Labor fails in bid to suspend standing orders over Gladys Liu – politics live
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Version 4 of 14. Scott Morrison has just called a press conference for 11am. It is in the Blue Room (the second most serious press conference location). It’s the first one he has held all week. Gee, I wonder what it could be about? Mark Dreyfus moves to suspend standing orders over Gladys Liu, saying the member for Chisholm needs to explain her "absolutely extraordinary" interview with Andrew Bolt pic.twitter.com/9KuaQrVwfO For those interested, all of the crossbench voted with Labor on that motion.* *I never really count Bob Katter as the crossbench. He very rarely gets involved. Totally normal sitting arrangement. PM Scott Morrison and the Treasurer Josh Frydenberg Sir next to Gladys Liu during a division @AmyRemeikis @murpharoo @GuardianAus #politicslive pic.twitter.com/64BmClIZg6 Scott Morrison sat next to Gladys Liu during that vote. Optics, optics, optics. Motion to suspend standing orders ends. Ayes 68 Noes 72 Time on the debate concludes – the divisions begin. Even without Tim Watts, Labor was going to lose this one. Rebekha Sharkie is now speaking on the motion. She says the motion goes to “confidence” of MPs in the parliament and urges the government not to use its numbers to “run a protection racket”. Sharkie says the motion is “simply calling on the member to make a statement” to the parliament, to clear up her comments to Andrew Bolt. “The trust, the confidence, the integrity of this place rides on this matter – don’t think it doesn’t,” Sharkie says. Christian Porter says the motion is an “outrageous slur” on the first Chinese-born MP in the parliament. “At the end of the day, you would have someone excluded from the parliament because of their heritage, and associations with that heritage,” Porter says. Tony Smith has already issued the 94a warning and reminded MPs that they might want to be around for the vote. But they keep going, so Smith then uses it. Tim Watts is kicked out. |