James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Cyber Security) Share this | Hansard source

PATERSON () (): I'm not sure that is right. The committee already has 11 members. The addition of two extra members wouldn't make it any easier to form a subcommittee. A subcommittee can consist of as few as three members and have as few as two required for a quorum for a public hearing. I'm also not sure if the minister has ever observed a PJCIS hearing, but, in my view as chair and trying to herd the cats on the PJCIS, the many opinionated members of the PJCIS, and the many questions, a larger committee with a larger number of people who can participate in public hearings would slow down the work of the committee because there would be more people with questions in public hearings, we'd have to hear from witnesses for longer and we'd have more people to negotiate with in the committee stage.

Of course, at the final point, when we are settling the resolution of a report, that will be much more difficult to do if we have a member of the crossbench or a minor party who has to be incorporated into negotiations. Previously, the two major parties have been able to negotiate in a consensus driven way to arrive at compromise, if necessary, and bipartisanship. But now you will have to incorporate a member of the crossbench or a minor party. How is this going to help the committee function?