Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the minister characterized my lack of faith in the government's Senate appointments process as being cynical.
Let me suggest, today, that the antidote to cynicism is transparency. There would certainly be less room for cynicism if the government would stop pretending that keeping Senate appointments under the absolute control of the Prime Minister is the only way to avoid reopening the Constitution.
What the Supreme Court actually says in paragraph 50 of its Senate reference is that the Prime Minister's monopoly is only a non-justiciable constitutional convention.
Why does the government not just admit the obvious? It does not want Senate reform. It wants to restore absolute control to the Prime Minister.