The Senate committee considering the Greens Bill to stop ministers not funding ARC recommended research was due to report yesterday. It didn’t – needing more time “to consider the evidence and conclude its deliberations”  

Due date is now Monday, which still allows time for the Senate to vote on it, just not much. The Senate next sits Budget Week for two days (March 29 and 30). But even if the bill passed the upper house before the election it has no hope in the Reps and will lapse when parliament is prorogued.

But not to worry, the bill’s sponsor Senator Mehreen Faruqi (Greens NSW) is not up for re-election to 2025 and could bring it back in the next parliament. She did this with a previous version, introduced in 2018 which did not make it before the last election.