Good night and good luck
The capital A Absurd hearing of the intelligence committee is grinding on but we will part ways for now to seek solace in the evening before personing up for a big day tomorrow, Tuesday.
Let’s wrap Monday.
- The House of Representatives gained a new Speaker in Tony Smith after the former Speaker Bronwyn Bishop vacated her post due to controversy over entitlements.
- Smith indicated he would take steps to inject less partisanship in the chamber – he would no longer attend party room meetings and he would meet regularly with various stakeholders in the parliament, not simply police the chamber for the benefit of the government of the day.
-
Bronwyn Bishop wore her fall from the chair in typically uncompromising fashion and the prime minister looked like he’d endured a particularly traumatic event.
- MPs also said farewell to Don Randall, the Western Australian Liberal MP who died suddenly of a heart attack. Tributes were paid and a few tears shed.
- In the Senate, cross bencher Jacqui Lambie shared news that her 21-year-old son struggled with an addiction to the drug ice. The contribution came during a welfare policy debate.
- Late in the afternoon, rhetorical blows were traded in the intelligence committee over the government’s citizenship revocation regime, which sounded more bizarre with every bit of explanation.
That will do us for today. Thanks for your fine company, Mikearoo and I are delighted to be back after the winter break. Let’s do it again in the morning.
Now secretary Pezzullo is speaking about small ‘e’ evidence – the non-capitalised sense of evidence.
I kid you not.
Pezzullo considers the matter of dual outcomes. He says it is possible that an administrative process could deliver a different outcome to a court proceeding.
Mike Pezzullo:
Thinking it through it logically, the answer would be yes.
The officials are now explaining that the relevant portfolio minister has no discretion to intervene in the administrative process (described in the post below) that delivers the ultimate outcome: stripping a citizen of their citizenship – except if he or she subsequently rescinds the notice on public interest grounds.
Dreyfus bowls up a scenario. What happens if a person suspected of terrorism-related activity is cleared by a court in a prosecution process that happens at the same time as the administrative process regarding a revocation. What if the person doesn’t get a criminal conviction recorded but the administrative decision results in a citizenship revocation? Katherine Jones from the attorney-general’s department thinks this example is hypothetical.
Small ‘d’ decision-making. Mike Pezzullo, secretary of the immigration department.
Dreyfus, persisting.
Q: Can I just start again. The decision that’s going to be made ... is going to be made by a group of public servants. So far so good?
Pezzullo:
They are pulling together an information brief that they are satisfied that conduct has occurred.
Pezzullo is talking now about small ‘d’ decisions. Public servants will assemble a brief with a small ‘d’ decision.
Penny Wong notes that everyone is happy to speak about non-capitalised decisions.
Dreyfus:
You’ll do it confidentially?
Pezzullo:
Most of it would be what we’d describe as classified.
Dreyfus:
Then a briefing to the minister? The minister then signs a form that can deprive an Australian of their citizenship?
Pezzullo agrees with that proposition, more or less.
Possibly more less than more.
(This is a giant trolling exercise, this hearing. It’s absurd.)
Dreyfus asks whether the minister has to tell the Australian whose citizenship has been revoked.
The answer to the question is no, they don’t.
Pezzullo:
It’s not a requirement of the legislation for the person themselves to be notified.
Members of the committee are trying to fathom how a person would be stripped of their citizenship. They are becoming frustrated by secretary Pezzullo’s metaphors. Dreyfus tells Pezzullo he doesn’t want legal processes explained to him or tribunal processes explained, he just wants to understand what is proposed by this bill.
Dreyfus referenced a new submission from the Australian Bar Association which raised more questions about the constitutionality of the government’s citizenship proposal. In short:
ABA president, Fiona McLeod:
Currently, a person can be stripped of their citizenship under section 35 of the Australian Citizenship Act if they serve in the armed forces of an enemy country.
The government’s new anti-terrorism law seeks to broaden the scope of that offence to include, among other things, service with a declared terrorist organisation.
The government’s bill uses a legal sleight of hand. It proposes that citizenship is renounced (or ceases) automatically by the conduct of the citizen, but clearly a government official must still make a determination that an offence has actually occurred.
The Australian Constitution clearly states that such a determination can only be made by a court of law after a trial in which a defendant is accorded the usual protections of the rule of law including a presumption of innocence, the presentation of charges, an opportunity to defend those charges and a right to appeal.
A person should only lose citizenship if they have been convicted by a court of law of a relevant offence, such as an act of terrorism directed at Australians.
Intelligence committee opens on a rolling boil
Parliament’s intelligence committee has just begun a hearing this afternoon into the government’s citizenship revocation laws. Mike Pezzullo, immigration department secretary, is in the chair, with officials from the attorney-general’s department.
Pezzullo is confirming to the shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus that the JPCIS will not be given the Solicitor-General’s advice about whether or not the bill is constitutional. Repeat that. Not, be given the advice. Dreyfus says not getting this advice is a problem given the evidence from legal experts that the bill may be unconstitutional. He’s not sure how the committee can proceed.
Committee chair, Liberal Dan Tehan, chips Dreyfus. The committee will determine how to proceed, he says.
Labor’s Penny Wong pipes up from the table. She says Tehan has written that he believes the bill is constitutional. Wong wants to know whether or not some people on the committee have the government advice and not others.
Penny Wong:
Did some people get a copy of the advice?
Tehan is not amused.
Wong:
You are saying trust us, that right?
Not a silly question at all ..
@murpharoo Silly Qn probs but why no QT in Reps today? Related to Condolence? Also any pics coming of Smithy in the Big Chair @mpbowers ?
— Viscount Hinemoa (@pananian) August 10, 2015
No #qt in the Reps today because of the Randall debate.
And as for the picture – I can’t believe I didn’t post this before. Actually thought I had. Apologies!
Tony in the Big Chair.
This and that, continuing.
The news wire service AAP is reporting this afternoon that pay TV company Foxtel is facing a backlash from some subscribers after it decided to screen advertisements opposing same-sex marriage. The ads, created by anti-gay marriage group Marriage Alliance, were knocked back by the Seven and Ten networks but have been screened by the pay TV provider. People took to Facebook to vent their anger, with many saying they would cancel their Foxtel subscription.
Same sex marriage is obviously a hot political topic over this sitting fortnight with the emergence of the cross party bill. While some vented a Foxtel, others took to Facebook to express their creativity.
Kate Doak has shared with me her effort to spread a little yes on a little no when it comes to marriage equality.
Enjoy.
Let’s catch up on this and that. While we were tuned in to Senate question time surrealism my colleague Lenore Taylor has published a story leading in to the cabinet consideration of the post-2020 emission reductions targets this afternoon.
Take it away Lenore ..
The Abbott government has commissioned its own secret modelling of the economic cost of different long-term greenhouse emission targets to be debated by cabinet on Monday, and it is understood to show more ambitious goals would not cost much more than modest ones.
Guardian Australia understands the Department of Foreign Affairs has commissioned leading economist and former Reserve Bank board member Warwick McKibbin to model the costs from the industrial and electricity sectors of various post-2020 targets being considered by the current government, between 20% and 35% of 2005 levels by 2030.
McKibbin also modelled the impacts on Australia of climate commitments made by other countries.
The foreign minister, Julie Bishop, and Hunt are understood to have argued, during an earlier cabinet debate, for a reduction of between 25% and 28% on 2005 levels by 2030 – but others in cabinet have expressed concern that the government won’t get any political credit for taking on an ambitious goal.
Sources familiar with the McKibbin modelling said it showed little difference in the economic impact of the various targets on the table. McKibbin declined to comment when contacted by Guardian Australia.
To sleep, perchance to dream. Liberal senator James McGrath veers into post modernity with Fairfax reporter Mark Ludlow.
@M_Ludlow: @JamesMcGrathLNP I was having a cheery dream about QT and woke-up to find myself in QT.
— James McGrath (@JamesMcGrathLNP) August 10, 2015
Fortunately for all of us, further questions have been placed on the notice paper.
Speaking of the intelligence committee, as we were in the last post, a hearing of that committee is scheduled for this afternoon. I’ll look in on that in a bit.
Labor senator Jacinta Collins is tangling with the attorney-general George Brandis over the Man Monis letter in the lead up to the Sydney siege.
Brandis is very irritated. He suggests that Collins might be pre-empting proper parliamentary consideration by bringing this debate into the chamber. (Pretty brave line of reasoning this, from Brandis, given the head of parliament’s intelligence committee, Dan Tehan, has publicly backed the government’s proposing citizenship revocation legislation while simultaneously presiding over a committee inquiry into the substance of the self same legislation. If I were Brandis, I’d probably avoid complaining too much about pre-emption, given events in his own portfolio.)
Brandis would like to make another contribution if he could be heard over ...
.. the shrill hysterical shrieking of senator Wong.
Green leader Richard Di Natale thinks Brandis might think about rephrasing language unbecoming of a government minister.
I invite him to withdraw.
I didn’t hear any withdrawal.
Liberal senator Arthur Sinodinos wants frontbencher Marise Payne (who represents trade minister Andrew Robb in the chamber) whether there are any threats to the China/Australia free trade agreement.
Marise Payne:
I could just look across the chamber and say it’s just there.
(She means the ALP.)
(I refuse to call this agreement CHAFTA, which is what the politicians call it. CHAFTA is a shocker.)
A Dorothy Dixer about boat turnbacks. You can’t believe Labor on boat turnbacks. Liberal senator Michaelia Cash:
Senator Wong could not even cast her own vote against turn backs, she sent a proxy in!
(This is tracking back to the ALP conference a couple of weeks ago, where Bill Shorten informed the assembled comrades Labor in government wanted flexibility to perform turn backs in the event they won the election.)
Abetz is being asked now about a Productivity Commission inquiry which paves the way for winding back Sunday penalty rates. Does Abetz agree with the prime minister that this is a matter that should be looked at? Then, from Labor’s Jenny McAllister – does Abetz support cutting penalty rates or other working conditions.
Eric Abetz:
In very brief terms the answer to that is no ... but ..
Richard Di Natale has a couple of supplementaries about coal mining. The supplementaries give Abetz the opportunity to note that coal is good for humanity. Or equivalent.
Greens leader Richard Di Natale would like Abetz to confirm that the Abbott government will take a sub-optimal emissions reduction target to Paris at the end of the year courtesy of the cabinet’s deliberations this afternoon.
Abetz says of course, let me just share the cabinet material.
NOT.
(Eric had me going there for a minute, I confess.)
Possibly this means something to occupants of the red room.
Caught doing my question time prep with @linessue. Connoisseurs of Peppa Pig will recognise Mr Bull. The QT mascot. pic.twitter.com/IDFOa2wys2
— Sam Dastyari (@samdastyari) August 10, 2015
A Dorothy Dixer to Abetz on how the government’s agenda is currently serving job creation. Thus far we have been more about Labor’s double dealing than job creation.
Labor’s Doug Cameron would like to know whether the employment minister Eric Abetz supports sacking workers via text message. He’s speaking about a current dispute involving Hutchison Ports Australia.
Abetz says Cameron is quoting half sentences and that is a diminishing exercise.
The employment minister says he’s about respect.
Cameron says he’s about Abetz answering the question.
Abetz comes back with a reference to the relevant enterprise bargaining arrangement covering maritime workers that specifies that text message is the desired form of communication.
Question time
It being 2pm. The red room is thrashing about for question time. Labor has opened on the valley of death. First question is about ship building in South Australia – Labor thinks the government may be having a lend of the good voters of South Australia with new pledges last week on naval shipbuilding.
The attorney-general George Brandis thinks this is absurd. The prime minister made an historic announcement last Tuesday that will protect jobs for all time, he says.
There is a great deal of shouty going on down there presently.
The Senate has been debating changes to the Social Security Act since the chamber recommenced this morning. The changes would take away welfare payments for people in psychiatric institutions who have been charged with a serious offence like rape, manslaughter or murder. The changes will apply to people who have not yet been convicted, or who are deemed not well enough to stand trial by the courts.
Payments will continue for people who are confined and charged of non-serious crimes and who are undertaking rehabilitation. The bill says that welfare payments will resume if the person is later successfully integrated into society.
Jacqui Lambie reveals 21 year old son has a drug problem
Let’s track away to the other chamber now. Presently the Senate is considering welfare legislation. Labor is opposing the bill in its current form.
A bit earlier today in this debate, one of the Senate cross benchers, Jacqui Lambie, told the chamber her 21-year-old son has a drug problem. Lambie was expressing concern about the impact of the legislation on people like her son. She says she can’t support it.
I am a senator of Australia and I have a 21-year old son that has a problem with ice, and yet even with my title I have no control over my son. I can’t involuntarily detox my own son, because I am not talking to my son anymore, I’m talking to a drug. And I can tell you, I’m not the only parent out there. There (are) thousands of us.
It’s very easy to take a populist position and vote for legislation which takes a hardline against people who are alleged to have committed terrible crimes and have serious mental illnesses.
I’m going to take the hard road on this issue and vote against the government legislation. In this debate I think the govt has forgotten that the people affected by this legislation have already been assessed by the courts and deemed to be very ill.
Australian parents have the right to speak to their children, not the drug, when they’re trying to put them back on the straight and narrow.
(Thanks to my colleague Shalailah Medhora for these quotes.)
Communications minister Malcolm Turnbull is getting emotional, as he does fairly often during debates of this nature. He says to the Randall family, watching on in the chamber, that no one should lose their father in the prime of life.
Turnbull:
He was a great man, Mr Speaker, we all miss him. He was absolutely authentic. Nothing other than himself.
Updated
Politics, this lunchtime
Another terrific picture from Mike Bowers – the prime minister gathering his thoughts during the Randall debate this morning.
Let’s take stock of Monday morning:
- MPs have ended their winter break and returned to Canberra for the spring session. At Canberra airport, they were greeted by a giant hashtag urging a prompt and positive consideration of same sex marriage in the coming fortnight.
- The first duty today was the selection of a new Speaker of the House of Representatives given the previous occupant of the position, Bronwyn Bishop, struck some winter break turbulence about her parliamentary entitlements.
- The new Speaker chosen by the Liberal partyroom was Tony Smith, the Victorian Liberal. Smith signalled first up he would tone down the partisanship from the Speaker’s chair, starting with a symbolic and practical gesture – he would no longer attend meetings of his partyroom.
- The prime minister, who stopped to deliver a consoling kiss on the cheek of Bronwyn Bishop in front of the waiting cameras, looked somewhat downbeat courtesy of the day’s events. He remarked to Smith in the chair that he had won the Speaker’s ballot because he’d been dumped from the ministry and people rallied to his cause. It wasn’t quite that blunt, but it was almost that blunt.
- The House then rolled forward into a debate remembering the WA Liberal MP Don Randall, who died after suffering a heart attack a couple of weeks ago.
- This afternoon, cabinet is due to consider new post 2020 emissions targets for the UN-led climate talks in Paris later this year.
Rolling, rolling, rolling – keep those updates rolling. Politics Liiiivvvvveeee.
Updated
Environment minister Greg Hunt.
Our party has lost a wonderous campaigner and Canning has lost its voice.
Later, anecdotally, relaying a request from Randall during a visit out west.
I want you to roll up your sleeves and feel the heat in this compost.
(I think it might be time to post a summary.)
When Don exposed something stupid you might have done, he didn’t miss.
This is Andrew Robb, the current trade minister, but in this context reflecting on his period as Liberal party campaign director in 1996, when Randall was one of the party’s marginal seats candidates.
Here is Bill Shorten’s speech.
On behalf of the opposition, I join the prime minister in offering our condolences to Don’s family and friends, following his sudden passing. Perhaps the hardest part of grieving an early death and a sudden loss, is the sense of unfinished conversations, of words left unsaid… Of contemplating that children may one day now have to explain to their own children, about their grandfather and his achievements.
So our sympathies are with all who loved Don Randall. All members were shocked by Don’s passing. And those most affected will doubtless be feeling a fresh wave of loss today, on returning to this place and seeing his seat empty marked by a white rose.
You have my sympathies.
Mr Speaker, in his first speech in this place, Don Randall paid tribute to his grandparents. Who, in his words: “came to a block of uncleared land with a tent, an axe and a toddler. Like other Australians at this time, they survived the rigours of drought, recession, depression and war. In the face of adversity and difficult times, it was these types of Australians who helped form this great nation.”
These were the qualities that Don admired: resilience, individual enterprise and family loyalty. Self-reliance in hard times and fair reward for hard work. There was, of course, much on which Don Randall and the Labor party disagreed, often very deeply. But personally not for one moment did I doubt the strength of his convictions, or his advocacy.
He was, as the prime minister says, his own man – and acted in line with his own views. I know from my personal conversations with Don Randall that he had many sides. Some are well known – such as his fierce love of family. Some less well known, as his abiding interest in special education.
I regret now that I never followed up his invitation for Gary Gray and I to have lunch with him and his great mate Steve Irons. Perhaps there is a lesson for all of us. Not to always waste so much energy upon our disagreements.
But Mr Speaker, so often in this place, when we pause to pay respects to the life of a former member, we quote from their valedictory speech. Normally we look to the valedictory for a sense of achievements in which the member took most pride…. The fierce battles they fought and won… The opponents they respected… And the people to whom they owed the deepest debt of gratitude: families, friends, mentors.
Don Randall, has left us without a valedictory. His final speech in this place was a 90 second statement, delivered before question time on the Tuesday of our last sitting week. Yet this brief minute and a half tells us much about Don Randall. It contained a fierce attack on the former Labor government…and the current Labor opposition.
The member for Perth, Don’s long-time sparring partner, was the beneficiary of free advice. But most of all – and indeed best of all – it is a speech focused positively on the citizens of Canning. The community that Don Randall put ahead of party and personal advancement.
Don Randall was always Canning ahead of Canberra. He was a local member: first, last and always. And we should take note that a man with such a strong sense of local identity and pride still believed the best way to serve his community was in this place.
He believed, to his final day, that our democracy mattered, that parliament counted for something – that the measure of political life was the difference you made to the lives of the people you served.
Mr Speaker, politics is a calling to which many are drawn. But few ever know the privilege of standing in this chamber. Fewer still represent their communities for as long as Don Randall did, with such distinction. We honour his memory today, we pay tribute to his service. And we offer our heartfelt condolences to the people he loved and the people who loved him.
May he rest in peace.
Just for the record, here’s Tony Abbott’s speech in today’s debate farewelling Don Randall.
Mr Speaker, I move that the House record its deep regret at the death on 21 July of Mr Don Randall – the member for Canning since 2001, and the former member for Swan from 1996 to 1998 – and place on record its appreciation of his long and meritorious public service and tender its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.
Mr Speaker, this House quite frequently notes the passing of the great, the good, and the famous, but there’s a shock and a poignancy when we remember someone who was actually sitting amongst us just six weeks ago. Six weeks ago, he was a part of our deliberations. Six weeks ago, we could talk with him, joke with him, dine with him, and, on occasion, be chided by him – and now he’s gone.
Don Randall was a man who had kept bees, tended roses, caught rabbits, played the violin and trained horses. He had more than a passing interest in footy, golf and good wine. Along the way he’d been a jackeroo, a rodeo rider and a local government councillor. For 20 years he was a teacher. His work included helping children with intellectual disabilities. All this reflected a natural inquisitiveness and an interest in people that made him well suited to public life.
Don was elected the member for Swan in the Howard landslide of 1996. He lost in 1998. But he came back in 2001 in the seat of Canning. In fact, John Howard named Don and Bob Baldwin ‘the Macarthurs’ because they did return. In 2001, his margin in Canning was just 530 votes, but by 2013 his margin was 20,900 votes and he won every single booth. 2013 was his biggest victory, but 2010 was his most satisfying.
In that year, Labor had chosen Alannah MacTiernan as its candidate, known throughout the state as an effective minister. In the end, though, Don won by over 3,500 votes. Three years later, when Alannah was elected member for Perth and took her first trip across the continent, she found Don Randall in the seat next to her. I’m sure we will hear from the Member for Perth because a friendship developed between these two fierce political warriors.
Don’s motto in the electorate was “You talk, I’ll listen.” Over here, especially in the Party Room, it was sometimes a case of “I’ll talk, you listen” – at least to leaders. He was fearless – absolutely fearless – and utterly impervious to political correctness, but he did have a natural affinity with people.
He put that gift to work by doorknocking week in, week out. More than a decade and a half of doorknocking created its own legends. His car was known as a mobile maintenance unit. In the back of his car were the tools to fix everything from phones to sewers. On one occasion, Don doorknocked a house to discover a constituent in deep distress. The family’s pet rabbit had died. Without missing a beat, Don went to his car, took out a shovel and gave the rabbit the burial it deserved.
On another occasion, he visited an elderly lady’s home and noticed that the roses needed some tending, so out came the secateurs and the roses were pruned and in the years that followed, Don returned to prune those roses again and again. Of course he was chased and bitten by dogs and on occasions, as we learned at his funeral, he was met by all sorts of people – once by a lady just out of the shower who was wearing little more than a bath mat.
He was one of those MPs who preferred to make a phone call than to write a letter because he knew that personal engagement was the way to get things done. In many respects, he was the classic Australian male yet he had a deep inquisitiveness of other cultures. He was the chair of the parliamentary friendship groups for Japan, Cuba and Sri Lanka and the relationships formed through these friendship groups were real and sustaining.
To give one example, he quietly made small payments to a family in Sri Lanka to help them buy a sewing machine which they turned into a family business. That was always his approach: to build relationships, one person and one household at a time.
The anchor of Don’s own life was his family. He was married to Julie for 31 years. His love for Julie and for his children Tess and Elliott was abundantly reciprocated and we welcome them to the Parliament today.
Early in this parliament, Don said, “The next Member for Canning – may they that be well into the future – will probably win his seat by being on social media, but the old-fashioned way of getting out there, shaking hands, putting up a placard and telling people who you are and listening to them still works. I am interested in what my people have to say. I do not always agree with them and I cannot always deliver for them but I am interested in listening to what they have to say.” He went on, “That is why we come to this place, to represent the people in our electorates. There is a pretty cynical view about politics in this country, that politicians are just here for themselves, but if we are here for the people,” he said,“they will continue to give us the benefit of the doubt.”
Mr Speaker, Don was not one of those MPs who set out ostentatiously to change the world – but he did change people’s lives. Thanks to Don, the Perth to Bunbury highway became an expressway. Chiefly thanks to Don, there are now special Commonwealth programmes for children with autism. And thanks in part to Don, the Clontarf programme for Indigenous footballers now attracts public and private support.
Mr Speaker, thanks to Don, this parliament does not sit on Fridays. A few years back, when a certain prime minister decided that MPs would be in Parliament on Fridays but not the prime minister, it was Don who brought ‘Cardboard Kev’ into the chamber, firmly establishing the principle that if it was important enough for the parliament to sit, it was important enough for the prime minister to be here too.
Mr Speaker, every one of us here is striving to make a difference. We all so want our lives to be worthwhile.
Don – yours was. Yours was.
Farewell, Don.
You will live on in the hearts of your friends and your family, to whom we extend our deepest condolences.
Who knew that Don Randall was into roses and violins, Labor’s Alannah MacTiernan notes in her contribution. And rodeos and cowboys? MacTiernan says she loves rodeos and cowboys. There’s some giggling and blushing.
MacTiernan, who sparred for many years with Randall in WA politics, is making a point about how little is known about adversaries in politics, even when they are on good terms. She notes this is a pity.
Labor’s Gary Gray is making a heart-felt contribution to the Randall debate. Gray and Randall, both from WA, were good friends.
I’ll just grab a moment to post a couple more pictures from earlier on, lest you think the other Bishop, Bronwyn Bishop, lacked support on a tough day.
There was support.
Pyne raises one of Don Randall’s more memorable parliamentary interventions. (There were a number over the years. By memorable, take controversial.)
He also recounts a scene at the federal Liberal party council, which followed on promptly from the unfortunate parliamentary intervention. Randall went up the escalator, passing Pyne en route. Pyne recalls feeling somewhat shocked to see Randall at the event, given at that point he was persona non grata. He then recalled seeing Randall coming back down the escalator in the company of Tony Nutt – John Howard’s chief political head kicker.
Never mind, says Pyne – the Randall family enjoyed a few nice days on the Gold Coast courtesy of the Liberal party.
Behind Pyne, there’s now another Bishop with a face that would stop a clock. This time it’s Julie Bishop. Not. Amused.
Updated
To lose one of our team is a serious, significant, emotional blow.
That’s the education minister, Christopher Pyne.
He was a man of many parts.
Hockey, that is. With the extra kilograms.
Treasurer Joe Hockey remembers the Don Randall who was a big supporter of Cuba – and a colleague forthright enough to insist that Hockey come door knocking in the electorate of Canning because he had put on a few kilograms.
Updated
The foreign minister Julie Bishop is next up paying tribute to her WA colleague and trusted friend.
She notes Randall always sought out friends at moments of trouble. Bishop says Randall sent her a text on the day of the MH17 memorial service in Canberra – an emotional day, which was also Bishop’s birthday. The foreign minister says she’s very glad she took the time to respond (with emojis.)
She says Randall’s staff dubbed her the Don tamer.
Updated
Don Randall was always Canning ahead of Canberra.
That’s Bill Shorten, noting Randall’s assiduousness on behalf of his constituents.
The prime minister says Randall didn’t set out to change the world, but he can lay claim to a number of achievements – roads, funding for autism, various other things.
And this.
Thanks to Don, this parliament does not sit on Fridays.
Abbott is reminding colleagues Randall ended Friday sittings by bringing cardboard Kev into the chamber. Kevin Rudd had mandated that parliament sit on Friday but refused to show up himself. Cardboard Kev put an end to that.
Condolences for Don Randall
The prime minister is underway now in the debate marking the passing of Don Randall, the colourful WA Liberal MP. Abbott notes Randall’s motto in the electorate was: You talk I listen. He says in the partyroom, Randall’s motto was: I’ll talk you’ll listen.
Especially to leaders.
Tony Abbott:
He was fearless, absolutely fearless, utterly impervious to political correctness.
A comment too from David Leyonhjelm – the LDP senator from the red place – on Tony Smith’s new appointment as Speaker. Smith was formerly chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, which is examining many varied things, including Senate voting reform.
David Leyonjelm on Mr Smith gets a New Chair:
Now he has a real job, we hope that he might leave the minor parties alone.
We’ll take this as a comment on airport aspiration from Tony Abbott’s sister, Christine Forster.
Love your work @CanberraAirport !!! https://t.co/rRFbjEqEDS
— Christine Forster (@resourcefultype) August 10, 2015
Again while there’s a moment, just a quick note about today.
The House will move shortly to condolences for Don Randall. There is no question time in the Reps today because of the nature of today’s business – the Senate is sitting, and I assume question time will proceed as usual in the red room this afternoon.
If you need a news wrap on the appointment of the new Speaker, Daniel Hurst will see you right, as always.
As we transition to the next business of the parliamentary morning – saying farewell to the Liberal MP Don Randall, who died a couple of weeks ago – here’s another moment from Mike Bowers.
Warren Entsch ties a flower around the mic where the late Don Randall sat @murpharoo @GuardianAus #politicslive pic.twitter.com/aOoWvOfUxB
— Mikearoo (@mpbowers) August 10, 2015
Updated
In politics, we call this a “moment”.
The photographers are having a field day today – so much subtext swooshing around the place. Lovely pic from Lukas Coch.
Updated
Just a couple of brief analytical thoughts while I have a minute.
Slightly over looked in the whole helicopter-gate controversy about Bronwyn Bishop was the absolutely tip top job she did for Tony Abbott in controlling the play in the Reps chamber. She ruled that chamber resolutely in favour of the government.
Tony Smith is signalling more balanced times in the House. Perhaps the mere hint of a sea-change is sufficient to explain Abbott’s incredibly down beat body language in the chamber this morning – but I think not. The prime minister looked terrible. Did the prime minister look terrible because he understands a shift is underway in his day-to-day operations or did he look terrible because Smith represents a modest uprising of sorts within government ranks. Smith represents, to some degree, the power of non-Abbott forces inside the government. Abbott had no control at all over the outcome of this process for one reason: his internal authority is diminished, and Tony Smith sitting in that chair is a symbol of it.
Bronwyn Bishop also made little effort to hide her fury about her relegation to the backbench. The Bishop visage, as I noted before, could stop a clock.
Mr Smith goes to his New Chair.
Updated
The Smith regime: robust, but not rude
Smith’s speech is interesting. He says he has friendships on all sides of the chamber, and notes that wasn’t his pitch in the Liberal party room.
He says parliament needs to be robust, but it needn’t be rude. It needn’t be loud.
He says he intends to hold regular meetings with all key stakeholders in the House to improve the operation of the chamber. Smith says he won’t go to party room meetings to ensure he remains above the partisan fray. This decision is symbolic and practical, he says.
The chamber has adjourned briefly to allow the ceremonials to be further served.
Updated
Smith: I'll give a fair go to all
Various folks in the chamber are paying tribute to Smith, and to Bronwyn Bishop.
The Labor leader Bill Shorten says being Speaker is a privilege not a prize. He says the government could take the opportunity of Tony Smith’s appointment to lift standards. Shorten says Smith’s story should be, to summarise: impartiality presiding over an accountable parliament.
The Greens’s Adam Bandt welcomes Smith’s appointment, while noting that could be the kiss of death for a Liberal. Bandt urges Smith to look down the middle of the parliament. He means look at the crossbench.
Smith, now settled in the chair, opens his remarks.
I want to say out the outset, I’ll give a fair go for all.
The prime minister looks like he’s just been given terrible news. He looks incredibly downbeat.
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Meanwhile, down the back.
The prime minister is paying tribute to the artist formerly known as Madam Speaker, who is exhibiting a visage that would stop a clock for this process. Abbott says Bishop is a great public servant despite some errors of judgment.
Tony Abbott:
She has been a warrior for the causes that she believed in.
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Sorry you didn't get that ministry, Tony
Tony Smith keeps his entrance low key. From the chair, Smith thanks the chamber for the great honour of being Speaker.
Tony Abbott welcomes Smith to the chair.
But then, in fairly extraordinary fashion, the prime minister basically says Smith is the Speaker because Abbott didn’t give him a ministry.
The prime minister says Smith, in a 15-year career, has met some disappointments. He’s met with triumph and disaster – that’s why colleagues got behind him in the ballot.
Smith does pretty solid poker face and he’s called to deliver that now.
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He does talk lovingly of both Pam and his wife.
This is Lucy Wicks, who is seconding Tony Smith’s nomination. A moment of mildly stunned silence, then much laughter.
Lucy Wicks:
If there was going to be a clanger, Mr Clerk, it would be that!
(Just Pam. Pam is Tony Smith’s wife. Not Pam and Mrs Smith. As we all were.)
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We are hearing about soon-to-be-Speaker Smith’s penchant for cars with big engines, from the member for Deakin. He likes Holdens. Ones that go vroooooom.
MPs have gathered now in the House of Representatives chamber. Bronwyn Bishop’s resignation has been accepted, says the clerk. Is there a nomination?
Ah yes, there is. Tony Smith.
One kiss and then I must fly.
Tony Abbott shows public support for Bronwyn Bishop as he leaves the Liberal Party meeting #auspol http://t.co/9ZzFn7vEYP
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) August 9, 2015
Smith will be doing a short sprint down the corridor to his new digs before being dragged to the chair as part of the formalities in the House kicking off in about five minutes.
Tony Smith confirms he will not attend party room meetings.
The procession out of the party room includes the prime minister, walking next to the former Speaker, Bronwyn Bishop. Abbott pauses in front of the assembled media to give Bishop a kiss on the cheek.
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The ballot included four nominees: Ross Vasta, Andrew Southcott, Tony Smith and Russell Broadbent.
Tony Smith prevailed in the exhaustive ballot 51-22.
Smith is speaking briefly to reporters.
I look forward to what is an important and difficult job that I will do to the best of my ability.
Tony Smith new Speaker
The Liberal party has chosen Victorian Liberal Tony Smith as the new Speaker.
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Cue outrage. Live TV coverage has switched from covering an empty corridor to microphone rage.
Parliamentary security have turned the 2GB and isentia microphones sideways to show no branding. Remember this? pic.twitter.com/naoyOYzOSQ
— James O'Doherty (@jmodoh) August 9, 2015
#StopTheMicrophones
Security guards downstairs clearly don’t have enough to do. There’s apparently been a new ban on microphone advertising.
My microphone has been banned from the #Speakervote presser. Have been told it constitutes 'advertising' @2GBNews @2GB873
— Olivia Leeming (@olivialeeming) August 9, 2015
While we all watch the empty corridor, the Liberal party pollster Mark Textor is supplying some advice to parliamentarians on same-sex marriage.
Get on with it.
Good going. Smart politics to deal with this with an expeditious YES. https://t.co/xJfRs0tDLQ
— Mark Textor (@AGFchairman) August 9, 2015
Unfortunately Liberals can’t read it, because phones have apparently been handed in for this voting process.
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Hello. Is it me you’re looking for?
The artist formerly known as Madam Speaker makes her way to cast a vote for her successor.
The vote for the new Speaker is under way now. I’m not going to get into frontrunners or predictions because history shows predictions can be wrong in these votes. It’s pointless speculating and in any case, we’ll know very shortly.
It will be interesting to see whether Labor allows the new Speaker to take the chair smoothly or whether there will be some procedural fun and games when the action switches to the chamber at 10am.
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Reporters asked Russell Broadbent on the way into parliament this morning whether he would stop attending party room meetings if he was elected Speaker.
Q: You will sit outside of party room?
Russell Broadbent:
No, I will be sitting in the party room. I have a responsibility to my electorate and I need to know what’s going on in that party room when my colleagues speak.
I’m a regional representative and my electorate is very important to me.
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Liberal MPs are making their way to the party room downstairs for the Speaker vote.
Corridor to the Government party room. #speakervote @abcnews pic.twitter.com/gpzTfJ3MsK
— David McMeekin (@davemcmeekin3) August 9, 2015
The only candidate to front publicly this morning was Russell Broadbent, the Victorian Liberal MP, who spoke to reporters at the doors of the House of Representatives.
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Welcome back Clive, who reports more aspirational action out at the Canberra airport.
Arrived at Canberra, @rupertmurdoch plane already here. Rupert or representative conducting interviews for speaker? #auspol
— Clive Palmer (@CliveFPalmer) August 9, 2015
Good morning Rupert?
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So I’ve referenced the new Speaker, new climate targets – now to same-sex marriage. As MPs arrived at Canberra airport last night, they were greeted by a hashtag.
Forgetting entirely that politics is meant to crush our souls and drive us to small acts of theatrical insurrection – like that chap I heard on the radio this morning who is attempting to get our parliamentarians to crowdfund his family holiday to Uluru – the owners of Canberra airport thought it was time to get aspirational.
Yes we can. Question is can the prime minister? Can Tony Abbott give his Coalition colleagues a conscience vote on the cross-party bill to legalise same-sex marriage? Even if he does, are there enough votes in the Australian parliament to deliver long overdue change?
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They’ve been caught red-handed with their hands on the income ...
This is the environment minister, Greg Hunt, who is speaking to the ABC as we go live this morning. This rhetorical mangle is about Labor and carbon pricing. While we were parted over the winter recess, the ALP locked in behind emissions trading, which according to the man who once advised John Howard to adopt emissions trading (that would be Greg Hunt) is an act of unspeakable public policy wickedness. Don’t try and make sense of that story arc, it’s impossible.
The focal point of the climate policy week will not be Labor and the unspeakable wickedness of pursuing a market mechanism to help lower carbon pollution – but the government. Cabinet will today decide on Australia’s post-2020 emissions reductions targets for the UN-led climate talks in Paris later this year. Those targets will go to the Coalition party room tomorrow.
Hunt spent the ABC interview evading questions about the targets.
Our policy couldn’t be clearer.
Q: We don’t know what it is.
Yes, one of those interviews. In fairness to Hunt, unveiling the decision ahead of the actual decision is a somewhat risky business best left to prime minister’s offices. Yes, that was irony. Anyway, we won’t have to wait too long for the details.
In the interim we can depress ourselves by reading this brilliant piece from Rolling Stone which concludes we are already in deep deep trouble climate change-wise. Or we can read my colleague Lenore Taylor’s news story this morning about polling indicating Australians are worried the Abbott government is underestimating the importance of climate change. At the same time, Lenore notes, almost half those surveyed (47%) think Labor’s carbon policies will “just increase electricity prices and not do much about pollution”.
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Welcome back
Good morning everyone and welcome back to Canberra where our post-Bronwyn forecast is frost-free, clear skies, with gusts of the unexpected.
Parliamentarians are wandering back to the building via their approved and crosschecked taxpayer-funded forms of transport after the winter break (such as it was) to select a new Speaker. Madam Speaker of course vacated her post a week or so ago over a small and barely remarked upon controversy that started with a party fundraiser and a helicopter.
Liberals will this morning elect a replacement for Bishop. Ahead of that vote, given he’s not in a position to determine the outcome for a variety of reasons, the prime minister Tony Abbott has maintained a posture of neutrality.
My colleague Daniel Hurst reports this morning that the three leading contenders – Tony Smith, Russell Broadbent and Andrew Southcott – have been lobbying their colleagues about their suitability for the role based on their ability to be a “stable, calming influence on the parliament”. #Stable #Calm(ing) We’ll find out who prevails in the great calm-off very shortly. The Liberal party room meets at 9am and the parliament will take care of the formalities at 10am, and in accordance with our sad and strange habit, we’ll cover all that live.
This will be a busy parliamentary fortnight and there’s loads to get across, but first we need to wish the prime minister a happy anniversary. Yesterday, Sunday, marked six months since the February leadership spill and Abbott’s declaration that good government starts today. Possibly the prime minister meant today plus six months because the evidence of good government has been slim at best.
Good government best begin soon because there’s yet another bad opinion poll this morning. Newspoll has Labor extending its two-party-preferred lead over the Coalition to 54-46. This is the government’s worst result since March. Government MPs can’t ignore the trend, the trend is blindingly obvious, but less obvious is what will be done to counter it.
Let’s crack on into today without further ado. The Politics Live comments thread is wide open for your business and you can find Mikearoo and I on the twits in our normal locations – @murpharoo and @mpbowers
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