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Labor says Coalition's lifetime ban on asylum seekers would affect thousands – politics live
Labor says Coalition's lifetime ban on asylum seekers would affect thousands – politics live
(35 minutes later)
4.33am GMT
04:33
Pyne (Channel 10, November 8) "I think Hillary will win, and win easily, and I think that will be the best outcome for Australia"
Julie Bishop and Christopher Pyne check US results in question time.
4.29am GMT
04:29
Former Liberal MP Ross Cameron...
Ross Cameron just punched the head off a Hillary cutout at this #trumpsaussiemates party pic.twitter.com/jNXSkYGibS
4.27am GMT
04:27
Meanwhile, the Australian stockmarket is struggling at the thought of a Trump presidency.
The Australian stock market going through stages of grief…. pic.twitter.com/2mIz5NdlRE
4.26am GMT
04:26
I will not be lectured to by that man (Scott Morrison).
Updated
at 4.26am GMT
4.15am GMT
04:15
Question time is over.
George Christensen is showing off his Trump book #qt
4.07am GMT
04:07
Joel Fitzgibbon asks Barnaby Joyce about Paul Grimes, the former head of the agriculture department who was sacked by the Coalition.
It refers to a letter only released by the government recently in which Grimes told Joyce he could no longer work with Joyce as agriculture minister “to resolve matters of integrity”.
The government fought the release of the letter under Freedom of Information laws for a year.
Joyce bluffs and blusters through the answer without answering.
Labor yells across the chamber,
Don’t go on leave Malcolm.
4.00am GMT
04:00
Joel Fitzgibbon to Barnaby Joyce: Speaking about Donald Trump this morning you said “What people say on the campaign trail is mitigated by the strong advice they get once they get into office because if you just fly solo on every issue, you will create major problems for your nation”. Has this been your experience with your own handling of the backpacker tax, drought relief and the relocation of the pesticides authorities to your own electorate, just to name a few?
Joyce:
I think it is very important if you look at the current polling to be careful about what you say about what might be the next President of the United States, noting that Mr Trump is currently ahead...
Joyce is yelling very loudly.
The answer involves Santa Claus, foreign workers v Australian workers, shearers from Uruguay, brain explosions and senator Jacqui Lambie.
His point is that Labor’s is supporting a 10.5% backpacker tax that will be lower than the Australian rate.
3.53am GMT
3.53am GMT
03:53
03:53
Six MPs have been thrown out so far by Mr Speaker. He is cranky today.
Six MPs have been thrown out so far by Mr Speaker. He is cranky today.
3.51am GMT
3.51am GMT
03:51
03:51
3.50am GMT
3.50am GMT
03:50
03:50
Chris Bowen to Scott Morrison: It has been revealed today that the NSW Liberal government has lobbied credit ratings agencies to defend their AAA rating in anticipation of the commonwealth losing its AAA credit rating. Is the Turnbull government so ... incompetent that even Mike Baird has lost confidence in this treasurer’s ability to defend Australia’s AAA rating?
Chris Bowen to Scott Morrison: It has been revealed today that the NSW Liberal government has lobbied credit ratings agencies to defend their AAA rating in anticipation of the commonwealth losing its AAA credit rating. Is the Turnbull government so ... incompetent that even Mike Baird has lost confidence in this treasurer’s ability to defend Australia’s AAA rating?
Morrison says Labor’s debt is to blame.
Morrison says Labor’s debt is to blame.
That is the approach of those opposite, when they sit on these benches, they carelessly engage in reckless spending, drive up taxes, drive up debt, drive up a deficit and as a result, they have placed the nation’s finances in the position that we inherited as a government.
That is the approach of those opposite, when they sit on these benches, they carelessly engage in reckless spending, drive up taxes, drive up debt, drive up a deficit and as a result, they have placed the nation’s finances in the position that we inherited as a government.
This is quite something in the same day in the context of the backpacker tax.
This is quite something in the same day in the context of the backpacker tax.
Updated
Updated
at 3.54am GMT
at 3.54am GMT
3.43am GMT
3.43am GMT
03:43
03:43
Shorten to Turnbull: The prime minister has praised the action taken by his special minister of state in August 2016 to investigation Bob Day’s eligibility to sit in the Senate. Given that the special minister relied upon the same information that his minister for finance had back in February 2016, why didn’t the minister for finance take the same action back then that the minister for state took in August 2016?
Shorten to Turnbull: The prime minister has praised the action taken by his special minister of state in August 2016 to investigation Bob Day’s eligibility to sit in the Senate. Given that the special minister relied upon the same information that his minister for finance had back in February 2016, why didn’t the minister for finance take the same action back then that the minister for state took in August 2016?
Turnbull refuses to answer and says again, see the special minister’s statement in the Senate on Monday.
Turnbull refuses to answer and says again, see the special minister’s statement in the Senate on Monday.
Updated
Updated
at 3.49am GMT
at 3.49am GMT
3.41am GMT
03:41
A question to small business minister Michael McCormack on the backpacker tax. The government has been holding up the National Farmers Federation’s support as a shield.
3.38am GMT
03:38
Treasurer Scott Morrison gets a backpacker question. He is yelling very loudly.
Labor to Pyne: Did the North West College, linked to Bob Day, receive the amount they asked for or did the government give this organisation linked to Bob Day more than they actually asked for and is this normal process for this government to provide organisations more money than they asked for?
Speaker starts to rule it out of order but Pyne says he will take it.
Pyne:
Apart from the fact that the college is called the North East Vocational College as opposed to North West. I am prepared to overlook that. I would have been sacked when I was the manager of opposition business under the Member for Warringah and getting that wrong. Let’s pretend that the question was correct. The simple facts are, being lectured by the Labor party on these matters shows a great audacity.
Burke makes a point on relevance and Pyne says:
I take the point, I am surprised I got that far.
For sheer entertainment value, Pyne is easily one of the the best parliamentary performers on the floor.
Updated
at 3.42am GMT
3.31am GMT
03:31
I think the American election has given the Australian parliament a case of the crazies.
Barnaby Joyce has just been forced to sit down in the middle of a government question because he failed to call someone their title. (He used their name.)
Plibersek has asked Christopher Pyne about the North East Vocational College again and Pyne went into a rant about the former Labor government.
This is the Labor party responsible for the home insulation program, called the pink batts program which was responsible for killing people. It was responsible for peoples’ deaths. The home insulation program was responsible for the deaths of young Australians put into danger in the ceilings of homes in Australia because of the Labor party’s pink batts program. This party dares to lecture us about the delivery of programs. You should hang your heads in shame. You should be embarrassed to come into this house and ask us that are fixing up the mess of the six years of the Gillard-Rudd government, to ask us about questions to do with this.
Former Labor treasurer Wayne Swan interjects something unparliamentary. He refuses to withdraw so gets thrown out.
Updated
at 3.40am GMT
3.27am GMT
03:27
Gareth Hutchens
Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce gets a government question on the backpacker tax. Which gives me a chance to run this, from earlier in the day.
Gareth Hutchens:
An unofficial game of chicken has begun.
After Labor’s announcement yesterday that it will support the government’s backpacker tax legislation only if the government agrees to a couple of amendments, the Coalition is more than pissed off.
The government has spent months trying to clean up the mess left by the former Abbott government when it decided to increase the backpacker tax to 32.5% in 2015.
In September, the treasurer, Scott Morrison, finally decided on a compromise tax rate of 19%, after drawn-out talks with the agricultural industry, and he was hoping to get the legislation passed before Christmas.
The government says if the legislation isn’t passed before the new year then the higher tax rate of 32.5% will kick in, which won’t be good for anyone.
Again, this is a mess of the government’s own making. But Labor’s proposal yesterday ruined their plans.
Labor says the government should cut the tax rate to 10.5%, rather than 19%, because that would make it equivalent to the tax rate in New Zealand, making Australia internationally competitive.
It says it will only support the government’s legislation if the government agrees to its proposed amendments.
But the Coalition isn’t budging.
It says Labor will be responsible for the 32.2% tax rate come 1 January if it doesn’t support the government’s legislation as it stands.
No one on the Coalition frontbench is willing to compromise. Morrison said the government will be testing Labor’s amendments in the senate.
Barnaby Joyce said today that the situation was “infuriating”.
He said the government had negotiated with Tourism Accommodation Australia, the National Farmers’ Federation, the Victorian Farmers Federation, with Tasmanian farmers, with the Lockyer’s horticultural producers, with farmers all around our nation, and Labor had put the 32.5% tax rate in its budget.
But it had changed its mind at the 11th hour, only to cause dissent and confusion.
“It is literally like a wedding, and as the bride makes it to the front of the alter the groom turns around and says ‘oh actually I’ve changed my mind, I wanna marry someone in the front row’. You can’t do that,” he said today.
He said Labor should do the honourable thing and support then 19% tax rate, and if it wants to make the rate lower than that it should take it to the next election.
But Labor won’t budge.
Now the Coalition isn’t sure when the legislation will be introduced to the senate. “Everything is in flux at the moment,” said one Coalition staffer.
“It’s a game of chicken I guess,” said a Labor staffer.
Updated
at 3.39am GMT
3.23am GMT
03:23
Plibersek to Turnbull: Yesterday the minister representing the minister for education said that the $1.84m grant to a college linked to former senator Day “went through all the normal processes”. Can the prime minister outline what these “normal processes” were?
Turnbull flicks the question to Pyne.
Pyne says there is no financial involvement between Bob Day and the North East Vocational College.
Updated
at 3.37am GMT
3.21am GMT
03:21
Greens MP Adam Bandt to Turnbull: Since the election, you have attacked renewable energy and defended coal, proposed permanent bans on refugees coming to Australia seeking our help. Now you are caving in to senator Pauline Hanson and the Donald Trumps in your party on race hate laws. Will you rule out allowing Donald Trump-style hate speech to flourish in Australia by changing the law to make it easier to say racist things? Are you now so beholden to the far right that you are letting Pauline Hanson write your policy? Prime minister, do you actually believe in this Trump-style agenda or are you just content with being the poor man’s Tony Abbott?
Because parliamentarians are supposed to refer to titles rather than names, Speaker Tony Smith calls him out on this.
I have cautioned many members on this and I have made it clear I am not going to keep cautioning them continuously, the member for Gellibrand learned this in the 90-second statements, pity he is not here to hear it now. Members will refer to members by their correct titles. I am not allowing an opportunity to rephrase the question. I am moving to the next question.
Speaker Smith refuses to let him have the question which is unheard of over using a name - in this case “Tony Abbott”. I have certainly never seen anyone lose a question like that.
Updated
at 3.26am GMT
3.17am GMT
03:17
Dreyfus to Turnbull: is the prime minister aware that the attorney general’s 37 new appointments to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal included Liberal donors, former Liberal MPs, failed Liberal candidates and Liberal party operatives, such as Saxon Rice, John Sosso, Nicholas McGowan and Bruce McCarthy. Is this what the prime minister meant when he referred to “excellent qualifications”?
Turnbull says if you have any allegations, raise them.
Then he segues to new Labor senator Kimberley Kitching.
Did the leader of the opposition satisfy himself that contrary to the finding of the Heydon royal commission, she was truthful in her evidence? What did the leader of the opposition do to satisfy himself that the royal commission had no basis for referring her conduct to the Director of Public Prosecutions for investigation, consideration for bringing criminal charges against her? Kimberley Kitching’s conduct has been the subject of findings of a royal commission, presided over by a retired high court judge.
Updated
at 3.19am GMT
3.11am GMT
03:11
Shorten to Turnbull: On 19 October, the prime minister defended the attorney general’s 37 new appointments to the AAT, saying “I have no doubt that all the persons appointed were excellently qualified.” Given there was no merits-based selection process, no advice from the department, no advertising of position, simply handpicked by the attorney general, what exactly were the excellent qualifications that justified these people receiving jobs paying up to $370,000 a year?
Turnbull says he will send Shorten their resumes.
Second government question is to Peter Dutton, allowing “Labor weak on border security” answer.
Updated
at 3.14am GMT
3.08am GMT
03:08
Second question (Dixer) to Turnbull on border security and lifetime ban bill.
We know how serious a threat irregular migration is. The foreign minister spoke yesterday of John Kerry saying it was viewed in Europe as an existential threat. When I was at the United Nations only a few weeks ago, one leader after another from Europe talked to me about the extraordinary threat they faced from irregular migration. What it does to promote intolerance. What it does to undermine a civil discourse. What it does to undermine their union, maintaining our border is absolutely essential.
When we brought in this legislation before the house this week, we asked the Labor Party to do no more than prove again that they are on that unity ticket. To do no more than send with us the strongest, most unequivocal message to the people smugglers that you will not succeed and they have failed us. They have failed Australia. They have failed the integrity of our borders.
3.03am GMT
03:03
Dreyfus to Turnbull: Does the prime minister still support the direction that was issued by the attorney general?
Turnbull:
The attorney general has my full confidence, the committee, as you know, the majority report was written by his political opponents and should be viewed in that light.
