Senator Andrew Bartlett
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
 
SENATE SITS, THEN STANDS UP

John Howard has said at least one true thing so far - the Government does not control the Senate.

I hope we can keep that way, but today showed nobody else controls the Senate either. After the Prime Minister cancelled the House of Reps sittings while leaving the senate to sit for two days, it became obvious pretty quickly what a farce that had generated.

Whilst there was legislation to debate, it was utterly pointless to debate anything that might need amending, as there was no House of Reps to send amended Legislation back to! This meant any amended Bill would have to be reintroduced afresh after the election anyway, even if the Libs win Government.

Question Time was even more pointless than usual, which is really saying something, leading pretty much everybody to wonder why we should keep going through a charade when the Government was clearly treating the whole thing with contempt.

So we ensured a Senate Committee was able to examine some aspects of the fresh information that had come out about the claims of children being thrown overboard, and then pulled up stumps. The Committee will probably hold one public hearing on Wednesday and leave the rest of its task until after the election as well.

As expected, despite the Senate contest being similar in importance, 95% of the media coverage was on the Prime Ministerial contest.

Still, I did have a kind word to say about the media today, noting the valuable action of giving a voice to some of the refugees who were amongst those who had been accused of throwing their children overboard. Giving them a chance to have a voice before that Senate Committee seems to be unfinished business to me.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Tuesday, August 31, 2004 Permalink
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