Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

That is correct. First of all they have started rejecting bona fide inquiries into important issues that the public wants examined. So they abused it in the Senate, but that is not enough for them. They then need to seize control of any inquiry because they have been a bit concerned that after committee inquiries have started, even though they have exerted their power inside the Senate chamber, the committees are actually going into areas that might cause the government some embarrassment. So what do they do? The numbers in Senate are not enough. The ability to block a reference, to block a return to order and to block any mechanism of accountability that the Senate would want to insist upon is not enough. They need absolutely total power; they need absolutely total control: ‘So in addition to that we’ll make sure we’ve got the chairmanship and the majority vote on every committee so that we can have control over everything and we can have the power—