Coalition agrees senators should decide if material seized by police is privileged

Labor says material taken in a mid-election campaign police raid over NBN leaks is covered protected, which the privileges committee will now decide

The Coalition has agreed to allow parliament's powerful privileges committee to determine whether material obtained by the Australian federal police in controversial raids during and after the election campaign will be protected by privilege.

The government had looked to be positioning to avoid that outcome but in one of the first gestures of the new Senate, the leader of the government, George Brandis, said he would support the reference to privileges because it was the "appropriate course of action."