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Pauline Hanson wears black burqa in Senate chamber – politics live
Brandis applauded after chastising Pauline Hanson for wearing burqa – politics live
(35 minutes later)
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Meanwhile in the lower house, three Labor members have been thrown out and when Barnaby Joyce rose to speak, Labor moved to gag him. They are voting now.
It was a shame George Brandis did not get a standing ovation from his own side. I suspect they were frozen, thinking through the strategic value or not of standing. Perhaps if a senior Coalition senator had sprang to their feet, the rest would have followed.
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Remember the last great cunning stunt that Pauline Hanson pulled? The video in which she said:
Malcolm Turnbull takes the suspension debate.
If you are seeing me now it means I have been murdered.
He agrees with the crossbenchers on the need to get back to policy debate.
It was the beginning of the end of the last great caper. #justsaying
He says the parliament should be talking about important issues to Australians such as national security, energy policy and jobs.
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And he defends Joyce as a member of the parliament.
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Penny Wong also congratulated George Brandis. The Senate tries to do what all good parents do when the kid chucks itself on the floor or holds its breath – that is carry on calmly.
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There is no point to be made here. Imagine how a young Muslim girl will feel having her faith and her family mocked in our Parliament. Shame pic.twitter.com/yFM2hunzo2
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Crossbenchers call for Joyce to step aside from cabinet but remain a voting member
Three lower house crossbenchers Andrew Wilkie, Cathy McGowan and NXT MP Rebekha Sharkie have been abstaining from the votes re Barnaby thus far because they don’t agree with either side.
Their position is that Joyce should step aside from cabinet but that his vote should count until the high court rules.
Wilkie asks if the chamber can stop this “fractious juvenile debate” debate and get back to policy debate.
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Senator Nick Xenophon will talk about NXT’s position on the media reform bill at 3.30pm.
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Tony Burke’s argument is around the two votes in the House recently that were lost by one vote.
Those votes were restoring penalty rate cuts and the other was a procedural motion to bring on a vote on a banking royal commission.
We don’t know if that majority is lawful. This is a big deal.
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Brandis gets a standing ovation from Labor and the Greens.
Labor’s Tony Burke is prosecuting the suspension of standing orders as Malcolm Turnbull sits there with a bemused smile.
Strangely, he doesn’t get the standing ovation from his own side.
He notes the foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop has not had a question on the great trans-Tasman conspiracy theory.
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I was ready to move an extension of time.
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George Brandis gets a standing ovation after he carpets Pauline Hanson
George Brandis says:
No we will not be banning the burqa.
I am not going to ignore the stunt of arriving in this chamber ...
Be careful of the offence you may do to the religious sensibilities of other Australians.
He says there are almost half a million adherents to Islam and they are law-abiding citizens.
Brandis carpets her. HE IS VERY EMOTIONAL.
GO GEORGE!
His voice is shaking.
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Pauline Hanson stands and takes off the burqa. She asks attorney general George Brandis whether he will work to ban the burqa in Australia.
Note the Senate pin.
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In the Senate, it feels a bit like your two-year-old sitting in the middle of the living room with a bag over her head to get attention. This really is a strange week.
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Pauline Hanson wears a burqa in senate #qt @gabriellechan @GuardianAus #politicslive pic.twitter.com/KvJyLQlmbf
Labor is now moving a suspension of standing orders on Barnaby Joyce.
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That the House:
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1. Notes:a) This House has unanimously asked the high court to determine whether the deputy prime minister is constitutionally qualified to be a member of parliament and therebyto determine if the government has a majority;
The Senate question time carries on with Hanson sitting there in a black burqa. We cannot show you a pic at the moment but will endeavour to get you one shortly.
b) The deputy prime minister has admitted he was a citizen of a foreign power right up until the weekend and has already started campaigning for the New England by-election;
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;
d) The prime minister is continuing to accept the deputy prime minister’s vote in this House even though it means that victims of the banks are denied the Royal Commissionthey’ve been calling for and Australians continue to have their penalty rates cut; and
e) The situation with his deputy prime minister is unsustainable; and
2. Therefore, calls on the prime minister to:
a) Admit his continued reliance on the deputy prime minister’s vote is causing real harm to the people of Australia;
b) Rule out accepting the vote of the deputy prime minister while his constitutionalqualifications are in doubt; and
c) Direct the deputy prime minister to immediately resign from cabinet.
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Pauline Hanson has turned up to question time in a black burqa
Barnaby Joyce takes the question on agriculture in the lower house after Labor lost their bid to gag him.
Labor’s Emma Husar to Turnbull: Shop assistants had their penalty rates cut after the House voted with a majority of just one. Does the prime minister acknowledge his decision to accept his deputy’s vote when it may have been unconstitutional for him to be here is having an impact on every Australian?
He is halfway through the answer, greeted by Labor heckling, when Anthony Albanese takes a point of order.
Meanwhile in the Senate, Pauline Hanson has turned up in a black burqa.
It’s normally the practice that valedictories are heard in silence.
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He is thrown out.
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This is the textbook answer to Pauline Hanson’s stunt.
The first government question is on delivering its commitments in an open and transparent manner.
This is Brandis' response to Pauline Hanson's burqa stunt that earned him a standing ovation from Labor pic.twitter.com/xq5rBSGKQM
He lists school needs based funding via Gonski 2.0, tax cuts for small and medium businesses, more jobs.
Jobs and growth is not just a slogan, it is an outcome.
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Labor’s Nick Champion to Turnbull: Despite the fact his deputy has admitted he was a citizen of a foreign power right up until the weekend, the prime minister has spent all week fighting to keep his own job which relies on a one-seat majority that his deputy provides. What’s the prime minister’s response to factory workers in Elizabeth in my electorate who every day watch this prime minister do absolutely everything to protect his job and nothing to protect theirs?
Turnbull says the greatest threat to his constituents was rising energy prices.
Nothing has done more to undermine the jobs of factory workers and manufacturing workers in SouthAustralia than the high prices of energy and the unreliability of that energy in the honourable member’s state. He knows that is a direct consequence of what the Labor premier Jay Weatherill described as his great experiment. I will tell the member for Wakefield what Jay Weatherill was experimenting with: the lives of his constituents.
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Question time. Grab a beverage.
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Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young is excoriating Barnaby Joyce, suggesting he is unfit for office.
I don’t think anyone is surprised that the deputy prime minister did not check his paper work. I don’t think anyone is surprised at his incompetence...this has made the government a joke....a protection racket is going on here.
She says in a couple of weeks when the prime minister goes overseas, Joyce will be acting prime minister.
The Senate divides to vote on the suspension of standing orders. The Greens vote is lost.
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@gabriellechan "At the Barnaby Bank our dedicated team of professionals will partner you through the business facilitation process." #auspol pic.twitter.com/S3NdZpbzHu
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In the senate, the Greens senator Nick McKim is trying to suspend standing orders because the government has not produced legal advice which supports Barnaby Joyce’s right to remain as a cabinet minister. (This has been said by various ministers as justification of the deputy PM not standing down.)
The senate passed the motion yesterday ordering the government to produce the advice. The government has not acted.
Attorney general George Brandis has three points:
McKim did not give notice of the suspension which is senate practice and poor form.
Governments never release advice through history, especially given there is a court case arising.
It will be sorted in coming weeks so no need to go there.
Labor says they will not support the motion at this stage. Labor’s Jacinta Collins says its bollocks that notice of suspensions is always given. And it’s bollocks that governments never show legal advice.
Collins warns she will watch the case closely and may pursue it in the next sitting period (in September).
So given Labor will not support the suspension, it is deceased for the time being.
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The former Labor treasurer Wayne Swan and former UK chancellor Ed Balls have been speaking at the National Press Club. I am trying to catch up with the breadth of their presentations while doing a few other things but in the mean time, enjoy Katharine Murphy’s podcast with them from yesterday.
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Barnaby Bank Bill minus Barnaby
The lower house is currently voting on the Regional Investment Corporation bill - the so-called Barnaby Bank - which amalgamates all the various buckets of concessional loans in one glorious fund.
This is what the bill officially does:
Establishes the Regional Investment Corporation to administer farm business loans and financial assistance granted to states and territories in relation to water infrastructure projects, and any future programs prescribed by rules; provides for the corporation’s functions, operating mandate, ministerial directions, board membership and appointment of a chief executive officer and staff; and provides for miscellaneous matters, including the recovery of costs, delegations, power to make rules, and an independent review of the operation of the Act before 1 July 2024.
It is sort of a Nationals version of One Belt One Road, a bloody great bucket of existing funding in the form of cheap loans and grants, that will provide a whole lot of announceables with very large numbers attached.
Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon is opposed because they say it is just a pork-barrelling exercise.
Barnaby has pushed this – it is a pet project. But it is interesting to see he is not presenting it to the house. Instead Nationals assistant minister Luke Hartsuyker is doing the job.
The bill is expected to pass the house on the numbers.
