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Scott Morrison says he'll make school anti-discrimination bill 'a conscience issue' – politics live Scott Morrison says he'll make school anti-discrimination bill 'a conscience issue' – politics live
(35 minutes later)
The prime minister’s literary awards have been announced:
· Australian History: John Curtin’s War: The coming of war in the Pacific, and, reinventing Australia, volume 1, John Edwards, Penguin Random House
· Fiction: Border Districts, Gerald Murnane, Giramondo Publishing
· Young Adult Literature: This is My Song, Richard Yaxley, Scholastic Australia
· Children’s Literature: Pea Pod Lullaby, Glenda Millard and illustrated by Stephen Michael King, Allen & Unwin
· Poetry: Blindness and Rage: A Phantasmagoria, Brian Castro, Giramondo Publishing
· Non-Fiction: Asia’s Reckoning: The struggle for global dominance, Richard McGregor, Penguin Random House UK.
Josh Frydenberg on the national accounts:
Treasurer @JoshFrydenberg: Unlike other economies like the United States, over the last decade, wages have remained a pretty consistent and stable level as a share of overall income.Profits are relatively stable as well.MORE: https://t.co/IM9RqifqxB #Newsday pic.twitter.com/HTxOTRio0c
Treasurer @JoshFrydenberg: Dwelling investment is up 7.1 per cent through the year; at a 10-year high.New business investment is down 0.8 per cent through the year. Mining investment is down 13.6 per cent through the year.MORE: https://t.co/IM9RqifqxB #Newsday pic.twitter.com/xsUjBVJOrx
Timing
This is my Bill to protect children from discrimination based on their sexuality, and to protect religious freedoms. Let’s get this done. pic.twitter.com/uhKTIMHenA
File this under quelle surprise:
Bill Shorten will shortly confirm Labor will NOT support conscience vote on discrimination against gay students.
The protesters have been removed from the parliament foyer.
The House is dividing on the live export motion.
While all the religious discrimination bill to and fro was going on, Speaker Tony Smith made this statement to the House:
On 29 November, the member for Tangney raised, as a matter of privilege, whether during the inquiry by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters into the 2016 election, the committee had been provided with false and misleading information by GetUp such as to substantially obstruct the committee in the performance of its functions in relation to the inquiry. The member for Tangney presented as supporting information a letter from him to the chair of the committee.
The member for Tangney indicated that the committee had considered the matter and had concluded:
– that GetUp had provided false and misleading information to the committee;
– the provision of the false and misleading information substantially obstructed the committee in the performance of its functions; and
- authorised the member of Tangney to raise the issue as a matter of privilege in the House.
I have had the opportunity to review the matter raised by the member and the detailed supporting information.
I accept that the events outlined in the member for Tangney’s letter show that GetUp appeared to be less than fully forthcoming with information in response to the committee’s queries and that the information provided did not seem to be consistent. I note in relation to the principal matter on which the committee was seeking information, namely the results of GetUp’s 2016 election survey, that ultimately GetUp provided the full results of the survey in response to a possible summons.
I also do not dispute the view expressed by the committee that it considers it has been provided with false and misleading information and, as result, its work has been impeded.
The task for me under the standing orders is to determine two issues.
The first is whether the matter has been raised at the earliest opportunity. I appreciate this matter has been afoot for some time, but I understand that the member for Tangney has only just received the committee’s view about the matter. And so I accept that it has been raised at the earliest opportunity.
The second is whether there is a prima facie case of contempt. There is a significant hurdle in section 4 of the Parliamentary Privileges Act 1987 as to whether a matter constitutes a contempt. To constitute a contempt conduct needs to amount, or be intended or likely to amount to, an improper interference with the free exercise by a committee of its authority or functions.
In considering these matters it is important to recognise that the penal jurisdiction of the House is significant and it should be exercised with restraint.
Although I can see that the conduct of GetUp in response to queries from the committee was unhelpful and at times misleading, it is not clear to me that the conduct was done intentionally to interfere with the committee in a way that was improper. Also, although the committee’s work was impeded, I do not see that it has prevented the committee from being able to freely perform its functions and exercise its authority and properly report to the House on its inquiry.
For these reasons, I do not propose to give precedence to a motion to refer the matter to the Committee of Privileges and Members’ Interests.
And the Greens are rounding out the press conferences with one scheduled for 1pm.
Bill Shorten has called a press conference of his own for 12.30pm.
Andrew Wilkie wants the major parties to have a conscience vote.
The Lib/Lab deadlock risks no anti-discrimination protection for school students and staff. The PM and Opposition Leader should allow a conscience vote to break the deadlock so we can vote to give everyone in schools protection from LGBTI discrimination. #auspol #politas
It looks like police and security are making moves to shift* the protesters out of Parliament House.
Police issuing 2minute notice to leave the foyer. People are bunching in together. #FightForOurFuture #ClimateStrike pic.twitter.com/iXlIZAtr4A
*I originally left the f out of shift, which was a mistake. But both work.
Australia’s gross domestic product (GDP) was 0.3% in the September quarter, which was much lower than expected.Australia’s gross domestic product (GDP) was 0.3% in the September quarter, which was much lower than expected.
The majority of market economists surveyed before this released were predicting quarterly growth would be 0.6%.The majority of market economists surveyed before this released were predicting quarterly growth would be 0.6%.
It means the rate of growth of Australia’s economy has slowed to 2.8%, in seasonally adjusted terms, down from 3.4% three months ago.It means the rate of growth of Australia’s economy has slowed to 2.8%, in seasonally adjusted terms, down from 3.4% three months ago.
Let’s see what treasurer Josh Frydenberg has to say about this one. Let’s see what the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, has to say about this one.
The Greens are not on board
BREAKING: The Prime Minister will introduce a bill that would expand discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in schools.The #Greens will fight this all the way. #auspol pic.twitter.com/ex1NXPVCsI
Scott Morrison's proposed amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act #auspol pic.twitter.com/QwuEf9JVUk
The national accounts are out and the economy grew by 0.3% in the September quarter, taking the 12-month growth to 2.8%.
The other issue bubbling away with the bill Scott Morrison has stepped up with and waved around the prime minister’s podium?
This question: We’ve now gone from who can be in schools to the teaching of religions – are we on a collision course between the secular world and the religious world and this is part of that slope?
And this answer from the PM:
Well, what better way to resolve such a tension than let every single member of this House of Representatives vote their conscience and sort it out?
But secular (which Australia is) and religious tensions aren’t so easily resolved.
Josh Frydenberg will present the national accounts at 11.50am in the Blue Room (the second most fancy press conference space).
Student protest on the marble foyer of Parliament House pic.twitter.com/007jvlsByP
Next minute:
A very large police contingent has just arrived. Maybe 80-90 security/police here now.
Murph (Katharine Murphy) asked this in the press conference:
“You said before that there are members of the Labor party that you believe would support this proposition in a conscience vote. Is the corollary of that there are members of the government who may not support the government’s position?”
To which Scott Morrison answered:
If there’s a conscience vote, it’s a conscience vote and I’m happy, I’m happy for that to be the case. But I’m offering it as a bipartisan deal on a conscience vote. I think members should vote their conscience on this. I don’t think that they should ... on something as fundamental as what someone believes as a matter of religious faith – that that should be whipped against them, against their will.
Which, on a very basic whoosh-whoosh take, would suggest that there are people within the Coalition who have expressed reservations about the bill. Either it goes too far, or not far enough.
Or maybe not.
But what about those religious schools which teach that it is not OK to be gay? Scott Morrison tries for a different example:
Let me give you a less controversial example, OK? In some churches, according to some religious faiths, they believe in tithing. They actually believe that you would tithe a percentage of your incomes to support the church you go to. In other Christian churches, they don’t teach that.
It should be OK to teach those sorts of things in your school if that’s the religious practice of your school and you shouldn’t be able ... people might say, well, you know, you’re discriminating against people who don’t want to do that.
No. I don’t think so.
It’s a common religious teaching that can find its root in a religious text and it’s reasonable for it to be taught.
So look, I’ve got to go and do the Prime Minister’s literary awards, but let me finish where I started today. I want to get this started. I believe we can.
This is a very simple bill that will achieve it.
I would be happy to introduce it with the support of the Labor party today, to suspend standing orders and get on with it. If they’re not prepared to support this bill, fair enough, that’s been their position till now.
Let’s just have a conscience vote for everybody and let’s just get it decided so we can all go back home at the end of the sitting period having this matter determined once and for all.
Asked about the specifics, Christian Porter says:
The three changes are very simple. They work together in concert. The third of them that you focused on is a clarification that nothing in the act would prevent a religious school teaching in accordance with their own religious beliefs.
That is an amendment that Labor has already agreed to. They have already agreed to that amendment. It is, in actual fact, a status quo amendment.
Religions across Australia teach in their congregations, in their churches, in their synagogues, obviously in accordance with those beliefs.
Those beliefs vary markedly from religion to religion, from church to church and from place to place. At the moment, the state of the law is that if someone believes they’ve been unfairly treated or there’s some speech that should be unlawful or there’s some discrimination complaints being able to be made, all this does is clarify that status quo, given there is a significant rebalancing in the act that’s going on by the removal entirely of section 38.3, which is the first part of this bill, which would be complete removal of any ability to discriminate against any student based on their gender, their sexual orientation, their relationship status or pregnancy.
So the third of these changes is a status quo change which the Labor party have already agreed to by adoption of the amendment at the second-reading stage.
And on the teachers who could be fired for coming out as gay:
These matters would be dealt with by courts, in specific circumstances – I’m not getting into that now – as they are now. These issues are settled in courts and Christian [Porter] may want to elaborate and comment.
Leviticus is brought up:
There are two testaments, not just one. And ... religious [teaching] takes into account all of those, but the overwhelming message of the religion that I follow is one of love – and I believe love and peace is the underlying principle of all religions and that’s why they’ve had such a positive role in the development of civil society over centuries.