Isn’t it time to stop applying a different standard to our politicians? As far as I’m aware, everyone else in Australia is entitle and able to – and many indeed do – work full-time while studying part-time. Why shouldn’t our politician, who I’d think we would prefer to be better educated and better informed than average? And why the knee-jerk assumption that just because some of our politicians are also studying, it means they’re neglecting their day jobs (or is being a Senator or an MP now considered to be 24/7 occupation?).

For that matter, why single out Mason? I understand that Peter Beattie had been studying while in Parliament, and his Labor predecessor Wayne Goss managed to get an MBA while representing the people. And hasn’t Steve Martin, the former Labor Speaker of the House completed his PhD while in Parliament? Kevin Rudd, I think, is still doing his. Looking back, prominent politicians like Jim Cairns, Bill Hayden and James Killen also combined the pursuit of further education with serving the people – and I don’t think the people were any worse off for this.

And why stop at preventing our Senators and MPs from bettering themselves at universities? Surely they also shouldn’t be wasting their time writing books. So how about Mark Latham, Lindsey Tanner, or for that matter Tony Abbott? And let’s not forget that greatest offender of them all, Winston Churchill, who spent virtually his whole long and distinguished parliamentary career churning out significant works of popular history.

No, we certainly wouldn’t want that. Because when it’s 8pm on a Wednesday night, our pollie should be attending his or her fifth Neighbourhood Watch meeting of the week, instead of trying to contribute to public and intellectual debate in this country.

A few comments:

It's true that the PhD examination process can often be protracted and take a year between submission and award of the degree.

However, there is a serious issue with regard to major party Senators occupying themselves with private interests or political party infighting at the expense of constituent work. Mason, and his buddy Brandis, seem to spend a lot of their time travelling round the world meeting conservative pollies and following up their interests in British and American political history.

I have a few things to say on this:

First, you would be flat out finding anyone in the Senate with better human rights credentials than Brett Mason. He has actually been at the sharp end of it as an election observer in south-east Asia. His speeches in the Senate confirm his commitment to human rights in contrast to the soft-left cant which usually passes for such commitment.

Secondly, being a good friend of Marise Payne myself, I doubt she wants to be set up in opposition to Mason. As I understand things, they are friends with common interests.

Thirdly, I know what the numbers are like for Senate preselections in the Queensland Liberal Party at the moment. To assert that Senator Santoro has, or in the recent past was possessed of the power to knock off Mason at preselection is to demonstrate nothing more than a lack of knowledge of how things are arranged in the Queensland Liberal Party these days. Also, the snide remark about Senator Mason having only one constituency (Santoro) is to ignore the fact that there is probably no other Liberal politician who can match his record of attendance at branch meetings throughout the state. For that reason alone, he had absolutely no difficulty winning the number one spot on the most successful Qld Liberal Senate ticket ever.

Also on that point, if Senator Santoro runs the Liberal preselections in Qld, how did Senator Brandis manange to get re-endorsed after actively opposing Senator Santoro's preselection for a casual vacancy only a short time before?

The whole blog entry is very light-on when it comes to political analysis.

Finally, what is wrong with continuing one's education whilst working? At least at the University of Qld (and presumably at other universities) one can undertake such study part-time whilst working. As I understand it, the thesis for which Senator Mason earned his PhD was concerned with privacy.

Privacy? Perhaps that's relevant to a policy maker who chairs the Senate's Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee? Perhaps its relevant to the fact that that committee is about to embark on a major inquiry into privacy law. Perhaps policy-makers in the age of the internet, of electronic transactions, of huge government and private sector databases, ought to be better educated about privacy?

Brett Mason is a smart guy and a nice bloke. Criticising him for getting better educated on issues of national importance is at best atavistic; more likely its an unfortunate manifestation of old rivalries.

His first term started in July 1999. That would have been a hell of a marking process if his thesis only just got approved. You only get 4 years to do one in the first place!

Mason lectured in law at QUT before he became a senator. In academia, you need to get a PhD or you hit a ceiling pretty quickly. The examination process for PhDs (which happens after the bulk of the work) is also notoriously long. I think you'll find Mason had completed his PhD (or most of it) prior to his election.

after the 1st. july, none of the senators will need to attend the upper house sittings because everything from the lower house will just be rubber stamped anyway. i suppose this means we will have a very highly educated senate with nothing to say.

Perhaps the are more gifted than you or me, although I must say I take exception to the implied Mediawatch slight that a) being a blogger and b) being a former Policy Vice-President of the Queensland Young Liberals appears to make you an unreliable source of information, being able to tick both those boxes myself!

It seems it's not just Brett Mason who hasn't been devoting his paid work time to his actual work. His own staffer Arthur Chrenkoff, of chrenkoff.blogspot.com fame was outed last night on ABC's Mediawatch (http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s1357632.htm).

Where do they find the time?????