SENATE DROPS ETHICS INQUIRY

  The upper house's ethics committee has agreed to halt a year-long inquiry into former Liberal senator Colin Kenny's alleged inappropriate use of Senate resources — and anything it has learned to this point will never be released publicly.
   According to the Senate's ethics code, any probe by the Senate ethics officer is dropped once the senator who is the subject of the probe resigns or retires. However, the Senate's ethics committee could request that the investigation be continued for posterity — something it has opted not to do in Kenny's case.
  Kenny resigned in January, months before his mandatory retirement date and just before the ethics report was due to be released.