The Constitution, which provides for the Senate to assess and accept or reject spending on one-off projects, is being regularly overridden, Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.

"Billions of dollars spent on such measures as government advertising, overseas disaster relief and, to give a specific example, the Rudd government's 2020 Summit last year, are classified as ‘ordinary annual services of government' to escape specific Senate scrutiny of the allocated spending," Senator Brown said.

The Clerk of the Senate, Mr Harry Evans, told a Senate estimates hearing this morning that despite repeated Senate Committee recommendations governments had failed to come forward with a definition of what is or isn't ‘ordinary annual services of government' to fit the Constitutional requirements.

"In the absence of government action, the Greens will produce legislation to fulfil this need before the next election," Senator Brown said after the hearings.

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