Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Naaman Zhou and Amy Remeikis (earlier)

International border to stay closed until at least March - as it happened

Health minister Greg Hunt and acting chief medical officer Paul Kelly
Health minister Greg Hunt and acting chief medical officer Paul Kelly have announced Australia’s biosecurity act emergency declaration will be extended until March 2021. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Labor will respond to the media bargaining code’s release just before question time.

The government is releasing the information today - but there will be no vote this week - it will go to committee.

Summary

With that, we’ll close the blog for today. Thanks for reading, and thanks to Amy Remeikis for helming it today. She’ll be back tomorrow morning.

Here’s what happened on this Tuesday 8 December:

Updated

In the UK, Margaret Keenan, a 90-year old grandmother from Coventry, has become the first person to receive the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine.

Australia has currently secured enough doses of the vaccine for 5 million people.

Independent senator Rex Patrick has tabled a bill today to ban the importing of goods made by the forced labour of Uighurs in China.

The bill would stop Australia importing any goods made in the Xinjing province of China, or goods from other parts of China produced “using forced labour” as defined by Australian criminal law.

Patrick said in a statement that the “next step” would be for it to be considered by the Senate’s foreign affairs, defence and trade legislation committee. He said he would refer it to the committee on Thursday.

The Chinese Communist regime’s persecution of the Uyghur people is undeniable. More than 1 million people have been rounded up and put in internment camps across Xinjiang and subjected to gross human rights abuses.

Updated

Two crew ejected from air force crash

Hi all, it’s Naaman Zhou here, taking over on the blog for a short while.

Earlier, we brought you the breaking news that a jet crashed earlier today in Queensland, shortly before take-off.

The update is that two crew members were ejected from the RAAF Super Hornet jet as it crashed before taking off at the Amberley air base in Queensland.

“The aircrew of that aircraft are safe and no other personnel were involved in the incident,” a defence department spokeswoman said in a statement.

Footage obtained by Nine News showed the crew landing in their parachutes and the jet with its cockpit jettisoned.

The cause of the accident is unknown and an investigation is under way, AAP reports.

Updated

Naaman Zhou will take you through the next part of the day.

I’ll be back early tomorrow morning – thanks for joining me for the parliament day. Take care of you!

Updated

The parliamentary security committee is reviewing the surveillance legislation bill:

The Morrison government is facing calls from within its own ranks to tread carefully now that it has the power to veto certain types of international agreements, with a backbencher warning that “it should only be used minimally”.

Amid widespread speculation the government has Victoria’s Belt and Road agreement with China in its sights, and with Beijing previously signalling such a veto would exacerbate existing tensions with Australia, the Senate today ticked off on the final of two bills setting up the new powers.

The Coalition MP and former Australian diplomat Dave Sharma said that while he would not comment on whether the Victorian deal should be torn up, he made this broader point about the new power:

I think it should only be used minimally.

Speaking at an event hosted by the China Matters thinktank, Sharma said it was important that the federal government had this new power to review state, territory, council and public university agreements with foreign government entities.

He said the passage of the laws would lead to “a period in which state and territory governments and others basically open their books as they list everything” – and he predicted that the federal government’s subsequent review would find “overwhelmingly” that the majority of them were in Australia’s national interest.

Speaking at the same China Matters event, Labor MP Tim Watts said his party had offered bipartisan support to the new powers, but encouraged the foreign minister to use that power responsibly, calmly and with careful consideration. Watts said:

It shouldn’t be a media-led strategy.

When contacted for comment about the potential targeting of the Belt and Road deal, a Victorian government spokesperson said:

This remains a matter for the federal government. Our trade relationships – with our biggest trading partners and our smallest – are about supporting Victorian businesses and creating Victorian jobs.

Dave Sharma
Dave Sharma says the government’s new foreign veto power ‘should only be used minimally’. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Updated

The Victorian parliament is also sitting – AAP has an update on the covid fines issued by the state:

The Victorian government is rejecting calls to waive an estimated $3 million in Covid-19 fines handed to thousands of teenagers, despite many coming from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Covid-19 Fines Community Lawyer Working Group, a coalition of 10 community legal centres, estimates at least 2,000 children aged 14 to 17 have been fined in Victoria for coronavirus breaches during the pandemic.

In state parliament on Tuesday, Greens MP Tim Read asked attorney general Jill Hennessy if the fines would be renounced. She said:

The government has no intention of withdrawing fines that have been lawfully imposed.

Updated

It’s a long night for the Senate.

Updated

Just a point regarding that Joel Fitzgibbon spray on China policy (the Labor backbencher argued Malcolm Turnbull had shifted Australia’s posture towards China from one of deep engagement to one of “collective containment and strategic competition”):

Scott Morrison has made clear several times in recent months that Australia does not seek to contain China and does not see it as a strategic competitor. That outlook differs from that of Australia’s American ally. The prime minister has also called for high-level dialogue with China and has played down the idea that there is a simple “reset” available in the relationship.

China, meanwhile, has called on Australia to take “concrete” steps aimed at putting the relationship on a better footing. According to an embassy official, that would begin with Australia making clear it sees China’s rise as an opportunity, rather than a threat.

Updated

Labor’s campaign to try to define Scott Morrison (you may have heard the “always there for the photo op” line repeated over and over and over again) is really ramping up.

Updated

Larissa Waters moved this motion in the Senate today (as reported) and it didn’t get the support from Labor (which voted against suspending standing orders).

But it looks like getting a second chance at life. Labor, which voted against it this morning, has given notice it will be moving a motion very similar – in fact almost word for word – tomorrow:

That the Senate:

(1) notes:

(a) the prime minister told parliament on 3 December 2020 that Australia would be participating at the Climate Ambition Summit on 12 December 2020 and that “it will be a great opportunity to correct the mistruths … that are often presented”;

(b) the Climate Ambition Summit co-host and COP26president Alok Sharma has stated that “announcements must show genuine progress from existing policies and Paris targets” and that “there will be no space for general statements”; and

(c) reports today in the media that Australia does not have a confirmed speaking role at the summit; and

(2) calls on the prime minister to attend the house by 2pm

Tuesday 8 December to make a statement to advise the house whether Australia is speaking at the Climate Ambition Summit and table any correspondence with the summit organisers relating to whether Australia is speaking at the summit.

Updated

Paul Karp has a little more on the detail on the IR bill Christian Porter has put forward – as always, the devil is absolutely in the detail:

Workers would face pay cuts under a dramatic move by the government to suspend the better-off-overall test for two years, unions have warned.

Sections of the industrial relations omnibus bill, seen by Guardian Australia ahead of their release on Wednesday, propose allowing the industrial umpire to register pay deals where “appropriate” in “all the circumstances” – even if they leave workers worse off.

The secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Sally McManus, said it would be “absolutely outrageous” if the government attempted to suspend the better-off-overall test, and one in four Australian workers could face wage cuts.

Updated

The Labor backbencher Joel Fitzgibbon has accused Scott Morrison of overreacting to the Chinese foreign ministry official’s tweet about Australian soldiers in Afghanistan, and said his response was part of a pattern of the prime minister “dog-whistling” to a domestic audience on China.

Fitzgibbon, who has long been one of the harshest critics within Labor of the Coalition’s approach to China, stepped up his criticisms in an interview with ABC TV this afternoon.

Fitzgibbon contrasted Morrison’s absence from the cameras on the day the Brereton report into Australian special forces was released with the prime minister’s rush to condemn the tweet and demand an apology from China. Fitzgibbon said:

This is a prime minister who is driven by polling. And this is what’s got us into trouble. This has been a dog whistle, harvesting domestic votes here at home at the expense of our trading relationship. That’s the first step – stop doing that – because it’s now costing a lot of Australians jobs, not just meat producers, many others, including coal mines in my own electorate.

Fitzgibbon said “poll-driven Scotty from Marketing” had also prioritised playing to a domestic audience “at the expense of our most important trading relationship”, by going out in front of the world and calling for an independent inquiry into Covid-19.

Earlier, Fitzgibbon suggested the problems with the relationship were “a problem of Scott Morrison’s own making”.

Patricia Karvelas asked whether it was accurate to blame Morrison for the entire problem in the relationship. An undeterred Fitzgibbon said:

I think he shares the blame with Malcolm Turnbull.

Fitzgibbon contended that the relationship had been “in freefall” since about 2017. He argued that was associated with Turnbull shifting Australia’s posture towards China from one of deep engagement (including the signing of the free trade agreement) to one of “collective containment and strategic competition”.

That was backed up “with some pretty gratuitous language towards China and fiddling with, you know, thresholds for the Foreign Investment Review Board discriminating against certain countries, including China”.

Governments of all political persuasions for decades have dealt with the challenges of China – and there are many – without destroying our relationship, including our trading relationship. But this has not been the form of this government, and this government must now fix this problem.

Joel Fitzgibbon
Joel Fitzgibbon: ‘This is a prime minister who is driven by polling.’ Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated

The Victorian government has responded to the Guardian’s request for comment over Launch Housing’s pause on exiting rough sleepers from the homeless hotels program.

A spokeswoman for the department said Launch was sufficiently funded to pause exiting people until late January, at which point it would begin finding alternative accommodation for many rough sleepers and continue hotel accommodation for those eligible for the “from homeless to homes” program until April.

She said Launch had not requested additional funding for the program so far.

Guardian Australia is seeking to confirm this with Launch Housing.

Updated

Joel Fitzgibbon has moved on to Australia’s relationship with China having been “in freefall” since 2017 (under Malcolm Turnbull) and says Scott Morrison has continued damaging that relationship.

“A problem of his own making,” Fitzgibbon says of Morrison’s reaction to China, later accusing Morrison of “over reacting” to an “offensive tweet”

Joel Fitzgibbon is on the ABC speaking about his new “friendship group” we reported on earlier. He has established a parliamentary friends of defence awards and honours.

He says he sees the group as “better explaining the Brereton report recommendations”.

Updated

Australian Associated Press can register for the code, Paul Fletcher says.

It is currently not included in the legislation.

But the interview ends early, as Fletcher has to run to a division in the house (corporations amendments bill, dealing with the corporate insolvency reforms).

Updated

Paul Fletcher is speaking to the ABC about the media bargaining code.

He says there has been nothing said in private about either Facebook or Google dropping Australian content because of the code - although Facebook has made public threats to drop content if it has to pay for it.

That same rain trough over that part of the world has come down south enough to give firefighters on K’gari (Fraser Island) a little relief, with the fire helping efforts to defeat a bushfire that has been burning for almost two months now.

It’s not out, but it had come close to a township and the rain is helping to control it in that area.

Updated

In “how’s the weather today?” stories, we have this from AAP:

Thirteen children and two adults have been taken to hospital after a lightning strike in central Queensland.

The group suffered tingling symptoms after a nearby lightning strike in Clinton about 1.30pm on Wednesday, Queensland Ambulance Service says.

They were taken to Gladstone Hospital in stable conditions.

A band of heavy thunderstorms are currently showing on the Bureau of Meteorology radar over the Gladstone region.

Updated

Why should we be paying attention to the New Zealand royal commission into the Christchurch terror attack?

Those brave souls hoping to hop on a cruise ship come 18 December, when the federal government’s ban was set to end, will be sorely disappointed to hear that the ruling has been extended by another three months.

This ban came into effect in the early weeks of the pandemic as a number of cruise ships were shown help spread Covid-19 around the world, including the ill-fated Ruby Princess, which created a massive virus cluster across Australia in March.

Health Minister Greg Hunt has just announced cruise ships – known for being rapid incubators for Covid outbreaks – will be now banned from operating in Australia until 17 March.

His office released a statement this afternoon:

The recommendation from government to the governor general to extend the emergency period was informed by specialist medical and epidemiological advice provided by the Australian health protection principal committee (AHPPC) and commonwealth chief medical officer.

The AHPPC has advised the international Covid-19 situation continues to pose an unacceptable public health risk. The extension of the emergency period for a further three months is an appropriate response to that risk.

The extension of this ban will be considered and formalised by the governor general, David Hurley, this week.

This ruling is part of a larger decision to extend the “human biosecurity emergency period” under the Biosecurity Act 2015.

This will also include limitations on outbound international travel and restrictions on the operation of retail stores at international airports. The release noted:

The Australian government is working closely with state and territory agencies and the cruise industry, to develop a framework for the staged resumption of cruise ships in a manner that is proportionate to the public health risk.

It’s worth noting that very few cruises were actually scheduled for the end of the year in Australia, but companies have been selling tickets to a number of cruises in early March.

This included an international 10-day Carnival cruise from Sydney to New Zealand on 15 March.

The Ruby Princess docked in Sydney’s Circular Quay in February
The Ruby Princess docked in Sydney’s Circular Quay in February. Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

Updated

And the official announcement on the biosecurity emergency declaration has also been released:

The human biosecurity emergency declaration ensures the government has the powers to take any necessary measures to prevent and control Covid-19, and protect the health of all Australians. These powers have been used on a limited basis following expert medical advice.

The emergency period, which has been in place since 18 March 2020, is now set to cease on 17 March 2021.

The recommendation from government to the governor general to extend the emergency period was informed by specialist medical and epidemiological advice provided by the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee (AHPPC) and commonwealth chief medical officer.

The AHPPC has advised the international Covid-19 situation continues to pose an unacceptable public health risk. The extension of the emergency period for a further three months is an appropriate response to that risk.

The proposed extension will be considered and formalised by the governor general this week.

The existing restrictions that sit under this emergency declaration would remain in place to minimise the risk of introducing and spreading Covid-19 in our community. These include:

  • Limitations on the movement of cruise vessels.
  • Limitations on outbound international travel.
  • Restrictions on the operation of retail stores at international airports.

These restrictions are reviewed regularly and take into account the latest expert medical advice. They can be amended or removed at any time based on the expert medical advice.

Updated

In case you missed it:

The Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi has also responded to the New Zealand royal commission findings on the Christchurch terrorist attack:

This was a terrorist attack committed by an Australian man who the report says was “driven by an extreme rightwing Islamophobic ideology”. Any denial or obfuscation of this simple fact is an insult to the victims.

The report’s findings and recommendations should be taken with utmost seriousness in Australia, where the terrorist lived for most of his life. There are lessons here for the way we approach terrorism, security, online extremism, racial and religious hatred, social cohesion, and gun control.

I urge the prime minister to engage with the Australian Muslim community and carefully interrogate what needs to change in Australia.

The terrorist engaged with known far-right and white supremacist groups in Australia, some of which remain active in various forms. One of them forced me to cancel an anti-racism event in Newcastle last year due to their planned disruption. Far-right extremism is not only still present in our country, it is growing.

Australia is yet to reckon with being the country that raised the Christchurch killer. The government must take responsibility for the rise in rightwing extremism reported by Asio.

The senator also says all the policy recommendations in the report should be taken seriously by the Australian government.

Updated

National biosecurity emergency declaration extended until at least March

Greg Hunt opens his press conference by saying the nation is “on track” to be all opened to all Australians by Christmas.

He then gets to the the ‘but’.

The but here is that the virus is still running rampant overseas. “The international world remains a challenging and dangerous environment,” he says.

The biosecurity act emergency declaration is being continued – that means the international border stays closed. It’s been extended until March 2021.

International cruise vessels, outbound international flights and airport retail stores fall under the restrictions – any outbound (or inbound) travel remains “limited”.

Updated

Homeless service provider Launch Housing has paused exiting rough sleepers from hotels until the end of January to allow time to seek funding clarity from the Victorian government.

After Covid-19 was declared a pandemic the state government announced it would double crisis funding to $6m to help homelessness agencies find temporary housing for those sleeping on the streets of Melbourne.

The government promised the program would be extended until April when more than a thousand private properties would be subleased for rough sleepers, however, this did not cover all rough sleepers and last week housing service providers running the program, such as Launch Housing, began exiting people from the hotels to other accommodation or boarding houses.

This was highly contentious given concerns about the quality of some boarding houses and confusion over who was eligible to stay in a hotel until April.

On Tuesday Launch Housing emailed all staff alerting them that they had “decide not to initiate any more planned exits from emergency accommodation” for clients in the homeless hotels program.

In the email, seen by Guardian Australia, Launch Housing stated that the number of appropriate housing alternatives was now “very minimal”.

A spokesperson for Launch Housing confirmed the pause to Guardian Australia and said it would give service providers time to gain clarity on government funding and the scale of the “from homelessness to homes” program to move rough sleepers into head-leased apartments.

The Renters and Housing Union, which has been advocating for rough sleepers inside hotels, says it supports the decision.

“This is the result of rough sleepers and support workers taking a risk by standing together without the support of our employers/housing providers or the Victorian government,” a spokesperson for the union said.

The Guardian has contacted the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services for comment.

You can read the Guardian’s previous reporting on the topic here:

Updated

We are just waiting on the press conference with Greg Hunt and Paul Kelly – as we reported earlier it will be about delaying the return of the domestic cruise ship industry for another three months.

Cruise ship operators had hoped to get back on the water in December.

Given borders have only just opened domestically, a delay is not surprising.

Updated

Question time ends.

Bill Shorten to Scott Morrison:

The prime minister said in answer to an earlier question, the government stopped the robodebt scheme when it was found not to be sufficiently legal I think, or words to that effect.

So prime minister, when did the government know, robodebt was defective?

Was it after the 76 administrative appeals tribunal cases in 2017, or was it after the threats of of self-harm on 14 occasions in 2017, or was it legal action by those people that government was ripping off that forced it to stop the scheme?

Morrison:

Mr Speaker, I wouldn’t be the first person that the member has verballed before, so I don’t accept how he characterised my statements.

He asks Stuart Robert to take the question.

Robert repeats the line that “as soon as government came to the conclusion that the use of average income was not sufficient government moved quickly ...”

Again, it wasn’t income averaging that was the problem. It was the removal of humans from the process, which meant debts were raised SOLELY by income averaging. There were no checks – just an automatic rollout of the debt notice. That happened under the Coalition.

The other issue was the reversal of the onus of proof – people had to prove they didn’t have the debt by chasing down payslips and payment notices from years and years ago, rather than the government prove they did have the debt.

That is the reason it was found unlawful. Robert (who the government thought had the best week he has had all year, last week, if that gives you any indication of how the government views this) can talk about income averaging until I am blue in the face, but that wasn’t the issue. It’s being deliberately slippery with the truth, and those who were haunted by robodebt deserve better.

Updated

Scott Morrison says he respects Russell Broadbent, and they have had disagreements before, but he believes the NDIS changes will have a net benefit.

Stuart Robert agrees.

Ged Kearney, who asked the question about Broadbent’s intervention, seems unimpressed.

Updated

The health minister, Greg Hunt, and acting chief health officer, Prof Paul Kelly, have announced a press conference for 3.30pm.

It’s on the human biosecurity emergency declaration.

Updated

Vince Connelly continues to deliver dixers like a group of cats have found a human suit and are still working out how hands work.

Anthony Albanese asks Scott Morrison when he is going to take responsibility for robodebt – given he was the social security minister when humans were removed, treasurer when he said it would recoup $2bn in savings, and prime minister when it was found to be unlawful and $1.2bn was paid to those who had suffered.

Morrison sticks to income averaging was used for years, and the government, when it found out there was a problem, “changed it”.

“When you find there is a problem, you fix it, you solve it, and you make it right,” Morrison says, neglecting to mention it was only fixed after several warnings, including the government’s own legal advice, had been ignored, multiple administrative appeals tribunal cases found against it, a court case and a class action was announced.

Updated

Bill Shorten asks Stuart Robert to agree to the court’s ruling in the Amato robodebt court case.

You can find Victoria’s legal aid explanation on that here.

The question uses the year – 2019 – so Stuart Robert starts detailing the class action ruling of 2020.

Shorten has a point of order on that – he says he was asking about the Amato case (which found debts raised solely on income averaging were unlawful and reversing the onus of proof on people to prove they didn’t have the debt was also unlawful).

Christian Porter pops up to say the question didn’t ask about the Amato case, and it is not up to the government to write the opposition’s questions for them, so Robert can answer, addressing it on a different court case.

(There was no finding of liability as part of the class action court case.)

Updated

Peter Dutton gets a dixer on his portfolio today – for the first time in a little bit.

It’s about the latest national security laws the government wants (and will get, despite Labor’s concerns over some aspects of the bill, even if the government doesn’t change the bill).

Updated

Bill Shorten asks Scott Morrison about robodebt.

The PM sticks to Stuart Robert’s lines from last week – that income averaging was a long-used policy, and the government has addressed the issue.

Updated

While question time continues, we have an update on China’s latest move on Australian beef.

Overnight Chinese authorities announced the suspension of import permits for a sixth Australian red meat processing business, as mentioned in our ongoing coverage of the China-Australia tensions.

Australia’s agriculture minister, David Littleproud, has since issued a statement confirming that the General Administration of Customs China (GACC) advised Australia’s post in Beijing late yesterday afternoon that Meramist Pty Ltd – based in Caboolture, south-east Queensland – had been suspended.

“I understand that we will be receiving formal notification from Chinese authorities regarding the reasons for the suspension of the meat establishment. The Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment will investigate any non-compliance with Chinese import requirements and respond to GACC with the objective of having the suspension lifted as soon as possible.”

Littleproud ended his statement with the following look-on-the-bright-side observation:

“Despite the suspension of a number of meat establishments in 2020 there remain 36 meat establishments registered to export to China.”

Updated

Related, as Karen Andrews keeps using the market research term ‘comeback’ and Australia’s space industry – I feel like launching myself into space, every time I hear that word now.

Updated

Karen Andrews notes Rowan Ramsey’s use of the term ‘comeback’ in his dixer.

And note it she should – it has cost the government (and therefore you) a lot of money. You’re just not allowed to know how much.

Updated

The transcription service is still down, so it is a bit of a whoosh-whoosh with questions and answers today, I am afraid.

Julie Collins has a question on aged care home packages for Scott Morrison – and how many letters have been sent to people who have died, telling them their increased home care package has been approved.

Morrison says the government is adding additional places to the aged care at home care packages and is waiting for the aged care royal commission next year.

He does not answer the question.

Tony Burke has a point of order, asking him to address the question on how many people have died waiting for approval – and then received letters?

Tony Smith says the prime minister is in order.

Morrison again says the government is increasing the in-home aged care places, and is also working on growing the workforce.

Updated

Jim Chalmers to Josh Frydenberg:

Has the average wages growth got better or worse in the six years since the Liberal government last froze the superannuation guarantee?

Frydenberg:

Well, I can inform him that under the Coalition, we have seen the real minimum wage increase, whereas under the Labor party we saw it decrease, Mr Speaker. Three out of the last six years.

And what we have seen with wages growth is around the 20-year average of 0.7%. But Mr Speaker, if the member for Rankin is referring to wages growth, and also superannuation, he should look at the comments by the governor of the Reserve Bank. He pointed out very clearly when it came to increases in superannuation that it was a trade-off with wages. We are looking to get more Australians into work. That’s how we’ll increase their wages.

Updated

Josh Frydenberg is still treating dixers like a really lame perfect match.

“Not only a good guy, he ran a Good Guys franchise.”

Member for Longman, come on down!

Updated

Bob Katter has the independent’s question and it is about when Australia will become ‘self-sufficient’ and also about the Qantas job losses.

Christian Porter recounts that old adage of the easiest way to become a millionaire is to start as a billionaire and buy an airline, and then moves into how well Qantas has dealt with its difficult decisions. He says the government does not control Qantas, nor can it tell it how to run its business.

Updated

Anthony Albanese asks why the government, which has overseen record low wage growth, is now coming after people’s superannuation.

Scott Morrison again accuses Albanese of having a “problematic relationship, Mr Speaker, with telling things as they are”.

Labor laughs, given Morrison just had to correct the record on Kevin Rudd:

In response to the earlier question, I’m very happy to correct some of your position as a serial offender of this, Mr Speaker, but he doesn’t have the same honesty to correct himself with things that are patently untrue.

Morrison continues:

We gave Australians a choice that they needed, and a choice that they chose to exercise is to speak up, in this country.

What the Labor party doesn’t understand is that the earnings and savings of Australians belong to them. They do not belong to the industry fund managers, Mr Speaker. Or, Mr Speaker, the bank fund managers. It’s their money. And if they needed it during the pandemic. Then we were happy to help.

... At the last election, the Australian people said no to Labor’s higher taxes. They said we don’t want to wake up to the large bill that would have been put on them that they could not afford and the bill under this leader of the opposition, Mr Speaker, would be just as high, if he ever got the opportunity to lead this country.

Scott Morrison speaks during question time
Scott Morrison speaks during question time. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Updated

The Tveeder transcription service crashes just as Michael McCormack gets a dixer.

I know the feeling.

Jim Chalmers to Scott Morrison:

How can Australians trust this government’s claim that his industrial relations changes will boost wages when this government in its eighth year has only presided over flatlining wages?

Morrison: (still very cranky)

The [mispronounces shadow treasurer] seems to be ...

I’m terribly, sorry, Mr Speaker, I mispronounced the shadow treasurer’s name. That must be such an offence to him. He is so sensitive.

This is the same shadow treasurer who when he was a member ... [it sounds like he says ‘cried in Kevin Rudd’s office’]

... We know how sensitive he is but coming back to the serious issue, not the ego of the member for Rankin, Mr Speaker, which has its own reputation.

He goes on to spruik the government’s record and echoes many of the talking points from his speech to the party room.

Updated

Scott Morrison takes a dixer and mispronounces a few words – seems like he is still cranky from the first question.

Updated

Hi all. Paul has brought you up to date on the vaping conversation in today’s Coalition party room meeting.

There was also a small discussion about energy policy, which sounds a lot like the conversation about energy last week.

Two Nationals, David Gillespie and Barnaby Joyce, were critical of the New South Wales government’s plan to roll out more renewables in the grid. (Last week it was Joyce, Matt Canavan and Craig Kelly).

There was also a desire expressed that the government use carryover credits from the Kyoto period. This concession should not be “given away”.

I’m told Scott Morrison listened to the contributions (just for the record, the PM was absent from last week’s party room because he was still in quarantine at the Lodge and there were technical problems).

Morrison addressed the point about carryovers.

He said Australia had earned the credits legitimately. The credits were real and a reflection on Australia’s overachievement.

The government had made “no announcement” yet about whether it would use Kyoto credits to meet Australia’s 2030 target, but if that’s where we ended up, if we could meet the 2030 target without deploying carryovers, then that would reflect Australia’s strong performance, the prime minister said.

Updated

Question time begins

It is straight into it.

Richard Marles to Scott Morrison:

Why did the prime minister try to deflect attention from the thousands of Australians stranded overseas by misleading this House when he wrongly asserted former prime minister Kevin Rudd had travelled in and out of Australia while the borders were closed. Why is this prime minister playing politics while 39,000 Australians are stranded overseas and won’t be home for Christmas?

I don’t think Morrison was expecting this as the first question – he is angry as he answers this.

Morrison:

And last night I wrote to you, Mr Speaker – and I would table the matter, it’s a matter of Hansard anyway and it’s there for all to see – to correct the record with what I said in this House yesterday.

... The interjection has come from the leader of the opposition why I didn’t come in here. Because I was chairing the national security committee of cabinet, Mr Speaker.

... Mr Rudd is a very important previous prime minister.

... I take that interjection, Mr Speaker. If the leader of the opposition wants to have an each way bet on national security he can, Mr Speaker. But this prime minister never will. And Australians know all about that, Mr Speaker.

So, Mr Speaker, I am happy to apologise to Mr Rudd. I wasn’t aware of that occasion. I was otherwise informed and I happily corrected the record, very happily corrected the record to Mr Rudd. I am always happy to treat former prime ministers with the utmost respect and they deserve that respect. I was making no reflection on Mr Rudd yesterday at all.

I was making a reflection on the deputy leader of the opposition who sought to come into this place and attack another former prime minister in Mr Abbott, Mr Speaker, who it turns out was one of more than 95,000 people who received independent exemptions to leave the country, Mr Speaker.

And if Mr Rudd indeed wished to leave the country and he sought to make such an application for an exemption, I have no doubt he would be treated with the same independence that former prime minister Mr Abbott was treated with by the border force commissioner and indeed, Mr Speaker, the former and longest serving minister for affairs Mr Downer.

And I’m happy to apologise to Mr Rudd, but I tell you what, when it comes to ... Mr Rudd, the Liberal party cannot compete with those opposite, Mr Speaker. The member for Watson accused him of chaos, lacking temperament and inability to make decisions.

The member for Gorton accused him of treachery, Mr Speaker. Now, Mr Speaker, if anyone owes Kevin Rudd an apology ...

Anthony Albanese:

While I’d be quite happy to have a debate with the prime minister about loyalty to people when in office as prime minister, quite happy to, this is not relevant. This is about as relevant as when he stabbed Malcolm Turnbull.

Tony Smith:

He certainly was drifting from the question, and I’d invite him to come back to the question or wrap up his answer.

Morrison:

Thank you, Mr Speaker. So simply the point is obvious Mr Speaker – if Mr Rudd was to seek an exemption to leave the country it would seem those on that side of the House would be the first to seek to approve it in the way that they spoke about Mr Rudd when he was even in this chamber standing at this dispatch box as prime minister, Mr Speaker. But I understand the leader of the opposition’s affection for Mr Rudd because he has the Rudd force field around him in the protections that were put in place to keep this leader of the opposition in his job. Lucky Albo.

... I withdraw that last element, Mr Speaker.

Updated

Michelle Rowland says Labor will be looking at the media bargaining code through the Senate committee process.

Jim Chalmers is responding to the government’s announcement of the media bargaining code:

When it comes to this news media code, the government has been dithering and delaying and stuffing around for a year now.

It was this time last year that the government said that they would act to level the playing field between the tech platforms and the news media organisations. By April, they were saying it would be finished by July.

By July, they were saying it would be finished soon. And last month, Josh Frydenberg said it would all be done and dusted business this month.

None of those things turned out to be true. This is another stunning example of a government that chases headlines, but just doesn’t deliver.

Time and time again we’ve heard from the treasurer, in particular, big promises, big announcements about finalising this deal and getting it legislated before the end of the year and yet we still haven’t even seen the legislation that the ministers were talking about a short time ago.

It’s been a year that this has been on table and still we haven’t seen the legislation.

Now, on our side, Michelle [Rowland] and I – and the whole Labor team – have said we are prepared to support, in principle, efforts to ensure that the playing field is levelled between the tech platforms and the news media organisations.

We do want to see quality journalism properly paid for in this country.

We do want to make sure that regulation keeps up with technological change in this really sensitive and really important part of our economy.

But all of this uncertainty that’s been created by the big announcements and no delivery has been difficult for business.

It’s been a difficult enough time for business as it is without all of the regulatory uncertainty which is created by a government, which makes announcement after announcement and then can’t even deliver the legislation on the Tuesday of the last week of the parliament.

Updated

The final Coalition party room of the year was dominated by a debate on vaping.

The health minister, Greg Hunt, and the TGA are pushing to move to a prescription-only model by mid-2021, and senators Hollie Hughes and Matt Canavan have been dissenting from that position in a Senate inquiry into e-cigarettes.

In the party room there were 10 contributions in favour of legalising vaping (and against the prescription-only model), including Hughes, Canavan, Trent Zimmerman, Tim Wilson, Perrin Davey, Barnaby Joyce, George Christensen and Eric Abetz.

Hughes and Canavan put forward a compromise position that would allow people to seek a prescription from their doctor but preserve the ability to personally import vaping fluid. It sounds like that might be the direction of their inquiry report, due by 18 December.

Andrew Hastie made a cautious contribution that noted the overlap in the US between the pro-vaping and pro-marijuana lobby. “Vaping is fine, but drugs are bad m’kay” seems to be the tenor of the contribution.

Davey’s contribution was emotionally powerful – she recounted her father’s experience of cutting down from 30 cigarettes a day to two a day and vaping, which allowed him to have an operation doctors had previously refused.

Hunt did not reply to the contributions – but Scott Morrison rounded out the debate by noting that both he and Hunt were listening and were sensitive to MPs’ and senators’ views.

Unclear whether that was merely a head-pat or foreshadows changes to government policy.

Updated

The cashless debit card debate is being rushed through today.

Updated

It’s the downhill slide into question time – we will bring you the wash-up of the party room meeting before we all head in there though.

Updated

Andrew Giles has also made a 90-second statement – this one on the New Zealand government decision to accept all the royal commission into terrorist attacks on Christchurch mosques:

Prime Minister Ardern delivered an apology to all those affected and recognised that an apology isn’t enough, by committing to implement all 44 recommendations.

Australia too, must do more than offer condolences.

We must recognise that an Australian terrorist committed these atrocities – an Australian that was radicalised here on our soil.

In this place, we are charged with keeping all Australians safe.

It pains me to read in the report that Muslim New Zealanders felt unsafe prior to the murders.

We must recognise that Australia is not immune to terrorist attacks from home grown rightwing-extremists.

This must be a call to action.

To say no to hate, and to recognise the grave threat posed by rightwing extremism.

The report also finds and I quote:

Efforts to build social cohesion, inclusion and diversity can contribute to preventing or countering extremism.

And that ... “having a society that is cohesive, inclusive and embraces diversity is a good in itself.”

Powerful words that we in Australia must also reflect on and commit to.

Updated

Media bargaining code summary

Here is how the government has explained the media code:

The Code will support a diverse and sustainable Australian news media sector, including Australia’s public broadcasters, by:

• encouraging the parties to undertake commercial negotiations outside the Code;

• enabling digital platforms to publish standard offers, which provides smaller news media businesses with an efficient pathway to finalising agreements with digital platforms;

• establishing a negotiation framework under the Code that allows both parties to bargain in good faith and reach binding agreements;

• ensuring that an independent arbiter is able to determine the level of remuneration that should be paid under a fair and balanced final offer arbitration model should the parties be unable to reach agreement; and

• setting clear and workable minimum standards for digital platforms including requiring 14 days advance notice of deliberate algorithm changes that impact news media businesses.

The Code will initially apply to Facebook NewsFeed and Google Search. Other digital platform services can be added to the Code in future if there is sufficient evidence to establish that they give rise to a bargaining power imbalance.

The Code will be reviewed by Treasury one year after its operation to ensure it is delivering outcomes that are consistent with the Government’s policy intent.

Updated

We’re told vaping was an issue of considerable debate at the final Coalition joint party room meeting of the year.

Cameras were allowed in for Scott Morrison’s speech, but in the closed session 10 Coalition members spoke about vaping, all but one of whom backed made it reasonably available to Australians.

In speeches, Michael McCormack thanked regional communities for the way they had managed Covid-19 issues.

He urged colleagues to use recess to promote infrastructure projects.

Josh Frydenberg joked about the PM’s missteps in pronunciation of barre and the subsequent photos that could not be unseen.

More seriously the treasurer said the country could not afford widespread wage subsidies for too long but must transition to targeted support.

Tim Watts would be making his apologies to Tim Minchin, having taken inspiration from Minchin for his 90-second statement to the parliament just then:

I really like Christmas

It’s sentimental, I know, but I just really like it I’ve heard prime ministerial promises

But I just don’t believe every stranded Australian

Will be home by Christmas, to be honest

And I’ve heard all the usual excuses

And redefinitions of waiting list places

While Australians wait for spaces in quarantine places and beg the PM to be the leader that he’s meant to be

But there are still thousands of Aussies who can’t get a flight

And they’re losing their jobs and their homes while they fight

Just to come back to the country they call home I know they really don’t like it

There’s just 17 days remaining

And with a fortnight of quarantine between them

And their families they have just three days to get home, or …

They won’t be seeing their dad

Their brother and sisters, their gran and their mum

They won’t be drinking white wine in the sun

Updated

The Senate agreed to the government motion to hear all the bills in this session (32 to 29), then held a separate vote on whether to include the cashless debit bill, which it also won 32 to 29.

So the Senate will deal one way or the other with the cashless debit card extension this week – but we’re still not clear on who will win the substantive vote.

Updated

While this press conference on the media code continues, Marise Payne has issued a statement welcoming the new foreign veto powers.

The foreign minister said the new powers – which allow the federal government to review and potentially cancel international agreements reached by state and territories, local governments and public universities with foreign governments – were “necessary to appropriately manage and protect Australia’s foreign relations and the consistency of our nation’s foreign policy”.

Payne appeared to be making conciliatory noises to state and territory governments, saying those governments “play a very important role in advancing Australia’s interests globally” and she looked forward to working with them.”

From trade and economic cooperation, to cultural collaboration, to university research partnerships, States and Territories build links that support Australia’s economy and project our values abroad.

This legislation provides a mechanism for States and Territories to consult with the Commonwealth on that international engagement.

It also establishes a public register to provide transparency about State and Territory foreign arrangements.

But Payne defended the need for the new laws, saying the world was increasingly globalised and states and territories were “engaging more frequently at high levels with foreign governments and their entities, with tangible impacts on Australia’s foreign relations”.

“This increased engagement, and the growing strategic complexity of the 21st century, brings greater risks, requiring more consultation and due diligence to ensure States and Territories are aligned with the commonwealth’s foreign policy.”

She said a new “Foreign Arrangements Taskforce” had been established in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to implement the legislation.

Updated

It’s been a three-year consultation period – and it is not over yet. It still has to pass the Senate.

Plus, Facebook and Google have to agree to it – they can still decide to just not use the content (as Facebook threatened) because once it is in Australia, it can spread across the rest of the tech giant’s markets as well – including the US and Europe.

Updated

So what is the bottom figure here? How much will media companies receive to have their content used?

Well, the government isn’t getting into that.

It has set up a framework of regulation for the bargaining to take place within – but the negotiations are for media companies to work out themselves.

Updated

Google and Facebook have also won a concession in how much notice they have to give on algorithm changes – it has moved from 28 days to 14 days.

Paul Fletcher:

We restricted it to conscious changes to algorithms that would have a significant impact on ranking, rather than the continuous sort of machine learning progress of algorithm changes, which happens continuously.

So, where they have made fair points, we’ve responded. I might say we’ve also responded to fair points made by the news media businesses. So, the code has evolved.

The version that will be introduced into the Parliament tomorrow by the Treasurer reflects the consultation with all parties, and we believe it’s an appropriate framework against which commercial negotiations can occur between the platforms and Australian news media businesses.

Updated

YouTube and Instagram are not included in the code, Josh Frydenberg says:

As treasurer, I have the authority to designate a service. That will be subject to this code. And I will be designating Facebook and Google. The Google Search and Facebook news feed.

The basis for that designation is the unequal bargaining position between the parties. And to make that designation I take advice from the ACCC, from Treasury and others. Obviously that advice came in the form of an 18-month inquiry that has found that to be the case.

Updated

“The world is watching what is happening here in Australia,” Josh Frydenberg says of the code.

It’s the first attempt to make Google and Facebook pay for the news content they use. The tech companies have pushed back – hard – originally saying they just wouldn’t use Australian news content, which then robs publications of an audience. But when the content is there for free (as in the companies don’t pay to use it) then media companies lose money to pay for the people making the content (like me and my colleagues).

Updated

Josh Frydenberg said the code will be introduced to parliament tomorrow.

But it won’t be rushed through the parliament.

Media bargaining code announced

Paul Fletcher and Josh Frydenberg are up.

As expected, the public broadcasters are in – that was a key sticking point for the Greens and Labor’s support.

But the tech giants get some of what they wanted as well. I’ll bring you the key points.

Updated

Meanwhile, the media bargaining code – which centres around new digital platform laws over what journalism tech giants like Google and Facebook can use – is due to be unveiled in the next 20 minutes or so.

Updated

Social services minister Anne Ruston has moved a motion in the Senate for a long list of government bills to be heard in this session.

Although it is a procedural motion applying to a long list, the debate centres around the extension of the cashless debit card.

President Scott Ryan reminds senators it is “not the time for substantive debate”.

On the substantive bill, the votes are very tight, Labor and the Greens need Jacqui Lambie, Rex Patrick and Stirling Griff to all vote to block the bill – and it looks like Patrick, still undecided, is the deciding vote.

Pauline Hanson has confirmed One Nation will be voting with the government for an extension – arguing if the procedural motion doesn’t get up the cashless debit card will expire on 1 January.

Hanson accuses Sarah Hanson-Young of being “touchy” when she objects to the accusation Labor and the Greens are standing up for people to spend welfare on alcohol and “get inebriated”.

Updated

The Senate moves on.

Updated

And there you have it – Rex Patrick’s amendment fails.

Updated

Meanwhile, the New Zealand government has accepted all the recommendations put forward by the royal commission which examined the Christchurch terror attack.

Labor is pushing for a parliamentary inquiry into rightwing terror groups in Australia.

Updated

On the Senate numbers, the government needs three of the five corssbenchers to win a vote - if Jacqui Lambie has switched, that gives them the numbers

The amendment at issue is one proposed by Rex Patrick – and which passed the Senate last week – to ensure the foreign minister’s decisions to strike down international agreements are subject to judicial review.

The Greens senator Janet Rice said: “Not insisting on this one amendment makes a bad bit of legislation even worse.”

Labor’s Penny Wong has some sharp words about how the government had handled this foreign veto bill. Wong said Labor had consistently indicated from the day it was announced (without Labor being informed, she noted) that it supported the objectives.

Wong said the substantive bill had already passed the parliament last week but the related amendment – consequential amendments – was now being discussed.

The issue, Wong said, was “whether or not there should be some oversight of the minister’s decisions”.

“We have repeatedly offered to engage with the government in relation to this bill, and to my mind and what I would say to this chamber – this is one of the problems with the way this govt seeks to deal with some issues of foreign policy.”

Wong said the government did “not know how to be bipartisan” on such issues. She said Labor had invited conversations with the minister, Marise Payne, but Payne had spoken to her “not once” on this bill.

Wong said she thought the minister “ought to have the political maturity” to engage with the other party of government. She wanted to register her disappointment. “I find it mystifying frankly.”

Wong said she understood the crossbencher Jacqui Lambie had changed her position on judicial review since last week. Labor would continue to support the amendment that Rex Patrick had moved to ensure the bill was not excluded from judicial review.

Payne said the government had not accepted that amendment, for reasons she spelled out last week. She said Dfat had conducted over 60 consultations with stakeholders affected. She said the bill included scrutiny and accountability provisions, including a public register on international agreements for the first time. She said the government had agreed to last week’s amendment that there also be an annual report to parliament about the operations of the new law.

Updated

And the Greens’ suspension effort in the Senate has failed.

Now we’re on to consequential amendments related to the new foreign veto powers.

The foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, has moved that the Senate does not insist on amendments the House disagreed with.

The Greens senator Janet Rice said she was “very disappointed” at the attempt to wind back modest checks and balances that were added to a rushed bill.

Rice raised the question of what was the point of the senate and of the detailed debate last week.

The Labor caucus has met for the final session of the year. Anthony Albanese told the troops 2020 had been a difficult year for the world, and he acknowledged the contribution of state Labor premiers in managing the pandemic.

He noted that Australia had the same problems now as we faced going into the pandemic – particularly the problem of insecure work.

The Labor leader referenced a wasted recovery, and noted the recovery was leaving some Australians behind.

Referencing people stranded overseas, Albanese said they were left behind and stuck around the world.

Morale isn’t high in Labor ranks after a grinding, difficult year in opposition, but Albanese told MPs:

“We can go into 2021 with great confidence. Our support has grown over the last 12 months, which is extraordinary given the pandemic”.

Labor has signalled it is likely to support the Morrison government’s proposals to allow trade unions to break up. There was some discussion about that in the caucus.

The shadow workplace relations minister Tony Burke said Labor was inclined to support the proposal if the scope of the trigger to break up was narrow: in cases of unlawfulness or illegality.

Labor would seek to amend a more broad ranging trigger.

There was also a discussion about the safety of parliamentary staff, which was triggered by Milton Dick asking what discussions were underway with the government.

(Obviously the actual trigger was the recent Four Corners program).

The shadow special minister of state Don Farrell responded, providing an update, saying it was up to the government to review provisions for MOPs employees.

The New South Wales senator Deb O’Neill also contributed to the discussion. Supporting an independent complaints mechanism for parliamentary staff was floated during the discussion.

South Australian premier Steven Marshall is easing restrictions a little further:

Paul Fletcher and Josh Frydenberg have announced a media conference for 1.15pm – the media bargaining code is about to be released (they have been the ministers leading the consultations).

Updated

The Senate has opened with the Greens pushing for a suspension of standing orders regarding what they described as Scott Morrison’s “potential misleading” of the lower house about the climate ambition summit.

The Guardian reported overnight that Morrison does not yet have a speaker’s spot at a global summit this weekend despite telling parliament last week he intended to use an appearance at the event to “correct mistruths” about his government’s heavily criticised record on emissions reduction.

Greens senator Larissa Waters said the rest of the world understood that Australia was a “laggard” on climate action, and her party was “pretty confident that Australian won’t be invited to speak” at the climate action summit this weekend.

She said standing orders should be suspended, because the issue was about “whether the prime minister has misled the parliament in his response to Greens leader Adam Bandt about whether we’re invited or not”.

Waters wants the minister representing the prime minister to attend the Senate at 2pm and make a statement on whether Australia is speaking at the climate ambition summit, and to table any correspondence on that point.

Waters said the Greens had received information that “correspondence has been sent” specifically disavowing what Morrison had told the lower house regarding the climate action summit. She did not provide further details.

Government minister Anne Ruston told the Senate the attempt to suspend standing orders reflected “a total disregard of other members of this chamber” and the regular order of business. Ruston said:

“We will not accept, we will not accept this absolutely blatant attempt to disrupt the order of business in this place.”

It doesn’t look like the Greens have Labor’s support to suspend standing orders, so it’s likely to fail.

For more on this issue, see the story by my colleagues Adam Morton, Katharine Murphy and Jessica Elgot:

Looks like the de-merger bill has all the support it needs to easily get across the line, as Paul Karp reports:

Labor will support the government’s plan to facilitate super-unions to break apart in “exceptional circumstances”, Tony Burke has said.

The shadow industrial relations minister confirmed on Tuesday morning that the shadow cabinet had approved draft legislation to expand the three-year window for amalgamated unions to demerge.

With opposition support the bill could pass as early as this week, allowing the break-up of the Construction Forestry Mining Maritime and Energy Union in the new year and isolating the militant maritime and construction divisions, including the Victorian construction secretary, John Setka.

Bill Kelty, the former Australian Council of Trade Union’s secretary and elder statesman of the labour movement, has also given his blessing, telling Guardian Australia there was “nothing wrong with divorce – even the Catholic church is accommodating it these days”.


Updated

Here is that motion Larissa Waters was tweeting about:

I seek leave to move the following motion –

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Melbourne from moving the following motion:

That the House:

(1) notes:

(a) the Prime Minister told Parliament on 3 December 2020 that Australia would be participating at the Climate Ambition Summit on 12 December 2020 and that ‘it will be a great opportunity to correct the mistruths … that are often presented’;

(b) the Climate Ambition Summit co-host and COP26 President Alok Sharma has stated that ‘announcements must show genuine progress from existing policies and Paris targets’ and that ‘there will be no space for general statements’; and

(c) reports today in the media that Australia does not have a confirmed speaking role at the summit; and

(2) calls on the Prime Minister to attend the House by 2.00 pm

Tuesday 8 December to make a statement to advise the House whether Australia is speaking at the Climate Ambition Summit and table any correspondence with the summit organisers relating to whether Australia is speaking at the summit.

Updated

The Greens are following up on the story we published a little earlier, asking for clarity over Scott Morrison’s participation at the climate summit hosted by the UK on 12 December.

Updated

Victorian Liberal MP supports gay conversion ban

Tim Smith is making sense.

It really is the season of surprises.

Via AAP:

Outspoken Liberal MP Tim Smith has urged his party to support new laws before the Victorian parliament that will outlaw gay conversion therapy, describing the practice as “demented”.

The party is expected to finalise its position on the legislation on Tuesday, at its first in-person party room meeting since the start of the pandemic.

Five backbenchers had reportedly demanded leader Michael O’Brien hold the meeting in person rather than via Zoom, so they could express their discontent about the party’s direction.

Ahead of the meeting, former federal Liberal vice-president Karina Okotel emailed all 31 Liberal MPs, arguing against controversial treatments such as electroconvulsive therapy.

But she described the government’s proposed ban on “prayer-based practice” as a threat to religious freedoms.

Smith said Okotel was trying to “browbeat” MPs to oppose the laws.

He said the party should not allow a conscience vote on the matter.

“This is pretty cut and dry. You are what you are. I read reports about people praying, or some such to stop people from being gay or some rubbish. I mean this is nonsense,” Mr Smith told reporters outside parliament.

“You know I prayed 20 years ago that I’d be six foot four, well I’m five ten.

“This is actually quite insane. It’s demented. You are what you are … We are all made in the image of God. Can I make that point as a very, very bad Anglican.”

Updated

NSW records no new locally acquired Covid cases

NSW has recorded a zero day in terms of locally acquired cases – there have been six people in hotel quarantine who have tested positive.

Updated

Lambie warns government to 'back it off' over Brereton report row

The independent senator Jacqui Lambie has warned the government to “back it off” on a proposal to strip special forces troops who served in Afghanistan of their meritorious unit citation in the wake of the Brereton report.

The proposal, first flagged by the chief of defence, Angus Campbell, was designed to ensure collective accountability across the special forces for the alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.

Lambie, speaking alongside veteran and advocacy campaigner Heston Russell in Canberra, said the decision was shameful and premature, given no one had been found guilty of any offence.

“This is very bullish, very bullish of the CDF, the minister of defence, and the prime minister. Quite frankly, if you gave a stuff about veteran suicides, you’d back it off. You’d back it off.”

Former Special Air Service Regiment soldier Heston Russell and Senator Jacqui Lambie in Canberra on Tuesday
Former Special Air Service Regiment soldier Heston Russell and Senator Jacqui Lambie in Canberra on Tuesday. Photograph: Sam Mooy/Getty Images

Russell said the prime minister asked the Queen to sign off on a regulatory change in July allowing the governor general to remove medals on the recommendation of the CDF or the defence minister.

A government spokesman has reportedly said the regulatory change had been in motion since 2015, but Russell said that did not “pass the pub test”.

The Brereton report found Australian special forces soldiers were involved in the alleged murder of 39 Afghan civilians or detainees.

All the killings were said to have occurred outside of the heat of the battle.

In a testy exchange with reporters at parliament house this morning, Russell, a former special forces soldiers who served in Afghanistan, questioned what was meant by the “heat of the battle”.

He was asked about vision showing an Australian special forces soldier shooting a cowering Afghan civilian in a field at point blank range.

“That situation in particular is indeed an allegation that I am going to afford the presumption of innocence, as opposed to the snapshot version put forward to the media,” he said.

Russell said Australia, unlike American or British troops, did not bomb villages in pursuit of individuals listed on target lists.

Instead, Australia sent out soldiers to capture or kill them under legal authority to avoid collateral damage to civilians, he said.

Updated

He ended with:

But most importantly, colleagues. I said we would keep Australians together. We are together as a team, and I believe we are together as a nation.

Australians have cleaved to each other this year. They have shown tremendous acts of kindness and sacrifice and devotion. And so as we come to the conclusion of this parliamentary year, let us think of all those Australians who quietly go about their daily lives, who quietly go about running their businesses and are thankful they still have one. They are thankful that those employees who are, I believe, often, if not their greatest joy in running their own business, to see someone who was given a livelihood by the work of their hands. What a great thing that is. What a great thing that is. That’s what our policies support – employees, employers together creating enterprise that create livelihoods and choices for Australians. That sits at the heart of our Liberal and National ethos.

So let’s take that, stronger, safer together into the New Year. It will carry us into the plans as we roll them out for the recovery as it continues. And there’ll be no shortage of challenges next year. The challenges of aged care – significant, but we will meet them. The challenges of our region and our, and the international uncertainties that are out there, the challenges of rolling out vaccines, the challenges of regional Australia, the challenges of ensuring that we get young people into jobs, in particular, that the skills training reforms are realised, that the heavy industries that sit around in our country get the energy they need to continue to be viable and create those jobs and the livelihoods they have sustained for generations.

That’s the certainty a Liberal-National government provides at a time of great uncertainty. And all of you have played an extraordinary role in achieving that this year.

Updated

Morrison:

But it’s not over yet. It’s a long way from over yet. Of course, the comeback has begun, but the recovery has still quite a journey ahead of us. And so, colleagues, what you have done to enable the Government, to be that certainty for Australians in a time of great uncertainty, I don’t want you to underestimate. The support that you have provided to me and to Michael and to Josh as we have brought our cabinet together and our ministry and our executive together and brought all of you together, brought the states and territories together, brought industry, brought employers, employees, representatives and others together. The support that you have provided to me, in particular, I’m deeply grateful for. You have enabled this government to be what it absolutely had to be for Australians this year and we must continue. We must continue, as we have this year, as we move into next year.

That stability, that unity of purpose, the selflessness of government, that is incredibly important. The humility of government is one that looks at what the needs of our community are, not what our interests are. And that is a mark of our government as well as being an ambition of our government at the same time and that’s what we must continue to strive to meet as we go into next year, thinking of always why we are here. It’s never about us. It’s always about those we have come here to serve.

Updated

Scott Morrison addresses party room

The last party room meetings of the year tend to be like the last school assembly – lots of looking back, looking forward, and twirling towards freedom.

Here is what Scott Morrison had to say to his colleagues:

Colleagues, this year has been like no other. Of course, for all of us, but more importantly and most significantly, for Australians all around the country. Their experiences have been different. But the one thing that has been constant, has been a trial for them. It has been hard and over the course of this year, Australians have probably looked to, and relied upon the strength and stability and unity of their government, more so than they have for many generations. They posed that question to us when this hit, and they looked to us to stand by them and see them through what for many has been the hardest year of their lives.

And as I have moved around and as you have moved around in your community, their answer and response to us has been; you have. But our response to them is simply to say thank you, because we know that the great strength of Australia is in its people and we know that the response that we have provided this year has not been about us. It’s been about them. It’s been about supporting them in their plans, in their resilience and what they were seeking to do to keep their businesses together, their families together, their communities together, their lives together. And they had a plan for doing that and we backed those plans in. And despite the challenges of this year, I believe Australia is stronger today than it was a year ago. And I believe Australia will be stronger again next year. Because Australians have been tried and Australians have passed the test and we have played our role in supporting them in that great challenge this year.

Prime minister Scott Morrison addresses a joint party room meeting at Parliament House in Canberra on Tuesday
Prime minister Scott Morrison addresses a joint party room meeting at Parliament House in Canberra on Tuesday. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Updated

House prices up 0.8% for September quarter

Property prices increased by 0.8% in the September quarter, the ABS reports:

All capital cities apart from Melbourne recorded a rise in residential property prices in the September quarter 2020. The rises in residential property prices were led by the Sydney (1.0%) and Brisbane (1.5%) property markets. Property prices fell 0.3% in Melbourne.

House prices rose 1.4% in Sydney and 1.6% in Brisbane, while attached dwelling prices rose 0.2% in Sydney and 1.3% in Brisbane.

Head of Prices Statistics at the ABS, Andrew Tomadini, said: “Results for Sydney and Brisbane are in line with housing market indicators. New lending commitments to households, auction clearance rates and sales transactions all improved during the September quarter.

“Property prices continued to fall in Melbourne in the September quarter, due to the impacts of Covid-19 restrictions. Melbourne house prices fell 0.3% and attached dwelling prices fell 0.2%.”

Through the 12 months to the September quarter 2020, residential property prices rose 4.5%, with rises in all capital cities except Darwin.

Updated

It should come as no surprise that alcohol lobby group Alcohol Beverages Australia is not impressed with the new drinking guidelines, which recommend people drink less.

CEO Andrew Wilsmore has released a statement:

“Australians should have no faith in these guidelines when they have cherry-picked a number for a woman who drinks three days a week as the advice for all Australians. This is a serious departure from previous guidelines which provided recommendations for an individual drinking across all days of the week.

Had the NHMRC not set out to deliberately lower the guidelines it would be advising men they could be consuming up to 20 drinks a week if they spread their drinking out over seven days.”

Updated

If you haven’t had a chance to read this story, you probably should:

Scott Morrison does not yet have a speaker’s spot at a global climate ambition summit this weekend despite telling parliament last week he intended to use an appearance at the event to “correct mistruths” about his government’s heavily criticised record on emissions reduction.

A government spokesman on Monday night said Australia had been invited to take part in the 12 December summit “both personally by [British] prime minister Boris Johnson during a phone call with prime minister Morrison, and again in writing by the leaders of hosting nations: the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Chile and also the United Nations”.

But diplomatic sources have told Guardian Australia there had been debate among the co-hosts including Britain – which is hosting the next major climate conference in Glasgow in 2021 and has taken a leading role in calling on countries to do more – as to whether Morrison should be approved to speak at the summit given the widespread view Australia is a laggard on climate commitments.

Save the Children wants to have youth voices heard in Australia’s climate policy debate, arguing young people are more impacted by the changes and deserve a louder voice.

CEO Paul Ronalds said Australia had failed to take the views of its younger generations into account – and instead, sought to discourage them:

No group is more vulnerable to impacts of climate change than children, yet Australia has not taken children’s views into account in making decisions about climate change.

In fact, they have actively discouraged children from expressing their views by participating in advocacy actions like the School Strikes 4 Climate.

The climate emergency is here and children’s voices must be heard given the immediate and long term impact it has for them.

Changes in temperature, air and water quality and nutrition have severe and long-term impacts on a child’s health, development and well-being.

The devastating Black Summer bushfires highlighted the horrific impact that disasters can have on children’s physical and mental wellbeing.”

Updated

The UK Covid vaccination program is being rolled out from today (which has been labelled V-day).

It’s the first country to begin using the Pfizer vaccine, after its regulators approved it last week.

Over 80s and health and care staff are first.

More than 60,000 people have died after being infected with Covid since the beginning of the pandemic

Australia will begin its program (at this stage) from March.

Updated

There are more than 4,000 alcohol related deaths in Australia each year. Alcohol is also responsible for about 70,000 hospital admissions. It makes sense the experts are looking at how much is safe for us to drink.

And a reminder – they are talking about standard drinks – not the glasses you pour.

So that is a shot of spirits. A standard glass of wine is about 1.5 drinks. A sparkling wine glass is 1.8 (I’ve done my RSA more than once). A beer is about 1.4 drinks.

It quickly adds up. More people than you would know struggle with alcohol. And before the libertarians wind themselves up about wowsers, they are guidelines, not orders. You do you, but just think about what you’re doing.

Updated

And in Victoria (also via Adam Morton)

Victoria’s publicly-owned forestry agency has been allowed to restart logging in bushfire-ravaged east Gippsland despite a warning from a regulator there was a risk of “serious and irreversible damage” to the state’s biodiversity.

A report released under freedom of information laws show the state’s conservation regulator twice wrote to VicForests during and after last summer’s catastrophic bushfires advising it should apply the “precautionary principle” when logging in the area.

Meanwhile, the planet has just recorded its hottest November on record.

Adam Morton wrote about Australia’s record-breaking spring a little earlier this month.

The whole planet experienced increased temperatures, according to the EU’s Climate Corpernicus project.

Updated

Apple is seeking to have an Australian court case brought by the makers of Fortnite over the 30% cut it takes on app store purchases stayed, claiming the developer contract signed in California prevents Epic Games from taking legal action elsewhere.

Fortnite was kicked off the Apple App Store and the Google Play store this year after seeking to circumvent the payment systems used in order to prevent both companies taking a slice of each payment made by Android and iOS users in the game.

Epic Games has since launched legal action against Apple in the US and Australia, and in Australia is claiming the ban is misuse of Apple’s market power.

In a case management hearing for the battle between the two tech giants in the federal court on Tuesday, Apple indicated it would attempt to stay the case, citing the agreement between the two companies.

But the court heard that competition law in Australia may mean the case could still be heard here.

Lawyers for Epic Games indicated they wanted the case heard in March, meaning the case would be heard before the US case, due for May.

Justice Nye Perram set tentative dates for the hearing of the case as either 23 March, 2021 or 16 April 2021, and disclosed he was an iPhone user:

It’ll come as no great surprise to you, I have an iPhone and I have an Apple Pay account. I don’t think that creates any difficulties.

Updated

Given that I had to put another blanket on my bed the other night, made worse after leaving Queensland’s glorious mid-30 temps …

Yes.

Updated

K’gari – Fraser Island – is still burning. It’s been almost two months now.

AAP has an update:

Residents of The Oakes, about a kilometre south of Happy Valley on Fraser Island, were late Monday night told to leave via Eastern Beach as soon as possible.

“We are hoping to have another 19 aircraft, including ... two large air tankers in use today as soon as we can get them in the air,” Queensland Fire and Emergency Services QFES co-ordinator Brian Cox told Nine’s Today show on Tuesday.

“We anticipate that around 7am this morning.

“We have already got ground crews there as we speak helping that particular township.”

Mr Cox said Monday’s intensive air and ground firefighting operation had borne fruit and effectively contained a fire to the north of Happy Valley.

“We saved the town,” he said.

The fires, which began in October, have burned through around half of the heritage-listed Fraser Island, also known as K’gari, and are burning in three areas.

People at the Kingfisher Bay resort and village on the island have also been told to prepare to leave as a fire to the east of the area threatened to get worse.

On Monday, about 90 firefighters and 24 water-bombing aircraft were trying to beat back the flames.

The NSW Rural Fire Service large air tanker, the Marie Bashir, is helping with water-bombing efforts on the island.

The fire on Fraser Island
The fire on Fraser Island. Photograph: QFES/Reuters

Updated

Laws to decriminalise public drunkenness tabled in Victorian parliament

The laws to decriminalise public drunkenness were tabled in the Victorian parliament today but they won’t take effect until 2022. The delay has been built in to give time for a health-based response to public drunkenness to be trialled, resourced and rolled out statewide.

According to a report released late last month, that could include sobering-up centres and ramping up Aboriginal health centres in remote communities to provide more alcohol and drug services. The eventual aim is that police will have no role, or a very minimal role, in responding to public drunkenness unless there is an imminent and serious threat of harm to the intoxicated person or another person.

The reform was introduced in response to the death in custody of the Yorta Yorta woman Tanya Day, who died due to a fall in police custody after being arrested for sleeping drunk on a train.

Tanya Day’s daughter holds a portrait of her mother
Tanya Day’s daughter holds a portrait of her mother. Photograph: David Crosling/AAP

A coronial inquest found that Day was “not treated with dignity and humanity” by supervising police officers, and concluded that her death “was clearly preventable had she not been arrested and taken into custody”.

Public drunkenness is now a crime under sections 13 to 16 of the Summary Offences Act 1966, covering the offences of being drunk in public and drunk and disorderly.

The summary offences amendment (decriminalisation of public drunkenness) bill 2020 will remove those offences. The 2020-21 state budget included $16m for a trial of a health-based response.

The health minister, Martin Foley, said:

We will build a health model that is culturally safe and appropriate – informed by the communities who this law has impacted the most.

Updated

Kevin Rudd has re-entered the chat.

Updated

The final party room address is taking place in the Great Hall – partly for social distancing reasons, and also partly for the photo op.

Updated

The final joint party room meeting of the year address is all about how well the government has done in shepherding Australia through the pandemic, so far (with the usual there-is-still-a-long-journey-ahead caveats)

Updated

It’s party room time, and Scott Morrison has let the cameras in to the joint-party room meeting to catch his opening address. He missed last week’s because he was still in quarantine at the Lodge.

Sky is broadcasting the speech – and also catching the MPs who are a little late, coming into the room behind the PM.

As someone who sees time as a very fluid construct, I sympathise.

Updated

The Liberal Bass MP, Bridget Archer, could have brought about an end to the cashless welfare card legislation yesterday if she had voted against the bill, instead of abstaining from voting.

Archer gave a strong speech last week laying out why she was against her party’s policy, which gained a lot of attention.

Bridget Archer in parliament last week
Bridget Archer in parliament last week. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

But she was absent during the vote yesterday. A tied vote usually ends with the status quo continuing – it is practice that the Speaker does not use the casting vote to create a majority where there isn’t one. The status quo in this case would mean the bill would have been defeated.

The Labor MP Brian Mitchell said it was the communities impacted by the bill who would really suffer:

I just wanted to say this issue isn’t about Bridget Archer, this is about the people who are most affected by income management. So I come here more in sorrow than anger. Bridget gave a really impassioned and quite beautiful speech when she articulated a lot of things, I think many of us felt about why this bill should not proceed. And I’m frankly just really disappointed that where she had the opportunity to kill this bill in the House of Representatives, Bridget Archer’s vote would have killed this bill in the House of Reps, and she didn’t stand by the courage of her conviction that she articulated quite beautifully. So this isn’t about Bridget Archer, this is about the people who are now affected by a very punitive income management regime.

Updated

The Labor MP Pat Conroy is in not having any of it this morning.

The Shortland MP was asked whether Scott Morrison should have given an apology in person, after wrongly claiming Kevin Rudd had received travel exemptions during the pandemic.

Conroy was one of the MPs sent out to chat about Labor’s narrative today – here is some of what he said about the prime minister:

Mr Morrison could have owned up to the fact and just gone into parliament and spent 30 seconds correcting the record and apologising. Instead, because the guy is a gutless coward, he sent a letter to the clerk at about eight o’clock last night. That is not befitting the leader of this country. It just shows that he is all about politics. He’s all spin and there’s no substance there.

Updated

Linda Burney spoke to Sky News this morning about the cashless debit card bill.

As we reported yesterday, it will come down to the crossbench and, in this case, one vote – Rex Patrick’s.

Yesterday he said he still had some questions.

Burney was urging him to listen to the people he had spoken to about what making the card permanent would mean:

And I have to say on your program this morning, that I am not sure how Mr Patrick will vote. I will say though, that he’s taken the time to go and talk to people.

He’s been to the Northern Territory, and he’s also been to Ceduna in South Australia. This card is punitive. People don’t want it.

And it is absolutely a decision that the government has taken without any evidence.

And I think that’s really key. Without evidence, the government has decided they’re going to go on this mad romp.

And the question really is, and I’ll put this in front of you – the question really is, is this a precursor to a national rollout of welfare, mandatory welfare management for people who are in receipt of essential security payment?

Updated

The childcare group G8 Education is the latest big Australian company to admit to systematically underpaying its employees.

The company has this morning told the ASX it has underpaid up to 27,000 employees for the past six years and it would cost as much as $80m to repay them.

It said it had discovered the underpayment after a review undertaken with the assistance of the law firm Allens and the accountancy firm PwC.

The attorney general, Christian Porter, has introduced legislation that (among other things) would make wage theft illegal, but it would be unlikely to capture what’s happened at G8 because it would only criminalise deliberate underpayment, not stuff-ups.

G8 says the underpayment was “inadvertent” and has reported itself to the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Its chief executive, Gary Carroll, said the company unreservedly apologised to every underpaid staff member and pledged they would get “every dollar” they are owed.

It’s not the only problem facing the company – it’s also the target of a shareholder class action, filed by the law firm Slater & Gordon, over its woeful profit results, and the former chair Jenny Hutson is also being prosecuted by Asic over alleged dishonesty during a corporate takeover back in 2015. She’s fighting the charges.

Updated

There is a new “parliamentary friends” group in town.

Joel Fitzgibbon and Phil Thompson (the “friends” bit comes from being bipartisan) have started a parliamentary friends of defence honours and citations group.

There is already a parliamentary friends of defence – Pat Conroy and Vince Connelly. The new friends group is designed to help people better understand the honours and awards defence personnel receive, and why.

There are parliamentary friendship groups for almost anything – including soil. You can find the list here.

Updated

Victoria reports no new Covid cases

The numbers to watch in Victoria will be locally acquired, now that the state has rejoined the local quarantine program.

The zero in total streak will be broken, so it will be local cases we are focusing on.

Updated

Earlier, Dave Sharma said the debate about China often fell into overly simplistic categorisations – either full engagement with China involving “some element of capitulation” or the alternative of “containment and hostility”.

The situation was a lot more complex, he said, noting that China represented a quarter of the world’s population and deserved to have a say in how the world is run:

We can’t shun China, we can’t lock China out of the world economy.

While Sharma did not think China would ever be a fully paid up member of the liberal international order, the world must find a way to work with Beijing on issues like climate change, public health and arms control.

Sharma said Australia should recognise it was “a particular focus of China’s statecraft and diplomacy right now” but was not the only country to have faced pressure.

He believed the People’s Republic was worried about “the demonstration effect” to other western nations if Australia stood firm and refused to be intimidated, coerced or bullied.

He pushed back at commentary that sometimes implied there was some “easy reset” available to Australia as it dealt with China. “It’s not the case,” Sharma said, arguing there were “very profound structural reasons” behind the tensions.

For more on what Tim Watts and Sharma have argued, you can see our preview story here:

Updated

The Labor MP Tim Watts says it’s hard to know what the Australian government’s plan is for dealing with a changing China.

Speaking at a China Matters breakfast event alongside the Liberal MP Dave Sharma at Parliament House this morning, Watts said the government too often seemed more interested in the “lure” of domestic politics or media headlines.

As an example of foreign policy being seen through domestic politics, Watts cited the idea of moving Australia’s embassy in Israel that was announced during a byelection (that would be the Wentworth byelection that Sharma contested).

Watts also cited the report that Marise Payne, the foreign affairs minister, had called for an international Covid-19 inquiry because she wanted an announcement for during her scheduled interview with the ABC’s Insiders program in April.

Watts said the opposition wanted to be constructive but added: “Bipartisanship is a two-way street and requires engagement from the government to make a reality.”

He added: “We need leadership and we need a plan.”

Updated

This would make sense, given that domestic borders have only just reopened.

Updated

Canada criticises China over tweet

Canada has criticised Beijing for spreading “inflammatory material and disinformation” about Australia as it declared it would keep working with Canberra on issues related to China.

Over the past week Guardian Australia has contacted a range of embassies and governments seeking their response to the issue that brought relations between China and Australia to a new low last week.

Christelle Chartrand, a spokeswoman for Global Affairs Canada, responded this morning with the following comments:

We were shocked to see the fabricated image posted by a Chinese government official.

The dissemination of such inflammatory material and disinformation is beneath the standards of proper diplomatic conduct.

As both 5 Eyes allies and as liberal democracies, Canada and Australia are collaborating very closely on important issues related to China.

Canada continues to engage with China with eyes wide open while defending our interests and standing up for our values.

China rebuffed Scott Morrison’s demand for an apology over a tweeted image depicting an Australian soldier cutting the throat of a child in Afghanistan but a number of countries, including the UK, the US, France, Germany, New Zealand – along with the EU – offered public statements condemning the tweet.

Japan’s embassy also reaffirmed trade should not be used as a political tool.

The Chinese government has accused Morrison of overhyping the issue for domestic political reasons and to distract from the war crimes allegations against Australian soldiers in Afghanistan.

Many of the statements issued by Australia’s allies or partners point to Australia’s commitment to full and transparent investigations into those allegations.

Updated

Scott Morrison may have written a letter apologising for claiming Kevin Rudd had received travel exemptions during the pandemic (Rudd hasn’t left Queensland since March) but Tony Burke thinks he needs to go further and actually verbalise the apology.

He just stopped by for a quick doorstop interview:

The prime minister has got a problem with the truth. He’s got a problem with the truth. And whenever he sees an opportunity for a political fight, he just instinctively goes there. That’s what happened yesterday. He didn’t like the question, he made clear he didn’t like it.

So he had to have a political attack, even when it wasn’t true.

That’s who our prime minister is, that’s who Mr Morrison is.

Now for a long time it’s been the tradition that if you make an error in the parliament, you report and apologise for that error in the parliament.

I remember sitting in the chamber during adjournment debate when John Howard walked back down to explain he misheard a question on climate change, what he said was incorrect and he corrected the record.

But Mr Morrison usually has a view that the rules that might have been good enough for John Howard, he’s too good for.

So we’ll see how he handles that. The correct thing to do is to have the decency to go back to where you made the error in that room and apologise.

Updated

A Caboolture meatworks, Meramist, has become the sixth Australian beef supplier to be cut off from China.

No reason has been given for cutting the Queensland company off.

A Meramist sign
The entrance to the Meramist abattoir in Caboolture. Photograph: Jono Searle/AAP

Updated

New South Wales residents can fly to WA without quarantine from today. Same with those in Victoria.

It has been a very, very long wait for those people, so we’re absolutely thrilled for everyone who is about to be reunited.

South Australians will move to WA’s “low risk” category from Thursday – for which entry is allowed but quarantine is mandatory.

Queensland will open its border to Adelaide residents from Saturday – which means Queensland will have joined the jurisdictions with freedom of movement to all Australians, domestically.

Updated

Labor wants an inquiry into rightwing terrorism in Australia.

Kristina Keneally said Australia was the “only Five Eyes country that has not listed any right-wing extremist groups as terrorist organisations, even though countries such as Canada and the UK have listed groups that have local chapters here in Australia”.

Senator Kristina Keneally
Senator Kristina Keneally. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

So she wants a bipartisan parliamentary committee to examine it:

ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess said in February that Australia’s primary terrorist threat remains Islamic extremism, but that right-wing extremism is growing and that there are groups and people around Australia saluting Nazi flags and gathering weapons.

ASIO has also indicated publicly, in recent months that a right-wing extremist attack in Australia is possible and that right-wing extremism now accounts for over 30-40% of its counterterrorism work.

On Friday, the Australian Federal Police confirmed they are watching the right-wing extremist threat carefully, that young Australians are being “aggressively radicalised” through right-wing extremism, and right-wing extremists have more ready access to weapons than Islamic extremists.

Australia cannot ignore this rising terrorist threat.

An inquiry by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security is an appropriate start.

Updated

One of the security guards who helped prevent international travellers who accidentally escaped quarantine in Sydney from entering Melbourne has spoken out, detailing the bizarre experience to the Age.

Peter Mikha was the duty manager in Melbourne airport on Saturday afternoon when one of his guards called him on the radio and said he had found two German travellers who were confused and looking for where to quarantine.

Until yesterday Melbourne had not accepted any returned international travellers since July. A NSW police officer allegedly believed the travellers had an exemption and ushered them towards the domestic terminal to fly to Melbourne rather than sending them to ahotel to isolate for two weeks.

Mikha said he was in disbelief when he was told they were in Melbourne airport.

“He said, ‘I’ll ask them again and I’ll confirm 100%.’ They still advised him it was definitely no quarantine in Sydney,” he told the Age.

“If [the travellers] didn’t find the right person to talk to they could have been directed anywhere.... When [the other guard] advised me, he was shocked as well, he didn’t realise this was possible.”

This bungle caused 170 people who flew to Melbourne with the pair to isolate. The travellers have so far returned negative tests.

Victoria’s hotel quarantine program restarted on Monday. The Herald-Sun has reported today that one of the first new international travellers is already symptomatic, potentially ending the state’s 38-day streak without any cases (locally acquired or otherwise).

Updated

Families have called for a royal commission into veteran suicides – something Jacqui Lambie has been fighting for, and Labor is now on board supporting – but the government is not budging.

But Christian Porter has announced the national commissioner for defence and veteran suicide prevention legislation will be strengthened:

Amendments to be introduced into the Senate this week will:

  • further reinforce the independence of the National Commissioner;
  • confirm the National Commissioner’s role extends to considering attempted suicides and other lived experiences;
  • incorporate a requirement for a review of the National Commissioner function after three years;
  • acknowledge the valuable contribution that families and others affected by deaths by suicide will make to the National Commissioner’s work, where they wish to contribute;
  • confirm the National Commissioner’s ability to make recommendations about support services for families and others affected by a suicide death.

Updated

According to the AIHW, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are now less likely to die of cardiovascular disease. In 2006 the age standardised death rate for cardiovascular disease in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people was 323 for every 100,000. In 2018 it was 229 for every 100,000.

Cardiovascular disease is the second leading cause of death among Indigenous people, causing 23% of deaths. In 2016 16% of all Indigenous Australians aged two and over had a cardiovascular condition, and rates of cardiovascular disease among Indigenous adults are double those of non-Indigenous adults.

The AIHW report, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health performance framework, attributed the reduced death rate from cardiovascular disease to falling rates of smoking – the number of Indigenous people who smoke daily has fallen and the number of Indigenous teenagers who have never smoked has risen – as well a significant increase in the number of patients hospitalised for procedures involving coronary heart disease.

In other good news, immunisation rates are up significantly. Some 97% of five-year-old Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are fully immunised — that’s a higher rate of vaccination than the general population.

Updated

Indigenous suicide rate rises 49% in past decade, report finds

The suicide rate for Indigenous Australians has increased by 49% over the past decade, according to a report released overnight by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

The report found rates of suicide among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peopels had grown from 18 for every 100,000 in 2006 to 24 for every 100,000 in 2018.

Rates of hospitalisation due to intentional self-harm have also skyrocketed, increasing by 120% for Indigenous women and girls between 2004-05 and 2017-18, and by 81% for Indigenous men and boys over the same period.

Rates of hospitalisation after an assault also increased by more than 60%.

And rates of imprisonment for Indigenous adults increased by 61% over the past decade, compared with a growth of 36% in the imprisonment rate for non-Indigenous adults. In 2018 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were jailed at 12 times the rate of non-Indigenous people.

The rate at which Indigenous children were held in youth justice detention did fall in the seven years to 2018 but 47% of all kids in detention are Indigenous.

And the household income for Indigenous Australians has increased in real terms from $544 a week in 1996 to $802 a week in 2016 — meaning that it took 20 years to catch up to the average non-Indigenous household income, which was $801 a week in 1996 and $1096 a week in 2016.

The report was released on the heels of a Productivity Commission report, which contained the same depressing statistics. But the AIHW report also contained some good news, which I’ll explain after the jump.

Updated

Good morning

One down – three to go.

Parliament ended yesterday with Scott Morrison writing to the Speaker to apologise for telling parliament the former prime minister Kevin Rudd had left the country during the pandemic and returned, in response to a Labor question about stranded Australians –and Tony Abbott’s travels.

That won’t be the end of the issue. There are still thousands of Australians trying to get home, and Morrison had set the goal of having people home by Christmas. More people have been added to the queue since he made that pronouncement but there are still people on the list who have been trying to get home since before he set the target. You don’t have to look far to see stories of heartbreak and desperation from people who have been trying to get their families home but keep finding themselves bumped from flights.

International arrivals started back in Melbourne yesterday and today planes begin arriving Adelaide again, which will help bump up the caps on arrivals the states have imposed but still leaves thousands of people on wait lists for flights. Expect to hear more on that today.

It’s party room meeting day, which means we’ll get some more legislation from the government – among those bills will be the media bargaining code, which is aimed at making the tech giants pay for the journalism they use. Josh Frydenberg briefed backbenchers on the bill yesterday. SBS and the ABC are now included but Google and Facebook have won some concessions too. We haven’t seen the detail – that will come today – so we don’t know whether it has reached a point that Labor and the Greens will support it, which would ease its transition through the Senate.

We’ll keep you updated on that and everything else that happens today. You have Amy Remeikis with you (Mike Bowers is still on assignment) and Katharine Murphy, Paul Karp and Daniel Andrews in Canberra, with the rest of the Guardian brains trust at your disposal.

Let’s get into it.

Updated

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
The Hidden Threat in Your Pantry Why the FDA Is Recalling Ground Cinnamon
Baking a batch of cookies or sprinkling spice on your morning oatmeal feels entirely safe. You assume the dry powders sitting in your pantry are immune to the contamination issues that plague fresh meat and produce. Recent announcements from the Food and Drug Administration completely shatter that comforting illusion. A…
Grocery Coupon Guide
Grocery Coupon Guide
The Guide #237: Fab 5 Freddy, the street artist at the heart of New York’s creative zenith
A new memoir by Fred Brathwaite offers an insight into the city’s emerging underground scene in the 70s and 80s – and shows us the power of subcultures in difficult times
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
The two lives of Chuck Norris
“Chuck Norris doesn’t do push-ups. He simply pushes the world down.”
The Conversation
The Conversation
The Zendaya Romance The Drama Is Weirder and More Uncomfortable Than You Expect
A movie about marriage, memory, and the difficulty of knowing another person.
Reason
Reason
Simply the best: A connoisseurs guide to the finest Belgian chocolate this Easter
Eggs have been a long-standing symbol for Easter, but when did chocolate enter the holiday scene? Rebecca Spezzano has been on the streets of Brussels to discover the secrets of luxury handmade Belgian chocolate.
Euronews
Euronews
Nearly a century of wondering: The American UFO saga, in reality and in fiction
UFOs have intrigued people for decades, with sightings and investigations dating back to the first widely reported one in 1947
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.
Download on the AppStore Get it on Google Play