The Senate formally has a power to reject some of our annual appropriation bills. That's obviously an extreme situation. It only happened once, in 1975, when it caused a constitutional crisis. But that power exists. It also has the ability to modify some others. On the whole, the primary role of the Senate is a scrutiny role. We all enjoy, as officials, turning up three times a year to be intensively grilled on our particular topics by Senate committees.
At budget time, the Senate sits in committee form for two weeks, going through everything that's in the budget, or everything they want to take an interest in. They do that again toward the end of the year, about November, and they do it again in February. They have a very strong role in scrutiny. Effectively, that is the Senate being able to ask questions of officials directly. While representative ministers are there, very often the attention is in the direct interrogation or the direct questioning by Senators of individual bureaucrats about what they are up to.
That's a very strong role, and it is one that has long standing in our system.