Senator Andrew Bartlett
Saturday, February 12, 2005
 
Senate sits to sounds of silence
A rarity occurred in the Senate on Thursday. Having spent all summer blaming the 'obstructionist' Senate as the supposed reason why they had been unable to fix every economic problem imaginable, the Government ran out of legislation for the Senate to debate.

Yes, that's right – at 12.17 pm on Thursday, with the Senate having just passed the Private Health Insurance Incentives Bill (yet another pile of taxpayers money going disproportionately towards the better off) with the support of the Labor Party, the next Bill the Government brought on for debate was ……………… ……….. nothing!!!!

The Senate had been so obstructive, it had passed every Bill the Government had listed and they had no legislation ready to bring on for debate. 28 minutes of Senate silence elapsed until 12.45 ticked over and some more Bills were debated (and passed).

Some unkind folk may say this was the most sensible thing they'd ever heard coming out of the Senate when it's been scheduled to sit, but it is also an indication of how much contempt the Government already has for the Senate and the legislative process and how little effort it puts into trying to ensure the process operates sensibly and effectively. You may have heard various versions of the old joke – "watching how legislation is made is a lot like watching how sausages made – and if you saw how sausages were made, you’d never eat any". I'm a vegetarian so I haven't eaten a sausage for decades, but I won't ever give up on the legislative process, however rank its ingredients might sometimes be.

posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Saturday, February 12, 2005 Permalink
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