Just spent a quiet hour reading the Prof. McMillan – Sen Xenophon passage of play on the 21st. I was just going to 'cherry pick' the questions on notice for future reference and let it sit. But, does anyone else get the feeling that Sen X probably knows the answers to the QON and just wants them on record, from the horses mouth, 'official like'?
It makes some sense; he was quite specific and no one from the panel seemed inclined to chime in until he was finished. The whole exercise seemed to be 'clinically' and carefully executed to get at the IC' s answers 'on record'. You could assume this was for future reference, rather than to scratch Sen X's curiosity bump. The passage seemed gentile and civilised but did I get a whiff of gunpowder on the breeze?
This whiff also creeps into the Dolan later effort once the almost verbatim McCormick style speech had cut no mustard. He seemed to realise that the blustering, 'muscular' stance adopted on entry was not going to work and the rhetoric degenerated almost into gibberish later in the piece. Notably after the FOI and 'paper trail' requests were eased into play, the language descends into an ungrammatical, almost confused state when put on the spot to "read into the Hansard record" (Nash - again). Sen Nash seemed quite determined a couple of times to drive a point home but then ease off after the statement she was seemingly looking for was made. Intriguing stuff, but there was no doubt that the committee wanted the middle level 'paper trail', in camera would do, but they do want it.
Perhaps this was not the tame, easyology session we imagined it to be. In combination the two sessions provide much food for thought, even some robust tautological speculation. Have the Senate team got onto the fast and loose methodology CASA legal have developed and perfected for extreme, tailor made uses of the provisions within the FOI Act? There certainly appears to be enough complaints and examples available for serious consideration.
Aye well; I'll save it for the Bar Room Barristers, should be a lively debate if nothing else.
PS -
Creampuff – Agreed: sorry, did not intend to get into 'conspiracy', just joining up some dots, thinking aloud, if you like. So many small unnecessary omissions which, if they had been addressed would not be creating doubt but 'attaboys' for correcting safety issues in a timely open manner. 