But anyone expecting a subdued box-ticking affair with a cup of tea and a Monte Carlo would have been disappointed. Legal experts who fronted the committee were somewhere between agog and horrified by what the Coalition has presented to the Parliament. The Law Council of Australia declared the bill should "be amended or reconsidered altogether", which is polite lawyer speak for "this totally sux". President Duncan McConnel warned that conduct that could lead to losing citizenship was worryingly "broad and imprecise". Barrister Gabrielle Bashir observed that the way the bill currently stands, someone could have their passport taken if they so much as punctured the tyre of a Commonwealth car. Constitutional law professor George Williams, was more blunt, describing it as the most "problematically drafted bill" he had ever seen. Admittedly, when the bill was introduced to the House of Representatives in June it was with the intention of sending it committee-wards. But with something as serious as citizenship at stake, should it be left to the whim of whoever decides to turn up to a hearing to point out to the government that the bill they have presented to the Parliament (and that could still pass the Parliament) is a constitutional cluster fuss? The process is symptomatic of the age we are being governed in. One where the fine print and expertise are a second-order concern (if they are a concern at all).

On Wednesday in another parliamentary meeting room, the Senate's Community Affairs committee gathered for a hearing on the government's "youth employment" budget measures. This is the bill that will make under 25s serve a four-week waiting period before they can qualify for the dole. It has been presented by the government as a reasonable – even kindly measure – because it is a huge step back from the six month wait they were going to impose on under 30s in the 2014 budget. Welfare and mental health groups, however, are still very unhappy about the proposed wait. They argue that if a young person needs money for rent and food, then they need it now – not in a month's time. They have also argued the waiting period will not achieve its aim to get more young people into work (given job shortages around the country). Anyone expecting a subdued box-ticking affair with a cup of tea and a Monte Carlo would have been disappointed. So, during Wednesday's hearing, Department of Employment and Social Services officials were pressed on what direct evidence they had the policy would work. After repeated questioning, one senior public servant finally admitted there was none.

"It was a decision of government," the official shrugged (presumably not enjoying being wedged between the rock of misleading the committee and the hard place of defending the policy). Look around the government's wider activities and you see a repeating pattern of either ignorance or ignoring of evidence. In answers submitted to the Senate over the winter break, the Department of Social Services says it has not modelled (i.e. doesn't know) how families will be hit by changes to how much parents have to work to qualify for childcare subsidies. This is despite the fact that the new work "activity test" is a major plank of Scott Morrison's "Jobs for Families" package. In recent months, we've also seen senior members of the Coalition continue to entertain the idea that wind farms could be harmful to human health, even though the National Health and Medical Research Council says there is no consistent evidence wind farms cause health problems. Meanwhile, Tony Abbott – the self-described "Indigenous Affairs Prime Minister – has rejected a plan from the country's most senior Indigenous leaders about how to best move forward on the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal people.

More broadly over the life of the Abbott government, we've seen the expert views of international lawyers, the Human Rights Commission and the United Nations ignored on Australia's treatment of asylum seekers. Economists who argue the most effective way of addressing climate change is through an emissions trading scheme have also been dismissed. Then there is the Coalition's move to dismantle expertise at bodies like the Climate Change Authority and CSIRO, get rid of the disability commissioner and cut funding from organisations like the Alcohol and Drug Council, the National Congress of Australia's First Peoples and a range of expert community groups, including Homelessness Australia and Blind Citizens Australia. Governments of course are surrounded by advice. There are advisers both political and public servant at every turn. Then there's all the advocates and lobbyists bearing research that turn up on the doorstop uninvited. And indeed, sometimes politicians need to make decisions that are more pragmatic or wily than policy pure. But what is with this government? It behaves as though it is allergic to evidence and thinking things through. When the Coalition declared the Age of Entitlement was over, did they mean Enlightenment instead?