Sometimes the Senate does it best to live up to Keating’s immortal description of it as “unrepresentative swill”. Like yesterday.

After revealing extraordinary evidence of abusive practices within Scientology in November, Senator Nick Xenophon undertook to initiate a Senate inquiry into the cult. Subsequently, he said yesterday, he was encouraged to broaden the focus of the inquiry away from the cult itself, and instead he moved for an inquiry into whether Australia should consider adopting the UK’s “Public Benefit Test” as a criterion for whether charitable and religious institutions can enjoy tax-exempt status.

The concept of “public benefit” is already built into the test for whether charities and religions can gain tax-exempt status. The issue is how the test is interpreted and applied. The UK version specifically includes the idea of net public benefit, in which benefits are assessed against harm.

Crikey understands that Xenophon’s “encouragement” to move away from a Scientology focus to a Public Benefit test focus came from both the Coalition and the Government. But that didn’t stop both sides yesterday refusing to back the inquiry anyway. Only the Greens backed Xenophon’s motion. The South Australian senator is deeply unhappy with the way he was set up by the major parties over the inquiry.

Labor’s reasoning was that these issues have all been dealt with before. Special Minister of State Joe Ludwig pointed to a 2001 report commissioned by the Howard Government on the definition of charities and religious organisations, which discussed the public benefit issue — although it doesn’t grapple with the specific issue Xenophon raised, of net benefit and assessing benefits against harm.

The Coalition — which apparently seriously considered backing Xenophon — opposed it because, they said, it would turn into a “religious witch hunt”. Both Eric Abetz and Corey Bernardi used the motion as an opportunity to attack the Greens and environmentalist groups. Bernardi even compared Islam to Scientology. “We can have a look at the Koranic text that says, if you commit apostasy and renounce your faith, you actually are meant to be put to death,” he said. Abetz said disgruntled and abused former Scientologists could go to the media because there was a “free press”, as if Scientology didn’t have an extensive track record of using courts to keep information out of the public domain.

This is the Senate that in recent years has conducted inquiries into such critical matters as the Grocerychoice website, the reporting of sports news, whether there should be an AFL team in Tasmania, and an inquiry into people who don’t even live in Australia.

Not to forget holding an inquiry entirely based on the fervid imaginings of a Treasury bureaucrat.

The Senate has no trouble conducting inquiries into any matter, no matter how trivial or beyond the reach of rational public policy, if there’s a political edge to be gained or it wants to ride on the coat-tails of some community issue. But an inquiry into whether Australian taxpayers should continue to subsidise the practices of Scientology, including practices such as coerced abortion among members of the cult’s elite “Sea Org”, slave-like labour conditions and exploitation of members.

Next week, Xenophon will return to his original motion for an inquiry into Scientology.