Bleak House: the Senate and the committee system

The government has used its one vote majority to undermine the parliamentary process, to gag and guillotine debates (cut them off). It has reduced the capacity of the opposition and minor parties to question legislation. For the government, accountability has come to mean winning the spin war leading up to the polls every three years.

For the government, the senate committee system is a pain in the posterior because once they’ve found something that doesn’t add up, they’re like hunting dogs and no minister wants to front an interrogation by people who know how the system works and want the truth. That’s the power of the senate committee system.

Harry Evans, who has been an officer of the senate for 38 years and clerk for 18 years, summed it up when he said on ABC radio, “it means that governments are able to control what the public knows about what they’re doing and why they’re doing it and are able to limit the extent to which they have to explain themselves to the public”.

Yet at the end of the day, it’s up to the Australian people whether or not they’re going to stand for this sort of bullying. And that means getting back some balance in the senate.