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Tony Abbott says Liberals should have made 'more effort' to keep Bernardi on side – politics live Cory Bernardi announces defection, saying body politic is 'failing' Australia – politics live
(35 minutes later)
1.32am GMT 2.08am GMT
01:32 02:08
Bernardi will give a statement and then Penny Wong is expected to seek leave to speak to it. Cory Bernardi is answering questions outside the chamber now and answers the key question about why he did not resign before the election.
1.31am GMT I have reflected Liberal values since I joined theLiberal Party over 30 years ago. My sincere hopes the last election would deliver a positive outcome for the people of Australia. But what we saw was a million votes left the conservative party and went to alternatives. Some of them represent the national interests better than others. My ambition was always to bring those people back into the tent. I regret over the last seven months or so we see more of them leaving the tent. That says to me there is a serious problem. Now, I want to give them a principled, credible and stable alternative in which they can invest their vote in the Senate.
01:31 2.05am GMT
Senate is sitting now as the president reads the Lord’s prayer and pays respect to Indigenous elders past and present. 02:05
1.30am GMT Senator Derryn Hinch:
01:30 To hear him talk about principle when he has stood as a Liberal candidate and been elected as such is a joke. Three-hundred thousand people in South Australia, I feel sorry for them, they voted for a Liberal senator for six years. Below the line senator Bernardi got something like 2,000 votes and yet he stands up here and talks about principle.
Human services minister Alan Tudge spoke to the motion, saying the system is designed to ensure that taxpayers only support those in need.
1.29am GMT
01:29
In the lower house, independent Andrew Wilkie is trying to suspend standing orders on the Centrelink debt recovery system. The motion:
(1) acknowledges that Centrelink has, since late 2016, been sending out numerous incorrect notices relating to debt recovery – by its estimation, at least 4,000 of the 20,000 debt notices sent each week are incorrect;
(2) notes the severe financial and emotional toll that the debt recovery system has had on thousands of people, including some of the most vulnerable, with some going so far as to talk of suicide;
(3) notes the many well-documented problems with the system, including:
(a) incorrect debts being raised by a crude data-matching of a person’s annual income as reported by the Australian Taxation Office with their fortnightly income reported to Centrelink;
(b) alleged debts having been referred to debt collection agencies in a short amount of time, often when the person has not even been made aware of the alleged debt because they have not received adequate notice from Centrelink;
(c) people being asked for payslips and other proof of income from periods or in circumstances where they could not reasonably be expected to provide such documentation; and
(d) the Department of Human Services often refusing to explain how an alleged debt has been calculated, and in some cases recalculating the alleged debt seemingly at random;
(4) notes that while the Minister for Human Services has indicated that some minor changes will be made, the program remains deeply flawed and must be shut down immediately;
(5) condemns the Minister for not only refusing to admit that there is a problem with the system, but also for insisting that the system will continue to operate despite it incorrectly targeting thousands of innocent Australians and its failure to treat people fairly and humanely; and
(6) calls on the Minister to:
(a) ensure that all Centrelink debt recovery activities are timely and accurate, and are conducted in a fair and humane manner; and
(b) convene, as a matter of urgency, an expert stakeholder roundtable to design a fair and humane system of debt detection and recovery.
1.23am GMT
01:23
Coming up:
I will be seeking leave to make a statement to the Senate when it commences at 12.30pm today.
Following my statement to Senate will hold press conference in Mural Hall @ 1pm
1.15am GMT
01:15
#BREAKING: @TurnbullMalcolm has axed the lifetime gold travel pass for former MPS.
UpdatedUpdated
at 1.19am GMT at 2.07am GMT
1.12am GMT 2.03am GMT
01:12 02:03
Tony Abbott: we should have done more to keep Cory Richard Di Natale:
Tony Abbott has taken to Facebook to decry the lack of effort being made to keep Cory in the tent. Here is a very clear message in this for prime minister Turnbull – you don’t negotiate with extremists. You do not negotiate with extremists because it doesn’t matter how much you give them, they always want more.
Cory Bernardi has made an important contribution to our public life and I deeply regret his decision to leave the Liberal Party. It is never enough. It is never enough! You look at the capitulation that we have seen from this prime minister on issues that he believed were issues of substance.
While Cory and I have sometimes disagreed I’m disappointed that more effort has not been made to keep our party united. Remember this was the prime minister who said he would never lead a party that wasn’t as committed to climate change as he is. We have him several days ago spruiking clean coal straight out of the Senator Bernardi manual of conservative politics. Out there spruiking for something that doesn’t exist. We have entered fairyland here.
The Liberal Party needs more people, like Cory, who believe that freer citizens will make a fairer society and a stronger country and who are prepared to speak out and make a difference. On marriage equality, a man who has marched at mardi gras, capitulating to the far right in his own party. Perhaps he was convinced by Senator Bernardi’s persuasive arguments around bestiality and the consequences that might flow if we allowed people to marry each other regardless of gender and sexuality. Disgraceful! Disgraceful contributions from a man who has not got the courage to put his views to the Australian electorate on the republic.
No government entirely satisfies all of its supporters. This is not an argument to leave; it’s a reason to stay in and fight more effectively for the things we believe in.
I appeal to everyone who wants smaller, stronger government and who wants a freer, fairer country to continue to support the Liberals because that is the only way to improve our party, our government and our country.
UpdatedUpdated
at 1.24am GMT at 2.06am GMT
1.09am GMT 2.00am GMT
01:09 02:00
Given new rightwing political parties are the topic of the day, I thought it was worth casting our minds back to the pulped book of John Hyde Page, called The Education of a Young Liberal. While the book was pulped in relation to another matter, the author gives an interesting account of a conversation with Malcolm Turnbull regarding the possibility of forming a centre-right party. Hyde Page was working for the former Liberal Wentworth MP Peter King at the time. (Turnbull knocked off King in a torrid preselection.) Hyde Page recalls the conversation was about the hollowing out of the Liberal party into what the PM had then called a “doughnut” – that is, Young Liberals at one end, pensioners at the other and nothing in between. Scenes from a resignation, Cory Bernadi in the #senate @gabriellechan @GuardianAus #politicslive pic.twitter.com/G3H0ROHWDG
Hyde Page went on to interpret Turnbull’s words. 1.59am GMT
Indeed if something was not done, Turnbull predicted, the Liberal party would very soon be supplanted by some new centre-right party. It wouldn’t be hard at all, thanks to the internet – he took a moment or two to praise the marvel that is the internet – a couple of wealthy financiers, a few emails, an online recruitment campaign and voila, a new conservative force in Australian politics and no more Liberal party. 01:59
Voila indeed. Greens leader Richard Di Natale:
I have contacted the PM’s office to check whether it is an accurate account of the conversation and have yet to hear back. In Senator Bernardi we have 6.5ft of ego but not an inch of integrity. Not an inch. I would have expected that speech if he had given it a year ago before he stood as a Liberal party candidate and waited to get himself a six-year term in the Senate. What a hypocrite!
A young social services minister Christian Porter – who back then was a senior state prosecutor in Western Australia before he entered state or federal parliament – wrote a review for the Centre for Independent Studies.
John Hyde Page’s book The Education of a Young Liberal is a very hard book to hate. And as a proud member of the Liberal party’s WA division I tried very hard. Indeed, it is probably a mistake to have a member of any political party review such a book because, of the several reviews published to date, each goes immediately to its accuracy and political meaning ...
Whether accurate or not, the several pages devoted to Peter King and Malcolm Turnbull leave the reader with a sense that he has been privy to some deep insight into complex and textured human beings.
UpdatedUpdated
at 1.13am GMT at 2.01am GMT
12.24am GMT 1.58am GMT
00:24 01:58
Night of the living dead: zombie budget measures make budget hard to balance Oh brother, where art thou?
Gareth Hutchens George Brandis:
The Parliamentary Budget Office has published an update on the budgetary impact of legislation still stuck in the Senate. So Mr President, this is a sad day for the Liberal party. It is a sad day when someone leaves the family. Senator Bernardi will have to account to the Australian people and to his own conscience about how he can continue to sit in this parliament, having been elected as a Liberal, but that is a matter for him.
Labor will try to capitalise on it today, which the government won’t appreciate.
It’s a quiet reminder of the problems the Coalition has faced in the Senate since the Abbott government’s infamous 2014 budget.
According to the PBO:
The impact of the unlegislated measures on the budget deficit will be $8.5bn in 2019-20 and $42.8bn in 2026-27.
That means the government’s attempt to return the budget to balance by 2020-21 will be impossible, keeping other things equal, if the measures remain unlegislated.
UpdatedUpdated
at 12.40am GMT at 2.01am GMT
12.20am GMT 1.56am GMT
00:20 01:56
Katharine Murphy has done a little bit of decoding of the various barrows being pushed around the Bernardi defection. George Brandis said while the government would deal with Bernardi courteously, the government would expect him to support the government’s policies, which he stood for at the recent election.
But folks intent on running a line of defence that says how dare Bernardi offend the custom and practice of the political establishment in Canberra, and think that is somehow a resonant argument, must have missed the past two years in politics. He says the Coalition would deal with him courteously, unlike the Labor party did with former defector Mal Colston.
If somehow you missed the past two years in politics, the bit where Brexit happened and Trump got elected and One Nation returned to the political scene, then you have only to read Monday’s Newspoll to know that Australian voters are parting ways with the major parties and are actively looking for alternatives. We won’t be abusing him in the way, for example, we saw former [Labor] senator Robert Ray conduct the most vindictive personal campaign against Senator Mal Colston that any of us can remember.
If you want to put some wind under the sails of a red meat conservative, who is looking to build a new political movement on a bedrock of disaffection, and is looking (somewhat against his own history) to position himself as a political outsider – I’d start throwing around words like “rat”.
2. Murpharoo suggests the conservative commentary that the defection is another test for Turnbull is bollocks.
Let’s get real. Looking at Turnbull, it really is hard to see how he could get more conservative than he currently is without also triggering a full-scale rebellion by party moderates.
So let’s call this one out. The hard right of the Liberal party just don’t like Turnbull, so it doesn’t matter what he does, it won’t be enough.
Have a read here.
UpdatedUpdated
at 12.33am GMT at 1.58am GMT
11.58pm GMT 1.53am GMT
23:58 01:53
The minister for investment opportunities. The former minister of health. The attorney general and Senate leader, George Brandis, says Cory Bernardi has done the wrong thing.
We believe that he has done the wrong thing. Because only seven months ago Senator Bernardi was elected by the people of SA to serve in the Senate as a Liberal senator.
There is a variety of views in theLiberal party, as there is a variety of views in the Labor party, but only seven months ago Senator Bernardi was happy to stand before the people of SA – seven months ago Senator Bernardi was happy to stand before the people of SA to say he sought their endorsement to serve for a 6-year term as a Liberal senator.
Now, Senator Bernardi has been a participant in debates in the Liberal party, as have I, but, in the seven months since the federal election, nothing has changed.
UpdatedUpdated
at 12.11am GMT at 1.59am GMT
11.53pm GMT 1.50am GMT
23:53 01:50
Then and Now- fellow SA sen. David Fawcett takes Cory's seat in the party room this morn @gabriellechan @GuardianAus pic.twitter.com/AjojsbPGKI Penny Wong replies:
What we have seen today Mr President is extraordinary. Extraordinary. A government senator leaving on ideological grounds and on grounds of conviction and philosophy from the government benches. What we have seen today really tells us something very important about this government because it is emblematic of a government that is bitterly divided, a government that is coming apart at the seams, a government so driven with internal division it is more focused on their own issues than on matters that matter most to Australians.
She says Malcolm Turnbull no longer stands for what he believes in.
I don’t think Tony Abbott was much of a prime minister but he was a hell lot better at being Tony Abbott than Malcolm Turnbull will ever be.
UpdatedUpdated
at 12.12am GMT at 1.59am GMT
1.47am GMT
01:47
Bernardi says his party will focus on stronger families, freedom of speech and smaller government while rebuilding confidence in civil society. He suggests the speaker should consider new seating arrangements.
1.45am GMT
01:45
Cory Bernardi:
For many years, I have warned of the consequences of ignoring the clear signs. I have spoken of the need to restore faith in our political system and to put principle back into politics. I regret that too often these warnings have been ignored by those who perhaps needed to hear them most. It really is time for a better way. For a conservative way. The enduring beauty of the conservative tradition is it looks to the past, to all that is good and great, to inform the future. It is a rich paradox where the established equips us for the new. So today I begin something new, built on enduring values and principles that have served our nation so well for so long. It is a political movement of Australian Conservatives.
1.43am GMT
01:43
Bernardi: the body politic is failing the people of Australia
Cory Bernardi:
When, as a younger man, I joined the ship of state, I was in awe of its traditions and the great captains that it guided us on our way. But now, as the seas through which we sail become ever more challenging, the respect for the values and principles that have served us well seem to have been set aside for expedient, self-serving, short-term ends. That approach has not served our nation well. There are few in this place or anywhere that can claim the respect for politicians and politics is stronger today than it was 10 years ago. In short, the body politic is failing the people of Australia. It is clear that we need to find a better way.
Updated
at 1.49am GMT
1.41am GMT
01:41
Cory Bernardi begins his statement
Bernardi says he is resigning because he believes it is the right thing to do.
1.41am GMT
01:41
Penny Wong informs the Senate chamber that senator Sam Dastyari has been appointed deputy whip of the Labor party. So begins the resurrection.
Updated
at 1.49am GMT
1.39am GMT
01:39
Culleton is sitting alone in the public gallery
1.37am GMT
01:37
President Parry is reading through the history of his actions relating to Culleton and Culleton’s attempts via letters and legal action to remain in the senate.
1.36am GMT
01:36
President Stephen Parry speaks to the vacancy caused by the former One Nation senator Rodney Culleton, pointing out the high court ruling that found he was not eligible to sit in the Senate.
Updated
at 1.37am GMT
1.32am GMT
01:32
Bernardi will give a statement and then Penny Wong is expected to seek leave to speak to it.
1.31am GMT
01:31
Senate is sitting now as the president reads the Lord’s prayer and pays respect to Indigenous elders past and present.