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Labor to allow encryption laws to pass Senate after lower house adjourned early – politics live
Labor allows encryption laws to pass Senate after lower house adjourned early – politics live
(35 minutes later)
Meanwhile, the Senate division bells are ringing.
And the final motion, as moved by Mathias Cormann:
This bill will be passed, despite Labor’s reservations, and made law pretty much immediately. Meaning security agencies can let loose with its notices to break encrypted communications.
I move the second reading amendment that has been circulated in my name which has the effect of referring the amendments to be made by this bill to the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security to conduct a review of the operation of the amendments made by this bill and report on that review by 3 April 2019.
“I want to make sure that this Christmas, that I have done everything I can to keep Australians safe...that is what matters to me,” Bill Shorten says.
I also confirm that the government has agreed to facilitate consideration of these amendments in the new year in government business time, and I finally, also, confirm that the government supports in principle all amendments that are consistent with the recommendations of the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security recommendations in relation to this bill.
“In good conscience, I am not going to go home when I know we can make Australia safer.”
How the final vote played out.
So having lost the game of political chicken, Labor is now rolling over and giving the government what it originally wanted.
Right, I am going to leave reading the comments for a small moment because it has been a long day on top of a long week and a long year. But I will just say that reporting facts is not bias.
“This is not a game, what I don’t like is the government went home. I can’t make the government do its day job,” Shorten says, saying the government was “too scared” to turn up to parliament.
Labor did give the government what it wanted. You may not agree with the whys and hows, but the government called Labor’s bluff on leaving parliament with the encryption laws unpassed until February, and Labor blinked.
“Merely because these people have done the wrong thing for kids on Nauru..[do I just give up when I know I can make Australians safer]?
You can decide for yourselves why.
Labor is announcing this decision to the government through this press conference
And it still stands that the government was prepared to leave the parliament sitting with the encryption laws they have been banging on about as being absolutely crucial to national security for the past month, un-passed, because it didn’t want to deal with the medical evacuation bill loss.
“We’re announcing it through you,” he says.
Neither party has covered itself in glory today.
Thank you to everyone helping to #BackTheBill. We got changes through the Senate today. We now have to wait until February to get a better system for medical transfers from #Manus and #Nauru#auspol
The Senate adjourns until midday on 12 February.
“We offer to let it go forward, without the amendments which are needed … provided the government agrees on the very first sitting day, to pass the amendments we say are needed.”
Ayes 44
So Labor will pass the bill, unamended on the proviso the government allows the amendments to go through in February.
Noes 12
But for two months those “needed” amendments will not be part of the legislation.
Australia’s security and intelligence agencies have legal authority to force encryption services to break the encryptions.
Not exactly the greatest pobedobesie I’ve ever seen.
It’s Labor and the government on one side and the Greens, Centre Alliance and Tim Storer on the other.
Bill Shorten says Labor is prepared to be the “adult in the room” and let the encryption bill pass as it stands now.
Labor and the government prevail and the bill goes to what looks like if not the final than one of the final divisions.
“I couldn’t go home and leave Australians over Christmas without some of the protections that we all agree are necessary.”
Mathias Cormann has stepped in to try and stop the Greens from moving the amendments.
As previewed by Paul Karp, Labor is going to let the encryption laws pass.
The chamber divides.
Bill Shorten has begun his press conference.
It’s Labor and the government voting against it.
He said Labor has been put in an “invidious” position with the encryption laws.
Oh, it looks like the Greens are trying to move Labor’s amendments, and force them to vote against them.
This morning v this evening.
And with a “thanks everyone that has been 12 very good questions,” Bill Shorten leaves the press conference, as they are still being asked.
Over my dead body @FinancialReview apologies @mpbowers #Nauru #KidsOffNauru pic.twitter.com/JaQ3xTtIdj
Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick told Guardian Australia his party supports Labor’s amendments to the encryption bill.
Several crossbench parties suspect that Labor is now not going to move its own amendments so the encryption bill will pass this year.
Curiously, Bill Shorten and Mark Dreyfus have called a press conference … Let’s see if that’s what they’re going to announce.
Peter Dutton has popped up from his medical leave:
It is a disgrace that Bill Shorten has played games all day and refused to pass the encryption laws. Australians are less safe as a result and Labor should be ashamed.
He’s away from parliament this week, under medical advice. I made this joke already this week, but that would be the home affairs minister accepting medical advice without the intervention of the federal court.
Bill Shorten and Mark Dreyfus have called a press conference for 6.40pm.
Anyone in Canberra next week, who still wants to talk Canberra, is welcome to come along to this:
What a day and what a year. Join us for Politics in the Pub w/ @annikasmethurst, @BevanShields, @AmyRemeikis and @rharris334 for our annual End of Year political wrap. Wed. Dec 12 . FREE, but bookings essential > https://t.co/T3qvEazhzA #auspol pic.twitter.com/mxXPgnE8wH
The Senate has extended its debate until 7pm.
We are waiting to see if the Greens support any of Labor’s amendments to the encryption bill. If all the amendments fail, the legislation becomes law, without having to return to the House.
If even one amendment gets up, then it has to go back to the House, in February, to be properly ticked off on.
I just noticed there were some queries about the “blood on their hands” question in the Porter press conference. Stand down. The question was about the clear imputation some government MPs were making about the encryption bill delay, after Labor amended it in the Senate, meaning it may not pass, and the reporter was just asking to get a reaction from the AG.
Defence Minister Christopher Pyne has deleted this tweet #auspol pic.twitter.com/qdaTbnfDXC
How Mike Bowers (with an assist from Lyndal Curtis) saw the afternoon:
Bill Shorten’s adjournment speech was also on this issue:
I don’t normally take the adjournment but today Australians deserve an explanation.
They deserve an explanation why this government, which lurches from “crisis to crisis, embarrassment piled on embarrassment, week after week,” Australians deserve to know why they don’t have national security encryption legislation, why the kids are still on Nauru and why their power prices are still going up.
This government has said that these are very important issues, in particular, national security.
At the beginning of this week they threatened Labor and said: “You must not stand in the way of encryption legislation.”
And indeed, earlier on the 22nd of November, the current prime minister said about encryption legislation, and I quote:
“Our police, our agencies need these powers now. I would like to see them passed, in fact I would insist on seeing them passed before the end of the next sitting fortnight.”
But I regret to advise the Australian people that we’ve arrived at the end of the sitting fortnight, there is legislation passed and amended in the Senate which then comes back to the House of Representatives to be finalised.
It has ever been thus in the Australian parliamentary system. The House of Reps, or the Senate, amend laws and the other house then considers them.
Now what happened is this government rushed a set of encryption laws which were just frankly, botched. This opposition absolutely worked to get agreement to repair them as best we can, and this morning the government gave us 170 amendments on vital legislation to do with digital privacy, tracking down terrorists and criminals, security, economics.
And Labor in the parliament, and the crossbench, have considered 170 amendments and ratified them in the Senate in the last hour.
But apparently, this Christmas, when it was so vital to have national security laws, the government now say: “Five o’clock, time to go home. We will worry about national security next year.”
Shame, shame, shame.
You use national security as a stick to try and score a political angle, Labor looks at national security and says how do we work together to make Australians safe?
And what has happened is these laws are ready to be passed right now. And every year past when the parliament has laws which arrived late, because the parliament was scheduled to finish at five o’clock for the year, we sit later.
Both political parties tell their members of parliament, don’t book your flights, don’t make commitments in the electorates tomorrow.
Because a tried and true system of government under John Howard and Bob Hawke and even Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull was that if you have laws which need to be passed, and the government has made the case they need to be passed, you stay and do the job. You don’t go home.
But under this government, apparently national security is only national security till five o’clock on a Thursday.
Because the bad guys don’t worry about our national security, they will stop at five o’clock.
We have got a work-to-rule government who is divided and the real reason why we’re not dealing with these laws is because the parliament is expressing the will, in addition to the proper scrutiny of laws.
We want to see the kids off Nauru, kids who need medical treatment where the treating medicos say they should be done. We simply say, they should get that treatment and the decision-making should be transparent and accountable.
But this is where we now find out the real priorities of this ideologically bankrupt, this morally abject failing government. They are more keen to be seen to maintain their political pride than either protect Australians or get kids off Nauru or even deal with lower energy prices.
This is a government who are so consumed by their own pride, they have been divided all this year, they got rid of their sitting prime minister, they lost an electorate, and lost some of the members of parliament for whom they have relied on.
They bullied the member for Banks out of the Liberal party and because of their own internal discord, they are now concerned that children might be able to have a transparent process to receive the medical treatment they deserve.
But this is a government who says national security is number one, unless it’s Prime Minister Morrison’s pride, because then national security is number two.
It says the safety of children is number one, unless the pride of Prime Minister Morrison is in danger, then that comes first.
This government should be ashamed of itself. It has put its own pride, its own political bacon, ahead of the children on Nauru, ahead of national security and the people of Australia.
