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Labor steps up attack over Barnaby Joyce's citizenship – question time live Marriage postal survey bill to be delayed until after court challenge – politics live
(about 1 hour later)
7.30am BST
07:30
One Nation senator Peter Georgiou will deliver his first speech at 5pm.
7.27am BST
07:27
Liberal MP Russell Broadbent on asylum seekers: El Shaddai. Enough.
Katharine Murphy reports:
The Victorian Liberal moderate Russell Broadbent has called for “genuine refugees” in offshore detention to be settled permanently on the Australian mainland once the US resettlement deal has run its course.
Broadbent signalled his intention to break ranks with government policy in a short speech to parliament just before question time on Wednesday, saying it was “time for this parliament to act to resolve the situation on Manus and Nauru”.
The veteran Liberal, who has campaigned within the Liberal party and across party lines on behalf of asylum seekers, referenced a column from Guardian Australia’s David Marr as the prompt for him to call for a permanent resolution.
In his speech, Broadbent quoted the opening of Marr’s piece, which was published last week: “If only Christians fought like this for refugees. Imagine if the Coalition’s big men of faith threatened to tear down their own government unless it brings home the wretches we’ve imprisoned in the Pacific. Surely there couldn’t be a greater service for Christ?”
Broadbent told parliament: “David Marr can be pretty hard when he writes. It comes out of his life experience, and I accept that.”
The Liberal MP said he could not ignore the challenge he laid down. “I couldn’t walk past it. Eventually you come to a place in your time – as a former member once said – there’s a rubbish bin there, and it smells, and you can’t walk past it.
Enough. El Shaddai. Enough.
Read the whole thing here.
Updated
at 7.29am BST
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07:21
Government to delay marriage postal survey bill until after court challenge
Paul Karp
The government is set to delay a bill to improve processes for the postal survey on same-sex marriage after the Greens and marriage equality advocates warned that passing it may undermine the high court challenge against the vote.
Guardian Australia understands that the Human Rights Law Centre, representing Australian Marriage Equality and the Greens LGBTI spokeswoman Janet Rice in the challenge, has advised that passing a bill to set rules for the survey run by the Australian Bureau of Statistics could harm their chances in court.
Marriage equality advocates are to write to Labor, the Greens and crossbench warning them not to pass any bill prematurely. The Greens have already written to the government urging it to delay legislation.
On Wednesday the acting special minister of state, Mathias Cormann, told Guardian Australia:
The most likely timing for consideration of a bill to provide for additional legal safeguards ... to support the fair and proper conduct of [the survey] will be after the high court’s hearings on 5 and 6 September.
On Friday the Cormann contacted Labor and the Greens, offering to extend electoral law provisions for authorisations of ads and banning misleading information, fraud, bribery and intimidation to protect the survey.
At first the government suggested the bill could be presented to parliament this week. It has given the bill to Labor, which is considering its position, and crossbench parties.
No details of the bill are publicly available but Guardian Australia understands it extends basic electoral protections and goes no further.
7.17am BST
07:17
Immigration minister Peter Dutton was asked if he thought the Sharrouf’s children deserved to die.
Dutton:
Well, nobody would want to see Australian children die. Nobody would want to see any children die. But the fact is that Sharrouf and his wife took their children into a war zone. If they have been killed, what other outcome would they expect? They were obviously horrible people, atrocious parents, and to take their children into that war zone - you’ve seen the footage of the children - one holding up a severed head and the rest of it - who would expect any other outcome from parents and people obviously as evil as their father, Khaled Sharrouf?
7.13am BST
07:13
Peter Dutton cannot confirm reports of Khaled Sharrouf's reported death
Immigration minister Peter Dutton cannot confirm reports from last night that terrorist Khaled Sharrouf and his two young sons have been killed in an airstrike.
As the government said before, it’s always very difficult to confirm these reports, given that we’re dealing with war zones in Syria and Iraq, so the point to make is that no Australian would mourn the loss of Khaled Sharrouf.
He’s a terrorist. He sought to harm Australians and, if he returned to our country, he would be a significant threat to the Australian public. So, nobody would mourn his loss, and the fact is that, if people make a decision to go to the Middle East or anywhere else to engage with Isis in a fight against countries like ours, then frankly they deserve the outcome that perhaps has met Sharrouf.
But I don’t have any confirmation in relation to that information at the moment.
Updated
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7.02am BST
07:02
I apologise for my absence. I was wagging the blog.
Mr Wright of the West Oz has been looking at the constitution.
Ah, the plan ... Sect 44 (ii) prevents someone in Parliament if convicted of treason. #auspol The one section that hasn't been tested...
Disqualification
Any person who:
(i) is under any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power; or
(ii) is attainted of treason, or has been convicted and is under sentence, or subject to be sentenced, for any offence punishable under the law of the commonwealth or of a state by imprisonment for one year or longer; or
(iii) is an undischarged bankrupt or insolvent; or
(iv) holds any office of profit under the crown, or any pension payable during the pleasure of the crown out of any of the revenues of the commonwealth; or
(v) has any direct or indirect pecuniary interest in any agreement with the public service of the commonwealth otherwise than as a member and in common with the other members of an incorporated company consisting of more than 25 persons;
shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.
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Labor loses the suspension of standing orders. Question time is over.Labor loses the suspension of standing orders. Question time is over.
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06:0906:09
The house votes to gag Joel Fitzgibbon. Now the house votes on the suspension of standing orders.The house votes to gag Joel Fitzgibbon. Now the house votes on the suspension of standing orders.
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The house votes to gag Burke and then Labor agriculture shadow Joel Fitzgibbon has a go. Pyne then moves to gag Fitzgibbon.The house votes to gag Burke and then Labor agriculture shadow Joel Fitzgibbon has a go. Pyne then moves to gag Fitzgibbon.
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06:01
5.54am BST
05:54
Labor’s Tony Burke moves to suspend standing orders. The motion:
Notes:a) On Monday, this house unanimously asked the high court to determine whether the deputy prime minister is constitutionally qualified to be a member of parliament;
b) On Tuesday, the deputy prime minister admitted he had been a citizen of a foreign power right up until the weekend;
c) Former minister Matt Canavan has resigned from cabinet and will not vote in the Senate until the high court resolves doubts about his constitutional qualifications to be a member of parliament;
d) Yesterday, the foreign minister refused to accept that the conservative New Zealand internal affairs minister was telling the truth; and
e) This morning, on Sky News, the foreign minister refused to answer whether she could now work with a future New Zealand government; and
2. Therefore, calls on the prime minister:
a) To stop trashing Australia’s international relations in order to distract from the crisis the government is facing;
b) Rule out accepting the vote of the deputy prime minister while his constitutional qualifications are in doubt; and
c) Direct the deputy prime minister to immediately resign from cabinet.
Pyne has moved to gag Burke so the division is in progress.
Updated
at 6.04am BST
5.49am BST
05:49
Tanya Plibersek to Julie Bishop: In her travels, the foreign minister has made it clear she has constructive meeting with the president of Iran, the presidents of Russia and the Philippines. How can the foreign minister bring credibility and professionalism to her job if we are meant to believe she will work with Iran, Russia and the Philippines, but maybe not New Zealand?
Bishop sets into TPlibs.
This is a question from a member of parliament who called Ariel Sharon a war criminal and called Israel a rogue state. She has no credibility whatsoever because she thinks Africa is a country, not once, not twice, but three times she called Africa a country. What is the capital of Africa again? Mr Speaker, the fact is the New Zealand Labour leader has now distanced herself from the Australian Labor party.
Five Labor MPs have been thrown out so far, including Plibersek.
Updated
at 5.56am BST
5.46am BST
05:46
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop #QT #seriousStinkeye @gabriellechan @GuardianAus #politicslive pic.twitter.com/20DOvuH1Ze
This will be our frontline weapon when we invade New Zealand in the next stage of Operation Jandal
Updated
at 5.47am BST
5.44am BST
05:44
Labor’s Tony Burke to Malcolm Turnbull: My question is to the prime minister, going to the extraordinary theories the government is advancing as to why Labor is to blame. Which is Labor’s fault? That the leader of the house moved a motion to refer the deputy prime minister to the high court? That the deputy admitted yesterday he was a citizen of a foreign power? Or is it Labor’s fault the deputy prime minister’s father was born in New Zealand in 1924?
Pyne says the standing orders are very clear about the responsibilities of the prime minister and they do not go to the failures of the Labor party.
Speaker Smith agrees.
Updated
at 5.53am BST
5.38am BST
05:38
Mark Dreyfus to Julie Bishop: Yesterday, the foreign minister refused to accept the conservative internal affairs minister of New Zealand was telling the truth when he said it was media inquiries that prompted the response to the deputy prime minister’s citizenship. On what basis did the foreign minister call the internal affairs minister of New Zealand a liar?
Julie Bishop:
The questions from the Fairfax media, in fact, do not give rise to an obligation on the part of the New Zealand government to answer it. But as Senator [Wong] well knew, as her chief of staff well knew, it was raising questions in the parliament that put an obligation on the New Zealand government to act.
Updated
at 5.49am BST
5.36am BST
05:36
Tom McIlroy at Fairfax has the most extraordinary story. He reports:
The Trump administration has listed Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party as a threat to religious freedom in a new report released in Washington.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson released the annual assessment of religious persecution and intolerance on Wednesday, using a chapter on Australia to highlight Senator Hanson’s 2016 maiden speech to the Senate in which she claimed the country was “in danger of being swamped by Muslims”.
Updated
at 5.45am BST
5.34am BST
05:34
Oh that Bowers...
Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce grits his teeth through another #qt @gabriellechan @GuardianAus #politicslive pic.twitter.com/HlfxhT9lYp
5.33am BST
05:33
Greens MP Adam Bandt asks a question which starts with congrats to the Yarra council on moving citizenship ceremonies.
Bandt to the PM who flicks it to the former environment minister Greg Hunt, for Josh Frydenberg who is away: During a recent debate about coal, climate change and the Great Barrier Reef in this chamber, one of your backbenchers, and I quote from Hansard, said, “There is nothing wrong with the reef, I live on the reef”. Will you condemn it or is it your official position? Is it why you are happy to bankroll the Adani coalmine, using the drug dealer’s defence: if we do not give other countries our product, someone else will? And with Adani under investigation for siphoning money into offshore tax havens, why are you leaving a questionable minister in charge?
Greg Hunt says the government is the best manager of the reef in the entire universe. (Or thereabouts.)
We inherited five major dredge disposal projects on the reef and we ended them all. We banned capital dredge disposal in the Great Barrier Reef, which had been a practice for over 100 years, right through the Greens’ partnership with the ALP ... they are environmental frauds.
Updated
at 6.05am BST
5.27am BST
05:27
Labor’s Tony Burke bowls up a piss-take question to Julie Bishop: Would the minister for foreign affairs please tell the house some more about the evil, treacherous conspiracy she has exposed in this house time and again?
Bishop walks to the dispatch box with a face like stone.
The hubris of the Australian Labor party on this issue is extraordinary. Apparently, the Labor party believes that they are above the law. There is one rule for the Labor party and one rule for the rest of Australia. Craig Thomson was allowed to sit in this parliament when he was in clear breach of the law. The leader of the opposition condones the lawlessness of his unions. The Labor party have breached the most fundamental international principle and they laugh about it?
Updated
at 5.32am BST