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

The Sea Patrol example—I do not want to be personal about this, Senator Canavan, but you perhaps know who I am talking about. It is the person who understood that all of our border protection arrangements were what was seen on a TV story called Sea Patrol. These inquiries give those sorts of senators a bit of a platform, as I say, for the five-second grab on the evening TV news. But, as a serious use of the Senate's time and resources, this report and this whole inquiry get one out of 10—and that is generous.

I only raise these issues because Senate committee reports have, in most of my time here, been highly regarded because they have, by and large, been bipartisan. There have been one or two exceptions, but, by and large, they have been bipartisan and they have been serious inquiries into matters of policy. This inquiry and a number of others along this line, set up by the same protagonists, I might say, were simply set up, it seems to me, to give particular people a bit of a platform on which to conduct their normal emotional—and fairly standard, I might say—responses to these issues. If they achieved anything, you could accept them, but I have to say that this report clearly demonstrates that the whole committee exercise in this instance was a complete and abject waste of money and time. It was a select committee, but it involved senators who were busily involved in other serious committees.

I only raise these things because this sort of approach continues. I call upon the Labor Party to have some sense about which of the Greens' referrals they support. We cannot keep going on having these inquiries and reports that take us absolutely nowhere and give one or two senators an opportunity to grandstand but achieve nothing as far as policy and governance of this nation are concerned. I appeal to the sensible people in the Labor Party to think twice about supporting the Greens every time they bring up these ridiculous inquiries that they know, as everyone knows, will go absolutely nowhere. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.