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

Talk about a glass jaw! What I am repeating are actual facts. There has been a senator stand up in this chamber, not in the committee, and request the President to get Senator McKim to be quiet so that senator can exercise his right to hear what is happening in the chamber. The same thing happens in my committee. I have a constant and consistent barrage of interjections from Senator McKim that I will not stand for. There is one member of the opposition—again, who I will not name but those on the committee will know to whom I am referring—who does the same thing. These two senators think they are somehow special and that there are special and different rules for them that do not apply to anyone else.

Senator McKim is also concerned about the fact that, in the committees that I chair, I try to give every senator a fair crack of the time available. It is my consistent position—as all the senators in my committee know—to give each one 15 minutes at a time; no more and no less. They can come back and have another 15 minutes later. That way every senator gets to have their say. That does not suit Senator McKim or the Labor senator I am talking about, who want special privileges. Well, it will not happen. I work on the basis that the questions at estimates should be roughly proportional to the make-up of the Senate. It is my practice, which I will continue, to have one Labor, one Liberal, one Labor, one Liberal and then one crossbencher, because that is roughly the proportions of this chamber. Nothing can be fairer than that. But, of course, it does not suit Senator McKim because he is a member of a very minor party, which is becoming more minor, and he does not get the same say as a member of the Labor Party, who have two or three times as many senators as he has in this chamber.

I can understand why Senator McKim is going around the chamber trying to get some support to get me taken off chairmanship of the committee. I treat that as a badge of honour. He would not want to get rid of me if I was not an effective and fair chairman, and I will continue to be an effective and fair chairman. I will not be bullied by the likes of Senator McKim and one other senator. (Time expired)