Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate what Senator Xenophon said, and it is correct. I note, however, that there have been extensive inquiries into this matter by the Senate on at least three previous occasions. We all know the impost. We have just arranged for another extensive inquiry into mental health services in this country. I certainly will enter into talks with Senator Xenophon about this matter, but I am highly averse to an inquiry simply traversing ground that has already been serially traversed by previous Senate inquiries. I have enormous sympathy for people invol­ved in the matters that Senator Xenophon refers to, and we take that into account, but we also have to be very prudent about the way in which inquiries repeatedly come before the Senate for exhaustive, and sometimes more than that, assessment.