretariat to try to work out a schedule for approval by the committee at an urgent meeting, which we have just called, so that we can deal with this before the Senate rises. I have given the committee some suggestions as to when hearings could be held in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra to give everybody the widest opportunity to discuss what is clearly a very important bill, on which there will be lots of different views. Senator McKim espouses one view, which a minority might espouse. This is not the place for it, of course. If my suggestions are adopted, Senator McKim, as a full voting member of that committee, will have at least four occasions in public hearings to question witnesses. But when he questions witnesses he will, while I am chairman, do it respectfully and properly and in accordance with the standing orders.

Another senator in this chamber, who I will not mention, has complained to me that even in the committee he cannot hear what is going on because he sits near Senator McKim who consistently interjects. A senator has raised the same point in this particular chamber, not in the committee, complaining to the President that he cannot hear the President because of the consistent and constant interjections of Senator McKim. I have said many a time in the committees that I chair that I will not stand for that type of behaviour. It is bullying and it is disrespectful, and, as I proved with Lieutenant General Campbell, when senators disrespect witnesses I will insist that those senators either withdraw or remove themselves.