PM announces inquiry into family law system – as it happened

The chambers have gone quiet, so we’ll wrap this up for the night.

Scott Morrison has one full day left in the country before his US trip, so there will be a bit of politicking tomorrow, before he takes off. Tomorrow is also Midwinter Ball night (yes, we all paid for our tickets, like we do every year).

We should hear about the final budget outcome statement tomorrow, as well as Mathias Cormann’s explanation to the Senate on Gladys Liu.

Speaking of Liu, the challenge against the Chisholm signs is in the high court tomorrow, for directions. So there won’t be a lot of information, but we’ll find out a little more about the case (it cannot lead to a byelection, but may put in rules about what is allowable on signs for the next election).

And no doubt there will be plenty more happening that I haven’t even begun to think of. That’s politics, after all.

Thank you to Mike Bowers, Katharine Murphy, Paul Karp and Sarah Martin for all of their stellar work today, and every day. I am just a typing monkey standing amongst their photo and word ballet.

And a big thank you to everyone who read today, even those who got a bit cranky (must be something in the air, because there were a few of you today, if my DMs and inbox are anything to go by). I get it. It happens. Thanks for reading anyhow.

We’ll be back bright and early tomorrow morning. In the meantime, take care of you.

Pauline Hanson, who will be the deputy chair of the family court inquiry, also had this to say:

“For those of you contemplating suicide, and facing potential family violence, I am asking you to stop.”

• Crisis support services can be reached 24 hours a day: Lifeline 13 11 14; Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467; Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800; MensLine Australia 1300 78 99 78; Beyond Blue 1300 22 4636

I was just thinking of ʻAkilisi Pōhiva today, who died on 12 September.

It turns out so was Ed Husic. He questioned why the parliament, which noted the passing of John McCain, had not officially noted the passing of the Tongan prime minister:

Chifley is home to many people whose heritage hails from the Pacific Islands, including nearly 2,500 Tongan Australians, the most of any electorate in Australia. Today I acknowledge that many from Tonga will be mourning the passing of Prime Minister ‘Akilisi Pōhiva, and I stand with them at this time. Having served in the Tongan parliament for over 30 years, Mr Pohiva has been his country’s prime minister for the past five.

He was the first commoner in Tonga to be elected to this high office. He was one of the country’s longest serving parliamentarians, a prime minister who dedicated his life to the service of his country.

He spoke strongly on confronting the challenge of climate change and he continued this advocacy for Tonga, despite his ill health, at the recent Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu.

His country’s democratic evolution towards constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy will be among his legacies.

I would make this remark: if we recognise the importance of our Pacific neighbours to this nation we should extend respect to our Tongan friends during this difficult time, I think, by formally acknowledging his passing via a condolence in this chamber.

It is the right thing to do to for our Tongan friends. Vale, Prime Minister ‘Akilisi Pōhiva.

I was then reminded of this video:

Pauline Hanson cried in her press conference, overcome by all the people in Australia who will now get justice because of the family court review.

“I cried because I know the heartache that is felt by hundreds of thousands of Australians,” she said.

“I also cried because of the realisation of the hope that this inquiry will finally bring to people who are floundering in these situations.”

She said she would cry more, during the inquiry.

She was asked about Michelle Dörendahl, the mother of Eeva, who was murdered by her father.

She said that men lose children too.

“That was a case of a mother that’s lost her child. There are cases of fathers who have lost their child. This is why this inquiry needs to be heard, to get to the bottom of the answers that are needed,” she said.

Sarah McNamara from the Australian Energy Council is telling Patricia Karvelas on Afternoon Briefing that the big stick legislation will damage investment in the sector:

Our real concern is this bill will do nothing to lower energy costs for Australian homes and businesses and, in fact, it will have the opposite effect.

The reason is, it gives the government and its regulator the power to enter into businesses and determine their contracting and the terms on which their generators contract.

It enables the government to direct retail pricing as well through its regulator if it has concerns about retail pricing and, ultimately, it gives the government the power in some circumstances to apply to the court to divest forcibly energy market participants from their assets.

That does not send a positive signal to would-be investors in this market and our real concern is this is a market that badly needs new investment in order to stabilise prices.

Pauline Hanson is speaking on this right now. Sarah Martin will bring you that. But here are the terms of reference for the family court review (it’s due to report back in October 2020):

a. ongoing issues and further improvements relating to the interaction and information sharing between the family law system and state and territory child protection systems and family and domestic violence jurisdictions; including:

i. the process, and evidential and legal standards and onuses of proof, in relation to the granting of domestic violence orders and apprehended violence orders; and
ii. the visibility of, and consideration given to, domestic violence orders and apprehended violence orders in family law proceedings;

b. the appropriateness of family court powers to ensure parties in family law proceedings provide truthful and complete evidence, and the ability of the court to make orders for non-compliance and the efficacy of the enforcement of such orders;

c. beyond the proposed merger of the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court any other reform that may be needed to the family law and the current structure of the Family Court and the Federal Circuit Court;

d. the financial costs to families of family law proceedings, and options to reduce the financial impact, with particular focus on those instances where legal fees incurred by parties are disproportionate to the total property pool in dispute or are disproportionate to the objective level of complexity of parenting issues, and with consideration being given amongst other things to banning “disappointment fees”, and:

i. capping total fees by reference to the total pool of assets in dispute, or any other regulatory option to prevent disproportionate legal fees being charged in family law matters; and

ii. any mechanisms to improve the timely, efficient, and effective resolution of property disputes in family law proceedings;

e. the effectiveness of the delivery of family law support services and family dispute resolution processes;

f. the impacts of family law proceedings on the health, safety and wellbeing of children and families involved in those proceedings;

g. any issues arising for grandparent carers in family law matters and family law court proceedings;

h. any further avenues to improve the performance and monitoring of professionals involved in family law proceedings and the resolution of disputes, including agencies, family law practitioners, family law experts and report writers, the staff and judicial officers of the courts, and family dispute resolution practitioners;

i. any improvements to the interaction between the family law system and the child support system; and

j. the potential usage of pre-nuptial agreement and their enforceability to minimise future property disputes; and

k. any related matters.

The Senate has also passed a Greens motion “calling for the government to provide data on Jobactive compliance to the Senate by tomorrow”.

And it passed.

Labor is moving this motion now:

Mr President

I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move that the Senate—

(1) notes widespread reports in the media about the Member for Chisholm over the last week, which raise questions concerning her fitness to be a member of the Australian Parliament; and

(2) at 9.30 am on 18 September 2019, before government business is called on:

(a) requires the Minister representing the Prime Minister (Senator Cormann) to provide, for no more than 20 minutes:

(i) an explanation of the Government’s response to the allegations raised against the Member for Chisholm, and

(ii) an assurance to the Senate that the Member for Chisholm is a fit and proper person to remain a member of the Australian Parliament; and

(b) a senator may, at the conclusion of the Minister’s explanation, move without notice, that the Senate take note of the explanation.

The LNP motion for an inquiry into the effect of farming and water quality on the Great Barrier Reef – inspired by Peter Ridd but neutral on its face – has been voted up by the Senate 33 votes to 30, with Centre Alliance’s Rex Patrick and One Nation voting with the Coalition.

Labor attempted to amend the motion at the last minute to inquire into the Coalition’s $444m reef grant, but that failed to throw a spanner in the works.

Patrick told Guardian Australia that Centre Alliance “generally votes for all inquiries unless they’re politically charged” and “the outcome of the inquiry will fall according to the evidence”.

Malcolm Roberts just stood up and said the Greens have not met his challenge to prove to him how people are impacting climate change and Elon isn’t answering his messages and he’s stuck on this planet and it’s not fair.*

*The bit about Elon and being stuck on this planet was my dramatic flourish, but it was the mood of the moment.

I just realised something.

Scott Morrison leaves for the US trip on Thursday. He won’t be in question time. That means Michael McCormack will be acting prime minister on a sitting day. And in question time.

Whatever I did to be punished in this way, I apologise. But there is no way the punishment can fit the crime, no matter what it is.

Question time as seen by Mike Bowers:

John Setka will be interviewed by Hamish McDonald on RN tomorrow morning at 7.30.

He has so far resisted all calls to resign or step down. Jacqui Lambie says she will vote for the government’s ensuring integrity bill if Setka does not stand down.

The Tveeder transcript of that press conference from Stuart Robert, Australian citizen, includes a lot of exclamation marks, because he seemed a little worked up.

Even though robodebt technically started in 2016, under the Turnbull government, Robert is trying to claim that Labor’s announcement it was moving to automation in 2011 means it is to blame:

It started in 2011, if you read the press release, a new data matching exercise from Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek. They could not have been clearer! Labor, when they started this process in 2011. The ombudsman then reported it and made the point, in fact I think it is section 3.4, say it is entirely appropriate for the commonwealth government to collect debts.

Q: Mr Shorten may not have filed papers but it seems he has got himself a lawyer, Gordon lawyers, are you saying you do not expect this to go ahead?

Robert: If you are going to launch a class action before question time and you are serious about it, would you ask a single question of the government minister during question time?

You think on May 9 and a journalist asks you ‘Is robodebt lawful?’ Would you say no, we want to make sure any Australian receiving welfare is not getting more than they are entitled to and no one received a leave pass?

It’s the exact words that Mr Shorten made and miraculously four months later now Bill wants to give 900,000 Australians a leave pass but cannot explain where the $5m in revenue will come from.

... I am sure we will let the court process stand for itself.

... There is no case, there is no papers. Bill Shorten stood there and appealed for people to come forward to help in his political stunt and that is where we are right now! Thanks very much.

Stuart Robert keeps referring to people as “Australian citizens” and, while accurate, it also just sounds a little ... distant?

Stuart Robert says the class action against robodebt is a “political stunt”:

I will let the cases speak for themselves but remember citizens at any point have the opportunity to bring forward documents to show that the income they reported to Centrelink matches or explains the discrepancy between what is reported in their tax return and Australians who have been asked to explain that and present those documents at any point in the process.

... The way income compliance has always worked, since Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek introduced data matching in 2011, in June, in fact, in and the press release is instructive to read, the report is matched against what they report in the tax return to the ATO and if there is a discrepancy, Australians are asked to explain the discrepancy.

There is always a person in the chain so that they can speak to the Australian and the Australian citizen has the opportunity to explain the discrepancy.

Stuart Robert’s office has just released this list of previous comments from Labor MPs on the recovery of debts.

‘If people fail to come to an arrangement to settle their debts, the Government has a responsibility to taxpayers to recover that money.’

Tanya Plibersek, Media Release, 29 June 2011

‘The automation of this process will free up resources and result in more people being referred to the tax garnishee process, retrieving more outstanding debt on behalf of taxpayers.’

Bill Shorten, Media Release, 29 June 2011

‘It is important that the Government explores different means of debt recovery to ensure that those who have received more money than they are entitled to repay their debt.’

Chris Bowen, Media Release, 15 June 2010

‘I think most people would expect that we have a rigorous checking system, and covert surveillance is one of our, as I say, one of the weapons in our armoury. We have data matching, where we check our records against the Tax Office’s records to make sure that it all adds up and there’s not people who are paying tax on a job who are also claiming welfare.’

Chris Bowen, Interview with Stuart Bocking, 7 April 2010

‘We want to make sure that people aren’t receiving welfare to which they’re not entitled to. And no one gets a leave pass on that.’

Bill Shorten, doorstop interview, Redcliffe hospital, 9 May 2019

No one has said that overpaid monies should not be paid back, but there have been massive issues with the process. And while the automation process may have been hatched under Labor, it was implemented and carried out by the Coalition.

So, yes, these comments stand – but it is the process of robodebt, how it has been carried out, and the inadequacies of that process, which is under question here.

The Women’s Legal Service Queensland is in Canberra, and has responded to yet another review into the family court system:

Women’s Legal Services Queensland (WLSQ) is visiting federal politicians today with family violence survivor Michelle Dörendahl to outline problems with the family law system that put people in danger.

Michelle’s daughter Eeva was murdered by her father during a court-approved access period. The system had failed to acknowledge and respond to the evidence of family violence.

WLSQ is calling for a federal Family and Domestic Violence Court in order to acknowledge and response appropriately to the 50% and up to 85% of matters in the family courts that involve family violence in order to keep children safe.

Women’s Legal Services Queensland CEO Angela Lynch said: “Families are being traumatised and dangerous decisions are being made by a system that does not properly acknowledge domestic violence.

“Australia needs a federal family violence court in order to protect children from the dangerous decisions that are made when the system does not have the necessary specialisation.

“In the criminal system, we have specialist courts for drug issues because we know that with a specialist approach we can get better justice outcomes. In family law, we need a family violence court in order to keep children safe from violence.

“A family violence court is necessary because of a lack of domestic violence specialist expertise and resources throughout the whole system including a lack of access to legal assistance services by victims.

“We must also start implementing thorough reviews of all family violence deaths to determine the full extent to which institutional failings have contributed.

“Over 50% and up to 85% of the matters that reach a hearing in the family law court involve some form of family violence, therefore it is essential that the system is capable of identifying and dealing with complex family violence issues.

“The family law system needs to have a specialist Family and Domestic Violence Court so that cases have the necessary expertise and the safety of children and others at risk are always put first.

“The most important thing in any family law decision should be the safety of children. Until we have a system that is able to acknowledge and deal with family violence the safety of children will be put at risk.”

After no mention all Senate question time, Kimberley Kitching finishes with one on Gladys Liu.

Mathias Cormann replies:

Gladys Liu was elected for Chisholm because the majority of Australians in Chisholm elected her. The prime minister has full confidence in the member for Chisholm. If Labor has anything other than smear and innuendo – put it up, put it up.

Asked if Scott Morrison will “allow” Liu to make a statement to parliament, Cormann replies that Liu fulfils her responsibilities “as she sees fit” and it is “an offensive question”.

Kitching then asks if Liu is a “fit and proper person”, Cormann repeats aspects of his previous answers, leading Penny Wong to shout “say it now, say it now, say it now”. He does not say it now.

And that’s the end of Senate question time.

Stuart Robert will respond to Bill Shorten’s robodebt announcement at 3.40.

It’s worth making note of this:

Question time ends with this:

David Littleproud:

... Today I had the honour, this morning, to visit Stanthorpe, in my own electorate, to see a community that has galvanised and put its arm around those who have lost.

And I have been able to partner with the Queensland government in increasing our category B payments for freight relief and also concessional loans for repairs of construction and also further freight.

This builds on what we have already announced in partnership with the state government, in terms of income of $900 per family instantly, as soon as these fires took base.

The Queensland government and the federal government worked hand-in-hand. We made sure that those people who were impacted were not out-of-pocket. We have also got grants available for household goods and for the rebuilding of their properties, and we stand ready, with the Queensland government, when they make further application for assistance.

But what was sobering, Mr Speaker, this morning was when I met the assistant commissioner, Megan Stiffler, who ran operations, and a stark reminder of her assessment the night those fires started.

They made an assessment that there would be fatalities. The catastrophic nature of the fire that took place around Stanthorpe and Applethorpe meant that there was very little that they thought that they could do, that there would be fatalities.

Proudly, because of the meticulous planning of those men and women, both professional and volunteers, had put in place, meant that not one life has been lost.

Homes have been lost, and I met a family today. And to the day that they lost their house, it marked 50 years since they emigrated from France to Australia. Yet despite the pain and anguish that they and their family felt, all they were concerned about, all that they were proud about, was that they had a small town community that put their arms around them, and they had firemen and women that stood there with them and tried to protect their homes and their properties.

Like Pedro. Pedro is a captain of the rural fire brigade at Stanthorpe, just a knockabout bloke. He and his battalion worked for over 24 hours trying to save their community. Ordinary Australians doing extraordinary things.

We should be proud of the fact that, in these darkest days, in these darkest days, average Australians become great Australians.

Anthony Albanese:

I do want to associate Labor with the remarks of the minister, congratulate him on the nature of those remarks, but more importantly, on behalf of our side, join with your side of the house in congratulating all those men and women, whether they be paid, but particularly those volunteers, who are going out there and helping their fellow Australians at this difficult time.

Bob Katter is next and I don’t know what to tell you. He talks about chain gangs and Queensland’s “worst ever leaders” (which is hilarious, given he was part of the Joh Bjelke-Petersen government) and something about infrastructure.

Josh Frydenberg says things are being built.

Let’s all just be pleased that Katter made it to the correct chair today.

Someone misses the time to jump for the question and Anthony Albanese gets in there first.

Tony Smith says he has repeatedly warned the chamber that this is the practice – miss the jump and who gets there first gets it.

Anthony Albanese to Scott Morrison:

Does the prime minister accept that a combination of deep cuts and the government’s deregulation obsession have left older Australians in care vulnerable to abuse and neglect? Why is the prime minister denying basic facts, failing to be upfront and failing to take responsibility in the seventh year of the third term of this government, even for the most vulnerable Australians?

Morrison:

I don’t accept the leader of the opposition’s characterisation of this matter at all. Mr Speaker, as I responded earlier in answer to a question, the reason we initiated, I initiated, the royal commission into aged care, Mr Speaker, is because I wanted to know, and I wanted to... I wanted to ensure that those making the most difficult decision, of putting others into care, whether it is a husband or wife... (there are interjections).

... Mr Speaker, I am endeavouring to answer the question, and those opposite seeking to just frankly not show the courtesy to which this issue deserves respect, Mr Speaker. I have been asked the question.

... And I am answering the question earnestly on a very serious issue, and I would ask them to calm themselves...

... Thank you, Mr Speaker, so no, I don’t accept the leader of the opposition’s characterisation of this matter.

It is why the government increases funding for aged care every single year. It is why, Mr Speaker, the government wants to ensure that the results of this royal commission are fully implemented, Mr Speaker, as we work through the issues that are raised, and will ensure that we get to the bottom of the care issues that are so central.

Now, Mr Speaker, I am going to respect and trust the work of the royal commission that I initiated, and I would ask those opposite to adopt a similar position.

Julie Collins to Scott Morrison:

What is the prime minister’s response to the royal commission into aged care that says the accreditation system does not adequately ensure good quality of care and quality of life for residents of aged care facilities and government regulatory approach leaves those people the system is intended to protect.

Greg Hunt takes this one:

These are very important questions. They go to the reason why we did call the royal commission, as the prime minister indicated, the commission would have stories that would shock Australians. I would give the context that the commission followed the Oakden tragedy and crisis in South Australia. The South Australia state-run facility, which led to some of the most shocking scenes in aged care and institutional care in Australian history, that is why the prime minister called this.

In addition to the commission itself, and we urge them to continue their work and go fearlessly with their work, and I have to say the commission has done that so far. As the prime minister said at the time, we continue to get on with the job of regulating and safeguarding Australians while the commission carries out its work.

That is why we appointed the aged care quality commissioner. She has been inspecting around the country, her and her team, the aged care quality and safety commissioner have at the same time as the royal commission been going on, inspecting, and where breaches have been found, calling out and highlighting inadequacies.

We do this for the reason we believe every Australian in aged care deserves to be protected, supported and deserves to have their safety guarded each and every day. In addition to that, in relation to Earle Haven, the minister, Senator Colby, appointed Kate Carnell to conduct an inquiry, the Carnell inquiry is going on as we speak.

I would also note, one of the proprietors, Mr Miller, has failed to appear before an inquiry.

I would encourage Mr Miller to appear before all inquiries as soon as he is fit to do so. I have to say, there can be no excuse for any of the proprietors not to appear before the relevant inquiries, whether it is the Queensland state parliament, the royal commission or the aged care quality and safety commissioner.

My message to Mr Miller is, appear before the inquiry, fulfil your duty, explain your failures, apologise for your failures and stand up and be counted for the failures on your watch, in your time.

Labor has been asking the aged care minister, Richard Colbeck, how many senior Australians are waiting for home care packages, then constantly objecting on the grounds of relevance when he talks around the issue rather than supplying a number.

The Australian Conservatives senator Cory Bernardi then stood up to complain that Labor senators were objecting “just to get on TV” *waves*.

This is vintage Bernardi, half defence of Coalition senators, half trolling to get on TV himself. Most in the chamber laugh warmly, the wave has a naughty schoolboy charm about it.

Colbeck eventually answers that 119,000 people are still waiting for home care packages (slightly lower than the 129,000 suggested by Labor’s Helen Polley), but most Labor senators were heckling too loudly to hear he’d finally answered.

Jim Chalmers to Scott Morrison:

The royal commission into aged care has heard in the weeks before Bellhaven suddenly closed the government knew that 50% of residents were regularly physically restrained and 71% were chemically restrained. Does he agree with the commission, this knowledge should have raised alarm bells, that there should have been a clinical team down there the next day? Does he agree this was a profound failure of the government regulatory system?

Morrison:

When I initiated the royal commission into aged care, the reason I did so was because I wanted to know, and I wanted to make sure all Australians had the light shone on our aged care system, and to identify whatever failings that were there, and whatever horror stories that were there. I told Australians at the time they needed to be prepared for difficult information to come back from the commission.

What I propose to do is to let the royal commission do its job, compile its evidence, prepare its recommendations. There will be an interim report handed down shortly, we will deal with any response required at that time.

We will deal... we... initiated [the commission] to be able to look into these matters and report to the government, so the government can take the action as we should, and as we will.

From the 2014 Weekend Australian feature on Kevin Andrews – who will be leading the inquiry into the family court reform:

He even penned a book, Maybe ‘I Do’ – Modern Marriage and the Pursuit of Happiness, a 480-page ode to marriage, in which he says that the ­greatest threat facing the western world is not climate change or radical Islam, but the “continuing breakdown of the essential structures of civil society – marriage, family and community”.

Ged Kearney to Scott Morrison:

How many registered aged care facilities do not have a registered nurse on site, 24 hours a day?

The prime minister takes it on notice.

Julie Collins to Scott Morrison:

Why are they now 129,000 older Australians waiting for their home care package, even though the packages have been approved?

Morrison:

I refer the member to the previous answer from both myself and the minister for health, and I will state again that this is one of the biggest priorities of increasing the numbers of in-home aged care places for my government.

And we will continue to make gains in this area, and I look forward to the future statements of the government, to build on those statements that we have already made, which have increased the number of places, particularly for those on level four packages.

And the reason you can do that, Mr Speaker, is because you manage a strong budget and you can keep adding places.

But I do pick up the point that the minister for health made, that at the last election, despite $387bn of higher taxes, they could not find $1 extra to create one extra in-home aged care place, Mr Speaker. $387bn of higher taxes, and even then they couldn’t fund these essential services.

Yet on our side of the house, we’ve been increasing those places for in-home aged care by getting the budget in order, by ensuring that we control what we spend, so we can spend it on the priorities. And one of my government’s priorities, and big priorities, Mr Speaker, is to ensure that we deliver even more in-home aged care places to deal with this issue. And if the health minister would like to add, he should feel free to do so.

He does feel so.

Greg Hunt:

I am also delighted to inform the house that in fact there has been a 7% reduction in waiting lists in the last three months alone. In the last three months, a 7% reduction, and that follows from a [inaudible] increase in the last year. So those two things are directly related.

An increase in home care places because the budget can afford it, a decrease in those waiting times of 7%, and waiting lists of 7%, which we are informing the house of just today.

Tanya Plibersek tries a point of order which includes pointing out a Labor policy (just to get it into the record).

She is warned.

Dan Tehan becomes the latest government MP to point out the Coalition won the election.

Someone is very happy:

And the chair is known for this:

Richard Marles to Scott Morrison:

Can the prime minister confirm that last financial year, 16,000 older Australians died while waiting for their approved home care package?

Morrison:

One of the biggest challenges facing this country and its budget in the future is funding the provision of in-home aged care services.

In recent budgets we have increased the number of places by over 20,000 and I will ask the health minister to come and add further to this answer. But the reason that more Australians are choosing to receive that care at home is because they want the choice to do that. And this is an important choice, to be able to stay at home and receive the care that they want to do amongst their loved ones, to be able to spend birthdays and family gatherings together at their home. And that’s why our top priority when it comes to aged care is increasing the number of in-home aged care places, which we are doing, Mr Speaker.

Now the only way you can do that, Mr Speaker, the only way to do that, Mr Speaker, is by ensuring you maintain a strong budget. And that’s what you must do, and that’s what our government is doing, Mr Speaker.

When you can manage money, you can look those in the eye who are looking for those in-home aged care places, you can tell them that the number of in-home aged care places is increasing, as it is under this government, and you can promise to deliver on that because you know how to manage money.

I will ask the minister for health to add to the answer.

Greg Hunt:

I can confirm that the latest figures, available only today, are an advance on what I provided in considerable detail last week.

Last week I informed the house that we had increased from 60,000 home care passages when we came to government to a projected 124,000 packages for the last financial year. In fact, the figures available just today are 125,000, for an increase of over 25,000 places and 25% in one year.

That is potentially one of the largest increases in home care places, both in terms of raw numbers and in percentage in Australian history.

In addition to that, what I can also say is that we are now projected to increase to 157,000 places by 2022-23.

So that is a 161% increase in home care places on our watch, in our time. I can also inform the house that when one views the ALP’s alternative budget, as they seek to be an alternative government, there was zero funding.

The Greens senator Larissa Waters has asked a flurry of questions about the Great Barrier Reef, including specifically why two LNP senators (McDonald and McGrath) have proposed setting up an inquiry into whether water quality harms the reef – seemingly inspired by Peter Ridd.

She pointed to the fact the former chief scientist Ian Chubb had described the tactics of casting doubt on reef science employed by Ridd as akin to the tobacco industry’s lobbying against smoking bans.

The Liberal leader in the Senate, Mathias Cormann, replies that the Coalition “are absolutely committed to the health of the Great Barrier Reef”, and said that Queensland farmers also “deeply care” about it.

He thanked McGrath for the initiative of the proposed reef inquiry, suggesting it was “an opportunity to do even better protecting the Great Barrier Reef into the future” so the Greens should support it too.

You may have noticed a couple of patterns here – Labor on cuts and the government sticking to ‘look at how well we have managed the economy’.

That’s because Josh Frydenberg will be releasing the final budget outcome statement this week (probably tomorrow), which is expected to show a balanced (operating) budget.

Julie Collins to Scott Morrison:

Why has the prime minister denied cutting $1.2bn from aged care when that is exactly what he did in his 2016-2017 budget?

Morrison:

Mr Speaker, this is on a repeat cycle. We dealt with these matters before the last election, we made it very clear, in the budget we have been handing down there has been increasing funding for aged care by a year.

That may be of no interest to the member who asked a question to check on the facts. One thing I have learned from this opposition, whenever they come to this dispatch box and start spurting these allegations and false claims around, you can never take them at their word.

Collins goes to table the last budget, so she can say ‘which shows the cut’ but she isn’t overly practised at this, and doesn’t get the line onto the record.

Vince Connelly does his best Christian Porter to deliver the ‘can Peter Dutton tell us how safe we are’ lickspittle.

We are in luck. Dutton is very happy to answer this question. YOU ARE VERY SAFE – but just IMAGINE if Labor were in power!

Also, there are three million people who could want to swamp our borders, or something, so lucky they are so strong.

Michelle Rowland to Paul Fletcher:

I refer to the text relay service part of the national relay service helping senior Australians who are deaf to make and receive telephone calls. Why is the government removing access to the handset from the national relay service?

Fletcher:

The national relay service is a very important communication service for Australians who are deaf or hearing impaired or have a speech impediment. Indeed we have committed to spend $22m a year to deliver the national relay service so that people who have hearing impairment or speech difficulties are able to use the telephone system.

It is very important that we are getting good value for money for taxpayers. That’s why we recently have gone through a competitive document process, under which the incumbent, Ace (Australian Communication Exchange), had the opportunity to bid, to retain the contract. The result, they did not retain the contract, it has been awarded to a new company, Concentra X, that will continue the national relay service commencing from February 1 2020. It follows a competitive selection process designed to get the best possible outcome for Australians who need to use the national relay service.

Indeed the Concentra service will offer new options which are not available under the current arrangement, including the ability to receive texts over iPads, tablets and smart phones.

I want to make it very clear, Mr Speaker, the Morrison government is technology agnostic about services provided through the national relay service. At the moment the position is the owner of the existing proprietary tel system has cited an exclusive agreement and has declined to provide it.

Should they be interested in providing to existing recipients of the service, we would be happy to speak to them about that.

I do want to make it absolutely clear there is no threat to the national relay service, it will be maintained, there will continue to be a provision of technology, indeed new technology options, under which people who are hearing impaired or speech impaired can view text, so that what was spoken by the person on the other end of the phone is converted to text which they will be able to view.

The national relay service is very important and it is continuing.

Josh Frydenberg seems to have forgotten how microphones work again.

The free dictionary.com can help him out – “an instrument capable of transforming sound waves into changes in electric currents or voltage, used in recording or transmitting sound”.

Which is why you don’t have to yell into it.

Bill Shorten has put out his official press release on the robo-debt class action:

Thalidomide. Big Tobacco. Asbestos. And now: Robodebt.

Today we are happy to announce that, following conversations with myself, Gordon Legal intends to launch a class action on behalf of victims of the harsh and inaccurate robodebt scheme.

... Since becoming the Shadow Minister for Government Services I have formed the view that the toxic robodebt scheme, put in place in mid-2016, is built on shaky legal foundations.

The Government has used a flawed calculation system to unlawfully take back millions of dollars from pensioners. The Federal Government has financially benefited by wrongfully taking and banking money that legitimately belonged to recipients.

The robodebt scheme – including its reverse onus of proof – is at best legally dubious and should rightly have its legality determined by a court.

Other legal actions by robodebt victims have invariably resulted in the Government entirely waiving or dramatically reducing the claimed debt, and settling the action. But the individual nature of the actions has meant the legality of robodebt generally has not been tested.

In this action lawyers for robodebt victims will argue that the Commonwealth has been unjustly enriched by amounts of money it has falsely recouped from recipients of inaccurate debt compliance notices.

Labor supports legitimate debt recovery and data matching provided it has proper human oversight. Robodebt is none of these things.

“Minister Stuart Robert admits an error rate of at least one-in-five. Insiders know it is malfunctioning and are covering it up because the Government wants the revenue apparently at any cost,” Mr Shorten said.

“The victims of robodebt need their day in court so it can be determined whether what appears to be a bureaucratic standover racket has any proper legal foundation whatsoever.”

“Stress, heartbreak, suicides – this is the trail of carnage that robodebt has wrought.

... Gordon Legal are in discussions with several robodebt victims who could be plaintiffs in the planned action. Others who have had legitimate Centrelink benefits illegally clawed back with an interest in the action can register their details on the Gordon Legal website.

Michael McCormack has just had to tell the parliament that there was an election, and “we won”.

The gluten-free toast I had for dinner last night had more substance.

Labor has started question time in the Senate by asking Anne Ruston how many of the Coalition’s budgets since 2014 have cut the pension.

Ruston started to answer the question but Labor objected on the grounds of relevance, leading the Liberal leader in the Senate, Mathias Cormann, to respond that pensions go up twice a year.

Penny Wong suggested he felt the need to intervene to help a “weak minister”.

The supplementary is about how many times the Coalition has tried to increase the pension age to 70. When Ruston responds again by explaining the amount of the pension goes up twice yearly, Wong heckles “you’re congratulating yourself for inflation”.

“We are the government that backs older Australians, it doesn’t tax older Australians,” Ruston replies.

Andrew Giles to Scott Morrison:

My question is to the prime minister. Does this bill, the amendment and integrity bill, which is in the House right now, make cuts to the pension supplement? (That would be the one that requires proof of life.)

Morrison: (who has absolutely donned the cranky pants again today)

I will ask the minister representing the minister for services to add to my answer, Mr Speaker, but I can tell you, Mr Speaker, what this government does.

This government make sure that the welfare system is fair to those who rely on it and it is fair to those who pay for it, Mr Speaker, which is the taxpayers of Australia.

And where there are benefits and supplements to payments that are being paid to people who are having extended absences from Australia, so they are overseas for long periods at a time, and they receive supplements to meet expenditures that people are facing at home, Mr Speaker, not overseas, and the government will always seek to ensure that these supplements go to those for the purposes they were intended.

Mr Speaker, under our government, the welfare bill is not a blank cheque. Under our government, welfare goes where it is needed and it is targeted and it is done in a sustainable way, to ensure that all of those who rely absolutely on the welfare bill, Mr Speaker, of this country can depend on it in the future.

And you know what, Mr Speaker? If you can’t manage money, if you are a government that doesn’t know how to manage money, you can’t say to the pensioners of Australia that you will support their pension into the future.

Under the Labor party, they had to miss medicines, Mr Speaker, they had to endure cuts to defence, they had to put a flood levy on, Mr Speaker, because they did not know how to manage money.

The Labor party has to take responsibility for the implications for the consequences, Mr Speaker, of their failure to manage money.

At the last election, we said very clearly Labor can’t manage money, and that means they come after yours.

They will ensure, Mr Speaker, through their mismanagement, that Australians miss out, that essential services that Australians rely on can never be guaranteed by the Labor party, whether it is hospitals or schools or the NDIS or aged care.

And they can bark and shout all they like, Mr Speaker, but the truth is, Labor can’t manage money.

... I am asked about the pension. And I will tell you what I won’t do. We won’t take away the imputation credits, Mr Speaker, for pensioners who simply want to manage their own money, Mr Speaker. At the last election, the Australian people know that Labor were coming after older Australians’ money, and they said no to Labor.

(So that is a yes then – there are cuts to the supplement. But those who have franking credits – a bill which is soon to cost more than what we spend on education – are totally fine.)

Michael McCormack continues his stirling lickspittle performance, by picking up on the words “stability and certainty” on the same day the NSW Liberal MPs announced and then cancelled a spill against a leader who won an election just six months ago.

Honestly.

I can see light bending round him.

Maria Vamvakinou to Scott Morrison:

Can the prime minister confirm how many pensioners will be negatively impacted by his legislation to cut the pension supplement?

Paul Fletcher gets up:

“... As the prime minister said, pensions are regularly indexed and under this government the amount of money that goes to pensions, those on the age pension, has increased significantly since we have been in government.

And our commitment, our commitment, is to a sustainable social services system. Our commitment is to a sustainable social services system, because under the previous government, under the previous Labor government, the challenge that we faced was that the social services system was not sustainable, Mr Speaker.

The social services system was not sustainable, and we are determined to make sure that it is sustainable, so that the rate of growth of social services is [no] greater than the growth of tax revenue.

Tony Burke:

On direct relevance, the question asks for the number of pensioners who would be negatively impacted by that legislation. Relevant comments such as 175,000 are not being made by the minister.

Fletcher has concluded his answer.

Phil Thompson, who cannot be trusted for the simple reason he thinks that tomato sauce belongs on a bacon and egg roll (instead of hot sauce or bbq sauce) delivers the first lickspittle question, which is on defence spending.

Because that is on the mind of every single constituent in Herbert. Apparently.

Pauline Hanson is holding a press conference after Senate question time at 3.30 to talk about the family court review.

It’s the downhill slide to question time.

Hit me up with your predictions.

Scott Morrison has told MPs that a new review of the family court system will “not take sides” but will hear from affected families about how the system can be improved.

According to a spokesman, the PM told MPs the committee had been established because of the challenges that family breakdowns can create, including contributing to issues such as suicide and poverty.

Morrison said that keeping families together was essential where possible. He also said that the terms of reference would be established in collaboration with Labor.

“The prime minister stressed that this inquiry isn’t about taking any sides,” the spokesperson said.

“There are blokes who are victims, there are women who are victims, and most tragically there are children who are victims.

“About nine MPs spoke in favour of the inquiry. The prime minister also thanked MPs for standing by embattled MP Gladys Liu, saying it was clear she also had the support of the community.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told MPs that the final budget outcome to be released in coming days would show a “substantial improvement” on budget forecasts.

Pauline Hanson will most likely be the deputy chair of that family law inquiry.

Gordon Legal has put out its official statement on the class action:

The law firm will challenge, on behalf of affected persons, the government’s use of a flawed calculation system by Centrelink to unlawfully take back tens of millions of dollars from many thousands of Centrelink recipients, including pensioners.

The money for pensioners, carers, widows, students, farmers and unemployed people was taken from them due to a one-size-fits-all online compliance system.

The robodebt scheme has been in place since mid-2016, its legality was first raised with us by the new shadow minister for government services, Bill Shorten.

The basis for the challenge is that that the federal government financially benefited when it wrongfully took and banked money that legitimately belonged to recipients.

Gordon Legal Senior Partner Peter Gordon says ‘investigations reveal between two to three hundred million dollars have been wrongly taken from people, and making it even worse was many were hit with penalties of 10% on those amounts.’

‘These people are the least able groups to afford the heavy-handed actions which are based on a system that used ATO averages that didn’t take into account individual circumstances.’

‘The unfair and incorrect assumptions had a devastating financial impact on people’s lives. The emotional distress for people who have done nothing wrong has been high.’

‘The robodebt system put debt collectors onto innocent people to chase unlawful debts.’

‘They have been unfairly financially disadvantaged and must be repaid with interest, penalties dropped and damages paid.’

‘The amounts owed will vary from case to case but the average repayments could be a few thousand dollars which is vital from a financial and wellbeing perspective for these people who are least able to afford it.’

Peter Gordon says ‘The people in this class action were not gaming the system. They had honest claims to payments and allowances that Robodebt wrongly assessed, penalised and pursued with harsh consequences.’

‘If you have been unfairly affected by Robodebt, you should register your details on the Gordon Legal website and we will be in touch.’

Gordon Legal considers a class action is likely to be the best way to deliver redress for people unfairly impacted by Robodebt.

Larissa Waters has responded to that motion that Paul Karp wrote about a few posts ago:

After years of the government denying climate science and saying water quality, not climate, is the biggest threat to the Reef, now it is proposing an inquiry into whether water quality really is a problem for the Reef. This government is at war with science and the Reef will suffer for it.

The Greens are urging the crossbench to stand with the Greens and Labor to block this inquiry from proceeding, not to give succour to the latest culture war against science by dinosaur backbenchers. This inquiry would be like inquiring into whether smoking causes lung cancer – a total waste of the Parliament’s time.

Climate denial and a lack of climate action has already seen the outlook for the Great Barrier Reef deteriorate from ‘poor’ to ‘very poor’ on the Federal Government’s watch.

Now two Queensland LNP Senators are proposing an inquiry in an attempt to deny the evidence that inappropriate farming practices contribute to the stress on our already fragile Reef.

The government is overrun with science deniers, who without any relevant qualifications are calling into question the validity of science - to suit the agenda of big donors and vested interests.

Former Chief Scientist and now chair of the Reef 2050 Independent Expert Panel Professor Ian Chubb has already sent a strongly worded letter to relevant Government Ministers confirming the absolute clarity of the peer-reviewed science about the Reef [1]

Peer-reviewed science should not be debated by non-scientifically trained politicians who are in the pocket of their donors.

The science is clear, we must act now for our best chance to protect the Reef and the more than 65,000 tourism jobs that rely on it. We need urgent climate action, an end to coal and a just transition towards renewable energy, and strong action on water quality and Crown of Thorns to save what’s left of our Reef.

Bill Shorten:

The government keeps reaching for blaming Labor pre-2013. Robodebt, this online compliance system, was introduced by the current government.

The current government announced compliance campaigns in 2015, 2016, and they started introducing robodebt, their use of an algorithm to data match.

It was born under this government and the pathology of robodebt is sick, it has caused countless harm.

I give a shoutout to the media, you’ve all covered the problems of robodebt, but at what point in Australia do you say once you’ve seen individual case after individual case it is called a pattern, and the pattern shows robodebt is immoral itself.

What we and Gordon Legal is going to do is testing the legal foundations of robodebt, because my own research in the last couple of months has led me to believe it is almost certainly illegal and I just have to do research through the stories you’ve covered to say there is a sickness at the heart of robodebt which needs to be cured.

Bill Shorten:

Let’s be clear, we’ve asked the government to fix this, but they’ve got it wrong. If the government through parliament won’t fix the problem, I think giving justice to victims through class action is a legitimate political approach to take.

Question: Should the program then in your view be suspended while this class action is even being looked at?

Bill Shorten:

That would be smart for them to suspend it. The question you have to ask is why is the government looking at a blanket scheme looking at annual wages data against people getting fortnightly payments?

They are hoping they can shake down people into paying up. This is a government building their government position based on this faulty, immoral and quite possibly illegal scheme, but they should suspend it and rule out extending it to anyone else, and in fact they should revisit their own files and perhaps sit down and work out why this is wrong and stop it.

Peter Gordon:

Everyone who believes they are aggrieved is entitled to bring their own actions, whether they are in the [program] or as appropriately advised. We are working with the legal aid agencies, but it doesn’t take, I think, a lot of consideration of what has happened to understand that if a template approach has been applied across 800,000 people, and there are admittedly, on the part of the government, 150,000 errors that have been made, that’s a very large number of mistakes which have been made. If they’ve been made, there is a limit to the ability of any court system and indeed bureaucracy to take them off one by one.

We think it’s appropriate that if there are common issues that have been got wrong by the commonwealth, that they be addressed in a way that gives everyone release, not just those who are able to access lawyers and legal aid or have the wherewithal all the records to be able to do it themselves.

Peter Gordon:

In order for a class action to proceed, either in a state court or the federal jurisdiction, you need to demonstrate that there appear to be several more people who have claims with similar or the same common issues in the fact of law, and there are clearly a large number of people who have similar issues of fact and of law.

So the question of its status as a class action is not particularly controversial. Under class-action law, not every case needs to be exactly the same. They only have to be roughly similar. Not every case needs to be bound to succeed. You simply need to demonstrate that there are cases that have similar issues that the court can resolve for the benefit of everybody.

Peter Gordon:

The class action element of the claim is reasonably straightforward. What is innovative about this is to bring a claim against the government for damages for unjust enrichment that will require the high court to recognise legal principles, which I hardly recognised in other common law countries, particularly the United Kingdom. It may break new ground. We think there … is a strong legal basis for it.

Senator Susan McDonald has had to reschedule a planned appearance with Dr Peter Ridd and the Green Shirts Movement at an event intending to lobby against the Queensland Labor government’s environmental regulations, which they claim are “anti-farming”.

McDonald and James McGrath have a Senate motion attempting to set up an inquiry into the issue – and it looks like the LNP senators are seeking to find support for Ridd’s controversial claim that farmland pollution does not significantly damage the Great Barrier Reef.

Ridd has been on a speaking tour, supported by rightwing commentators and sugarcane industry managers, campaigning against proposed state regulations limiting sediment and chemical runoff on the reef coast.

An expert panel led by the former chief scientist, Ian Chubb, has warned that Ridd is misrepresenting robust science about the plight of the Great Barrier Reef.

The full text of the motion is:

To move — that the following matter be referred to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee for inquiry and report by 1 October 2020: The identification of leading practices in ensuring evidence-based regulation of farm practices that impact water quality outcomes in the Great Barrier Reef, with particular reference to: (a) the existing evidence-base on the impact of farm water runoff on the health of the Great Barrier Reef and catchment areas; (b) the connectivity of farm practices throughout the Great Barrier Reef catchment areas to water quality outcomes in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park; (c) relevant legislation and regulation, including in relation to impacts of water quality, farm management and soil runoff; (d) proposed changes to regulations that would impact on farm productivity and the potential benefits and costs of such proposed regulation; (e) the wider economic and social impact of proposed regulations to restrict farm practices; and (f) any related matters.

AAP reports:

Elderly Australian pensioners living overseas will have to prove they’re alive every two years or risk having payments cut off.

People aged over 80 claiming the pension abroad will have to provide a proof-of-life certificate, after legislation passed parliament on Tuesday.

If no certificate is produced within 13 weeks of the due date, payments will be suspended.

After 26 weeks the pension will be stopped.

The federal government is expecting to net $219 million over four years through about 6,000 cases of pensions being paid to dead people.

‘This will confirm that Australian pensions are only being paid to pensioners who still are alive,’ social services minister Anne Ruston told parliament.

She said the government was not suggesting widespread fraud was being committed, rather that family members didn’t know they had to tell the government about pensioners dying.

Pension recipients would have the opportunity to have the payment reinstated with the full amount paid back if a certificate is provided later.

The change is expected to affect 25,000 pensioners living overseas when it takes effect on October 1.

It was 25C yesterday:

Kevin Andrews is to chair an inquiry into the family court system.

This is alternatively known as ‘giving Pauline Hanson a bone’.*

*As in, for the person who emailed me, Pauline Hanson has been pushing for family law reform for some time, has a private members’ bill in the Senate on it, while One Nation have done MPIs on this topic, and now, as One Nation’s Senate vote becomes important, the government is throwing a bone, in the form of an inquiry, their way. And I said Pauline Hanson and not just One Nation, because this has been Hanson’s personal issue for some time, from even before she was back in parliament, and would attend Queensland parliament community cabinet meetings to talk about it in regional areas.

Labor MPs have resolved to negotiate with the government on a host of legislation, including changes to the Crimes Act that put in place mandatory sentencing for child sex crimes.

The opposition has reaffirmed its opposition to mandatory sentencing on the basis that it has not been proven to be effective and can make it more difficult to prosecute.

But MPs will not vote against the legislation if it comes to a vote before the legal and constitutional affairs committee reports back on the bill.

Shadow attorney general Mark Dreyfus will prepare a second submission on the issue for MPs to consider before the party decides its final position.

Labor MPs have agreed to oppose a government push to drug test welfare recipients and will seek “substantial amendments” to the cashless welfare card expansion, which extends the card into the NT and Cape York.

It will oppose the bill in its current form.

On government changes to the character test that will make it easier to deport people who commit crimes while in Australia on a visa, Labor will write to immigration minister David Coleman offering conditional support, wanting changes to address “unintended and undesirable consequences”.

Addressing MPs, the Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, said the weekend just passed had been a “turning point” for the government after it had been on a victory lap. He said the discipline within the Labor caucus had allowed the opposition to hold Morrison to account for denying he had used the term “Shanghai Sam”.

Here is a bit more from last Thursday’s MPI that Murph was talking about.

Bill Shorten:

We say today that robodebt is both unlawful and unethical in the way that it seeks to recover debts from people, by requiring supposed debtors to disprove a data-matched debt. It should be Centrelink who makes the case.

Leaving aside all the humour of having the member for Fadden as the minister, there’s a serious issue here.

How is it the case that in 2019 individual Australians can receive a letter of demand from the government and, immediately upon receipt of the letter of demand, it is the recipient of the letter, the Australian citizen, who then has to argue with the might of the Australian government to say the debt is not correct?

We put very clearly here today that the onus of proof for these debts lies with the government, that the sheer process of an algorithm data-matching annual ATO data with fortnightly payments paid by the Department of Human Services does not discharge the obligation of the government to a satisfactory level.

It is not enough to rely on a robotic letter of demand, with no proof and no supporting material, and simply reverse the onus of proof on Australian citizens.

It is not the job of the government of Australia to oppress individual citizens. That is not the role of the state.

The onus rests with the government.

When there is a serious allegation saying that you owe the government money, I would put that the burden is even greater than just the data-matching process, because consequences flow from saying to a citizen that they owe the government money. You get the private debt collectors on to you.

If you have a finding of debt, you can’t get finance. If you’re a law student with a debt finding, you can’t be admitted as a lawyer.

There are consequences from the government’s assertion that the individual owes a debt with no supporting evidence.

There are consequences of that which make it more grave and more severe. And because of the severity of the consequences of a finding of debt it increases the obligation upon the government to prove the system.

There is no lawful basis for the government to just assert debt on the part of citizens with a cursory algorithm and data matching and then say it’s up to the citizen. But this is not just a question of whether or not it is lawful; it is also immoral.

Robodebt causes hardship. It causes stress. This flawed, inaccurate data, where people are required to pay a debt when it is not clear how the debt is constituted, leaves individuals stranded.

The process for appealing these debts is inadequate.

In closing, not only is the system unlawful, not only is it immoral, along with the consequences and the stresses it has, but we are seeing a calculated strategy of cover-up by the government.

The bells are ringing for the official start of the parliament session.

Bill Shorten has announced a press conference for 1pm with “Gordon Legal Senior Partner Peter Gordon, and will be making an announcement on robodebt”.

This is the official release on that:

Minister for drought David Littleproud announced the Future Drought Fund Consultative Committee as an important milestone in taking action on drought.

The committee will now develop the drought resilience funding plan for the fund, which begins with a $3.9bn credit that will grow to $5bn.

... chair, Mr Brent Finlay, and committee members Dr Kate Andrews, Dr Wendy Craik AM, Dr Elizabeth Peterson and Ms Caroline Welsh will begin their work in Canberra later this month.

This in from David Littleproud, who was in Queensland for a press conference with James McGrath two seconds ago. He was looking at the fire damage in Stanthorpe. He’ll be back for question time, but he had this to say about the drought package the government is looking to put together:

If we don’t put the right governance around this, it will be politically attacked. We do not want that. We want this to continue on in a bipartisan approach for governments in perpetuity. It is important we get this right. The plan that the panel will bring back to me will, in fact, sit on the parliament table and is a disallowable instrument.

In fact, the parliament itself can disagree with the panel, but they are independent of myself and the government.

We expect them to come back with a plan that strikes to the heart of resilience and building a resilience in communities in the agricultural sector.

That is what they have been charged with. They are the ones with the skill set. It is then my job to make sure that the Australian parliament respects that and we deliver it.”

The Coalition party room meeting looks to have broken, given the line at Aussies (the parliamentary cafe. Yes we pay for our food and drink).

We’ll have some idea of what went on for you very soon.

Business, business, business:

The US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC) will lead a senior US delegation to Australia this week to meet with Australian government and parliamentary decision-makers.

Based in Washington DC, the US Chamber of Commerce is the world’s largest business federation representing the interests of more than three million business of all sizes, sectors and regions, as well as state and local chambers and industry associations.

The delegation, comprised of representatives from the US Chamber of Commerce’s member companies, is in Australia as part of the GIPC’s efforts to champion innovation and creativity through enhanced intellectual property standards around the world.

The group chats, however, would be another story.

Given the discussion we have had this week about business and advocacy campaigns – not to mention CEO pay – this National Press Club address being held tomorrow should be interesting.

Alan Joyce and Paul Scurrah CEO, Qantas Group and CEO, Virgin Australia Group’ The Great Australian Monopoly: Where nobody wins but the airports.

See? Absolutely every family,

Every “family” has their disagreements. From Paul Karp:

The Fijian prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, has called on Australia to be “far more ambitious” in reducing greenhouse gases, linking the climate crisis to extreme weather events in the Pacific including drought and bushfires in Australia.

On the final official day of his visit to Australia, Bainimarama nominated the “varied level of ambition when it comes to confronting the threat of climate change” as a key difference between the two countries and called for everyone to “unite behind the science” of limiting global heating to 1.5C.

Bainimarama’s visit follows his heavy criticism of Scott Morrison at the Pacific Islands Forum, where he said the Australian prime minister had insulted and alienated Pacific leaders over his failure to back stronger emissions targets.

It is spring. This is ridiculous

Here is Jennifer Westacott from the Business Council of Australia, talking to Hamish McDonald on RN this morning, about why the business council is against the “big stick” energy legislation:

We still oppose them. We still believe all the risks exist in terms of deterring investment and that’s what we really need in this country. We need investment in our existing system. We need investment in new parts of the energy market. We think it will deter it. We think it is a highly risky piece of legislation and we think it’s unnecessary. You’ve got the competition regulator yesterday announcing that for 800,000 small businesses and households prices have gone down. And this legislation will not put downward pressure on prices. So, look you know, the government took it to an election. They’ve got a mandate to do it. What we’re trying to do is to work constructively with them to get the legislation in better shape, to make sure it doesn’t have these unintended consequences. And we’ve worked very hard on that and so we are hoping the government takes our suggested amendments very seriously.

HM: What’s the evidence that it will affect investment?

Well I think you’ve got to look at it from an investor’s point of view. If a government starts actually negotiating contracts on your behalf, if government is interfering in pricing, if there is capacity for a government to actually divest your assets. You know if you’re a company you have to ask yourself are you seriously going to put a lot of your shareholder’s money at risk. That’s the fundamental problem we’ve got. And I think the problem we’ve got with this legislation and always have had is that it will not actually achieve reduction in prices. There are many other things that the competition regulator said could be done. And then the competition regulator has said that this is an extreme measure, this proposed legislation.

Now that what was obviously the biggest scandal of the day has been cleared up (her office confirmed we were right).

It might be worth noting that we haven’t heard from any senior federal Liberals on the NSW mess.

March 24 seems like forever ago:

An ebullient prime minister, Scott Morrison, warmed up the crowd before the premier arrived on Saturday night, taking to the stage to declare: “How good is Gladys Berejiklian and how good is the Liberal party here in NSW?”

And here Richard Marles gives us some idea of where Labor is going today:

The fact here is that the single biggest factor in terms of where the Australian economy is at, is this government’s failure to manage it over the last six years. And I understand that when people I represent are making really difficult decisions about what they go without, that is about the way in which this government has managed our economy far more than it is global factors which are going on, or not going on, over the last few years.

Richard Marles stopped by a doorstop interview after his ABC interview this morning, where he was asked about Donald Trump’s “locked and loaded” tweet (plus, no one in “any history” has ever been this prepared, yadda, yadda).

Well, obviously that language causes anxiety. Clearly it does. I think it’s also important to take a moment and just understand firstly that there has been a walking back of that language overnight. But secondly there’s a big difference between language and action.

And we’ve seen that in respect of the language of this president in the past, in respect of other conflicts.

But I note Josh Frydenberg has pointed to that language, he’s pointing to a whole lot of issues around the world, which I think he’s going to be doing in his speech tonight, about why there is every reason in the world for Australia’s economy at the moment and not the actions of his own government. Let us be clear: we’ve had record low wage growth in this country for the last six years.

That predates the events of the last few weeks. No matter where Josh Frydenberg points, at the end of the day I know that people in my electorate are doing it tough and they have been for a long time. They’re having to go and make decisions about what they will not be able to afford on any given night. And the treasurer going out this evening and pointing to every issue in the world other than his own government’s performance is cold comfort for the people I represent.

With everyone in party room and caucus at the moment, it might be a chance to have a look at the “big stick” energy legislation.

In that, currently, it doesn’t exist. Not as a final-draft hard-copy bill.

So far, it has been discussed through briefings.

Which means we won’t have an answer from Labor, because Labor hasn’t seen it. No one has. Including the government backbench committee.

So don’t expect too many answers on that today.

Samantha Maiden had a story on one of the donations Gladys Liu was connected to, overnight in the New Daily:

The mystery of a $105,000 donation linked to Liberal MP Gladys Liu has been solved and it involves her Chinese employer dropping six figures to dine with then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.

But in a plot twist, the dinner never occurred and Brighsun, the Chinese-owned company that won the auction, never asked for a refund.

Victorian Liberal Party sources have told the New Daily that Ms Liu’s employers still agreed to pay the Liberal party $105,000 – for nothing.

You can read the whole story here.

Siri? Show me “lack of self-awareness”.

Here’s Barnaby Joyce:

Now, I respect Gladys Berejiklian. I think she’s a good premier. I think she’s been badly advised and I believe now that the fate of the government rests in the upper house of the New South Wales parliament doing the right thing and properly fixing bad legislation.

That’s what they’re paid money to do. Turn your answering machines back on and listen to the people and listen to their issues. They have a right to be heard.

And the Senate demand for documents, put forward by Kristina Keneally, has resulted in this report on Paladin from Paul Karp:

Offshore detention security contractor Paladin has had to pay back $3.1m to the Australian government for hundreds of breaches of its key performance indicators.

Documents produced to the Senate on Monday reveal that from May 2018 to April 2019 the contractor was forced to credit back $3.1m of its $423m contract value and is facing an adverse assessment of $8.1m for the month of July 2018, for which there appeared to be no final outcome yet agreed with the home affairs department.

In that month the department assessed that Paladin would owe $5.6m for 928 failures relating to timely delivery of transport services, $1.4m for 592 breaches of entry and egress processes and $973,500 relating to 649 breaches of training and qualifications requirements.

Paladin agreed to pay back $753,900 in May 2018, $701,100 in June and $921,900 in August 2018.

In the documents Paladin explained the failures by describing its “inability to deploy expat personnel”, but the department found this was no excuse for failure to deliver training to staff and “should not prevent … incident reporting, particularly as incident reporting is generally overseen in Australia”.

In case you didn’t see it, the latest Guardian Essential poll is out (yes, I know, all the caveats on polling). As Katharine Murphy reports:

A majority of Australians either approve of the medevac procedures, or think more needs to be done to protect the health and welfare of asylum seekers offshore, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll.

While the fortnightly survey of 1,093 respondents finds majority support (52%) for offshore detention, with 25% signalling strong support for Australia’s harsh deterrence framework – 41% of the survey thinks the medevac procedures strike a balance between strong borders and humane treatment for people in offshore detention, and 23% argue the legislation does not go far enough to provide humane treatment for people in offshore detention.

The Morrison government wants to repeal the medical evacuation procedures imposed on the Coalition by the crossbench, Labor and the Greens during the period of minority government before the May election. The procedures give clinicians more of a say in whether sick people are transferred from Nauru and Manus Island to Australia for medical treatment.

Jacqui Lambie is yet to make her mind up on the bill to repeal medevac. She is the swinging vote in that one. It won’t come up until November, after a parliamentary committee looking into the policy completes its report.

There is also no law against stupidity, and so, here we are.

The Business Council of Australia head, Jennifer Westacott, is having a chat to Hamish Macdonald on ABC radio – she is very against the big stick legislation. That’s the one bit of consistency we have with this bill – the business community don’t like it.

Before we move into the theatrics of politics, just a note to say our thoughts and hearts are with the Greens senator Janet Rice, her family and her loved ones, after the death of her wife, Dr Penny Whetton.

The only other spill I can think of to be called off this quickly is when rogue Queensland LNP MPs attempted to move against the then-opposition leader, Lawrence Springborg. Turns out there was basically just three of them pushing the motion, although they had handily created several alternative shadow ministry lists they were distributing, which had different names on them, as they attempted to build support. Apparently no one thought their colleagues would compare the lists and discover they were different.

But no one can ever talk to me about how insane #qldpol is, ever again.