Opposition senator K.D. Knight says his suspension from the Senate is a sideshow being staged by the Government to take the spotlight away from what he labels its "inefficiency".

"What they do is use the occasion to rush through legis-lation, and when we ask them to delay legislation for a week, the leader of government business gets up and says we are trying to derail the legislative agenda," Knight said.

Knight, a former minister under the People's National Party, was suspended on Friday from two sittings of the Senate through a motion crafted by the Government side. A week earlier, Knight was censured for calling Leader of Government Business in the Senate, Dorothy Lightbourne, "stupid".