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The Guardian - AU
National
Amy Remeikis

Labor calls for police investigation into Angus Taylor – as it happened

Angus Taylor
Minister for Energy Angus Taylor says he rejects ‘bizarre’ assertion that he created false documents relating to City of Sydney. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Estimates is continuing but alas I cannot.

The blog will be back for the Senate-only week on 11 November (Senate-palooza is back bbs!) but the House won’t return until 25 November, when the parliament sits for the final fortnight of the year.

Make sure you check back on the Guardian site for news updates in between – the Canberra bureau (including me) and the rest of the Guardian brains trust will be dishing you up all the stories from politics and beyond.

Mike Bowers will be back when we reconvene as well, so you have that to look forward to.

And, if you haven’t already, you have an opportunity to have your say on question time

A big thank you to everyone for the last couple of weeks. I could not do it with my colleagues, who keep this blog ticking over.

And of course, as always, the biggest thank you to you for following along. We’ll be back soon. Please – take care of you.

Updated

The House is adjourned until 25 November.

Updated

The October Agriculture Ministers’ Forum is being held tomorrow in Melbourne.


Updated

Penny Wong is asking Marise Payne what our climate strategy is from a foreign affairs point of view, pointing out that she has been asking this same question since 2016 and is yet to get an answer.

She looks like she has a headache which is sitting just behind her eyes and slowly taking over her entire head, and I have to say – I can relate.

Updated

On Paul Karp’s story about the sexuality questions dumped from the census, Katie Allen says:

I will be writing to the chief statistician, because the decision will be made next year in 2020.

So, a test case isn’t [what will necessary end in the final census] ... I’m a data scientist.

So, this is what I live and breathe. It is about rolling out a test census, but that doesn’t mean that’s the final word on what will be in there in 2020. I personally will be writing to the chief statistician, because I do believe we need to have questions such as those being discussed.

I haven’t seen the actual content of the questions.

It is important that we get the questions right, because we know the LGBTI communities are more vulnerable with regards to some aspects of healthcare provision, particularly some aspects of mental health care.

With a large and vibrant community – LGBTI community – in their transport, Higgins, I will be writing to talk about what are the possibilities of adding the questions in next year.

Updated

Liberal MP Katie Allen has read her talking points on Angus Taylor and the documents and no more.

Patricia Karvelas has the backbencher on Afternoon Briefing and asks:

Angus Taylor was grilled in question time today. This was all relating to accusations of forged documents, accusations that he has rejected as bizarre. It led to the lord mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, demanding answers and now we know Labor is writing to NSW Police in relation to this. I will start with you, Katie Allen. How can this be the case? The council says it is quite clear, the metadata makes it quite clear, that the document said something else and it has been doctored. Doesn’t the minister and the government need to provide an answer on how this document ended up being published that was so inaccurate?

KA:

Well, Patricia, I think you saw in question time today that the minister actually gave a fulsome response. He said he thinks it’s a ridiculous question and that he was quite comfortable with what he had to say. So, I think I would leave it there. I have just actually literally come from question time. As far as I’m concerned, the minister has responded in question time.

PK: I know it’s not an allegation about you, but actually I don’t know if he has answered the questions, Katie Allen. The document he refers to was clearly not on the website. Something changed. Isn’t it just common sense to find out why it changed? We don’t know why, but it was changed.

KA:

To be fair, Patricia, I have literally come from question time. That is the first I’ve heard of it. I would much prefer the listeners to be given a proper answer from me about what the situation is. It is very hard when information is evolving as you are in question time, you come to question time to this studio – I do understand your concerns. I am sure the minister will provide any further [assurances]. But I don’t have any more for you at this point in time ... he was fulsome in his responses.

PK: I don’t know if he was “fulsome”, because there are more questions, and this now ...

KA:

I am sure they will come to light as we go forward.

PK: Do you think he should provide a fuller answer? That’s the real question.

KA:

Well, it is hard to answer questions when you don’t have the full information. I’m an evidence-based person. I haven’t seen the reports for myself. The first I hear of it was in question time. I will be interested to see how the story evolves.

Updated

The 2020 sitting calendar is out (it is not yet approved, but most likely will be)

And then there is also:

254 Using false document

A person who uses a false document, knowing that it is false, with the intention of —

(a) inducing some person to accept it as genuine; and

(b) because of its being accepted as genuine —

(i) obtaining any property belonging to another; or

(ii) obtaining any financial advantage or causing any financial disadvantage; or

(iii) influencing the exercise of a public duty;

is guilty of an offence.

Maximum penalty — imprisonment for 10 years.

316 Concealing serious indictable offence

(1) An adult –

(a) who knows or believes that a serious indictable offence has been committed by another person, and

(b) who knows or believes that he or she has information that might be of material assistance in securing the apprehension of the offender or the prosecution or conviction of the offender for that offence, and

(c) who fails without reasonable excuse to bring that information to the attention of a member of the NSW Police Force or other appropriate authority,

is guilty of an offence.

Maximum penalty – imprisonment for:

(a) 2 years – if the maximum penalty for the serious indictable offence is not more than 10 years imprisonment; or

(b) 3 years – if the maximum penalty for the serious indictable offence is more than 10 years imprisonment but not more than 20 years imprisonment; or

(c) 5 years – if the maximum penalty for the serious indictable offence is more than 20 years imprisonment.

(2) A person who solicits, accepts or agrees to accept any benefit for the person or any other person in consideration for doing anything that would be an offence under subsection (1) is guilty of an offence.

Maximum penalty – imprisonment for:

(a) 5 years – if the maximum penalty for the serious indictable offence is not more than 10 years imprisonment; or

(b) 6 years – if the maximum penalty for the serious indictable offence is more than 10 years imprisonment but not more than 20 years imprisonment; or

(c) 7 years – if the maximum penalty for the serious indictable offence is more than 20 years imprisonment.

Updated

That was the main section referred to in question time, but Labor is also raising:

249O Public duty — meaning

For the purposes of this part, a public duty means a power, authority, duty or function —

(a) that is conferred on a person as the holder of a public office; or

(b) that a person holds himself or herself out as having as the holder of a public office.

253 Forgery — making false document

A person who makes a false document with the intention that the person or another will use it —

(a) to induce some person to accept it as genuine; and

(b) because of its being accepted as genuine —

(i) to obtain any property belonging to another; or

(ii) to obtain any financial advantage or cause any financial disadvantage; or

(iii) to influence the exercise of a public duty;

is guilty of the offence of forgery.

Maximum penalty — imprisonment for 10 years.

Updated

Here is the part of the New South Wales crime act that Labor is talking about making a referral under

CRIMES ACT 1900 – SECT 253

Forgery – making false document

A person who makes a false document with the intention that the person or another will use it –

(a) to induce some person to accept it as genuine; and

(b) because of its being accepted as genuine –

(i) to obtain any property belonging to another; or
(ii) to obtain any financial advantage or cause any financial disadvantage; or
(iii) to influence the exercise of a public duty;

is guilty of the offence of forgery.

Updated

So to recap this afternoon:

Brian Houston “genuinely” doesn’t know if he was on a list put forward by Scott Morrison’s office to attend the White House state dinner, despite having originally calling the Wall Street Journal story incorrect. He says he hasn’t spoken to the prime minister about it.

Labor will be referring the Angus Taylor document matter to the NSW police in the next 24 hours, if the government doesn’t do it.

The joint parliamentary committee into intelligence and security has told the government, for the first time since 2002, it needs to re-draft a bill.

A bit more from pastor Brian Houston on 2GB Radio.

Houston said he was contacted by the Wall Street Journal three weeks before the state dinner. He was “confused” by the suggestion he may have been invited and said “no, it’s incorrect”.

But now Houston says he “genuinely [doesn’t] know” if Scott Morrison tried to get him invited. He agreed that – as far as he knows – Morrison has never ruled out that the story is true.

Houston: “I just didn’t believe it. But then I guess the fact I didn’t know anything about it doesn’t say anything. It’s a question for Scott Morrison. I haven’t talked to him about it – before or since the state dinner.”

Asked why he hadn’t asked Morrison since the story broke – even if just out of curiosity – Houston responded that he figured Morrison had “a whole lot more important things” to deal with, such as the drought.

So by his own version of events: Houston has gone on a journey from being sure the story wasn’t true, to not so sure, but he hasn’t spoken to the PM about it.

Updated

Question: You said that in the absence of the prime minister or Taylor referring this to the NSW police that Labor would be writing, so does this mean you are writing or you’re going to give the government more time to refer themselves?

Mark Butler:

We thought, particularly since the principle was set out at the beginning of the week that no one is above the law, that when the evidence was laid out in the way we try to do in question time and a number of media organisations have done in the last 24 hours, that he promised he would put that principle into action to practise and show and demonstrate that even one of his cabinet ministers would be subject to the law under his doctrine, he is all talk and no action.

The ABC cuts away – but Labor will be writing to the NSW police in the next 24 hours.

Updated

Question: Do you think or are you suggesting he [Angus Taylor] forged it himself?

Mark Burler:

We are making no suggestion at the moment, we gave him many opportunities to clarify and all he would do was deny the clearly obvious thing which is the document is a forgery.

It is a very serious forgery because it is a document made with the intent to exercise the operation of a public duty, the exercise of a public duty by a publicly elected official.

Angus Taylor will not say whether or not it was made by him or his office or provided by someone else to him.

Instead, he tries to pretend this is not a forged document when all the evidence is to the contrary.

Updated

Labor is referring Angus Taylor matter to the police

Mark Butler is now holding a press conference on Angus Taylor:

Today, the city of Sydney has released metadata log information that confirms the actual report which was uploaded almost 12 months ago, has not been altered once on the City of Sydney Council’s website since that time. It is quite clear that Angus Taylor was working with a different document.

The document he provided the Daily Telegraph has different formatting, different spacing and different font as well as obviously very different numbers. The New South Wales crimes act provides that the making of a forged document that is intended to influence the exercise of a public duty by a publicly elected official, like the lord mayor of Sydney, is a serious indictable offence punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

It is also clear that the NSW crimes act provides that a failure to make a report about such a document to the NSW police is also a criminal offence, punishable by up to two years in prison after a person becomes aware of the forgery.

Now, the circumstances surrounding Minister Angus Taylor could not be clearer, could not be clearer.

He refused today during question time to do what the City of Sydney has done and release metadata logs that back up his claim that he downloaded that document from the city of Sydney website.

It is a claim that just does not stand up to scrutiny and for which he will not provide any evidence.

At the beginning of this week, the prime minister made it clear that no one was above the law.

A very important statement, given there are a number of journalists in this building that are currently subject to prosecution for doing this job.

But the prime minister is sitting on his hands while this tailor-made scandal about Angus Taylor continues to unfold and get deeper and deeper.

Today it is quite clear that Angus Taylor has refused or declined to make a report himself to the NSW police, the prime minister is clearly not intending to make a referral himself to the NSW police and in the absence of any action by this government to clear this up and ensure that the public has the right to know what has happened here, the Labor party, through the shadow attorney general will be writing to the NSW police, seeking an investigation about all the circumstances surrounding this matter.

Updated

Brian Houston tells Ben Fordham he has not spoken to the prime minister about whether or not his name was put forward for the White House dinner, as he thinks he has “more important things” to worry about.

Updated

Brian Houston says it is “possible” that Scott Morrison’s office put his name forward, but he didn’t have any conversation with the prime minister about it and was “confused” when the Wall Street Journal reported the news, because he had not heard anything about it.

Updated

On the White House dinner invite, Brian Houston says he has known Scott Morrison “well before he was in politics”.

Houston says he has only received a short message from Morrison saying “pray for Jen” after he became prime minister, that Morrison only appeared at his conference and they had a coffee and that was about it.

“It was news to me,” Houston says of the White House dinner – he says it was the “first” he had heard of it.

Updated

Brian Houston acknowledges he would still be under investigation by NSW police over failing to report his father Frank Houston’s sexual abuse of children, as the case remains open.

That was first reported by Samantha Maiden at The New Daily

The most recent questioning on Brian Houston’s invitation (and if it existed or not) was during estimates:

Morrison has refused for weeks to answer repeated questions from journalists and in parliament about whether he tried to get one of his religious mentors on the guest list for the invitation-only Rose Garden soireebut was ultimately thwarted by the White House. That development – never denied by the prime minister – was revealed first by the Wall Street Journal while the prime minister was on his American visit.

A riled Wong told the hearing: “I think the public has a right to know whether our prime minister asked for Mr Brian Houston to go to the White House.” She declared Morrison should be “frankly man enough and brave enough to answer the question”.

Departmental officials told the hearing they had not supplied any suggestions to the White House for guests for the state dinner, but declined to answer whether or not Morrison’s office had made suggestions, offering a formulation about answers being potentially prejudicial.

Brian Houston is about to appear on Sydney radio 2GB.

That’s over whether he was invited to attend the state dinner at the White House.

Scott Morrison won’t answer, so let’s see what Houston has to say.

Updated

That’s it though – question time ends.

The House won’t sit again until November 25.

Updated

One more dixer.

Phil Thompson gets it.

It’s all on the secure and stable plan.

This is so the government gets to finish off the week (and month) with the last say.

Warren Entsch, Phil Thompson and Angie Bell make a bee line for the front bench in the final division.

It’s a Queensland incursion.

Updated

“The most accident prone minister of his generation,” Richard Marles gets in, before he is cut off.

The last division is happening, but the folders are stacked, so I don’t even think there will be another dixer after this.

The folders are being stacked.

In news that will shock no one, the government has not given leave to suspend standing orders and the house divides.

Tony Burke:

We need to know whether the forgery was tailor-made, because it looks exactly like that.

Labor calls for police investigation into Angus Taylor

The motion in full.

I seek leave to move the following motion –

that the House:

notes:

the Prime Minister’s statement in the House on Monday this week that ‘Whether they’re politicians, journalists, public officials, anyone — there is no one in this country who is above the law’;

the reported provision of a forged document to the Daily Telegraph by the Minister for Emissions Reduction in an attempt to influence the public duty of the lord mayor of Sydney;

the creation and/or knowing use of a forged document in attempt to influence a public duty is a serious indictable offence under New South Wales law punishable by up to 10 years in prison;

the failure to report knowledge of a serious indictable offence is also an offence under NSW law punishable by up to two years in prison;

the Minister for Emissions Reduction has failed to explain his role in, or knowledge of, the creation and/or use of a forged document used in an attempt to influence the public duty of the lord mayor of Sydney; and

the minister has refused to give straight answers to simple questions about these crimes, as if the public has no right to know; and

having regard to the foregoing, calls on the prime minister to ask the NSW Police to investigate whether the Minister for Emissions Reduction has committed a crime.”

Updated

Once this motion fails, there won’t be another opportunity to ask Angus Taylor about this, in parliament, for a month.

Labor is now seeking to move a motion against Angus Taylor.

Angus Taylor:

I absolutely reject the premise of the question.

Those opposite will believe anything they read on their favourite website, Mr Speaker.

Now, the truth is that the Member for Hindmarsh wants to distract from his woes, from the open hostility between his and his colleagues. They are all smear and no idea.

Mark Butler to Angus Taylor:

There is an offence for failing to bring information about the condition of a forgery designed to influence public duty, to the attention of the New South Wales police force. Has the minister reported this matter to the NSW Police or does he still seriously claim that the document he provided to the Daily Telegraph is not a forgery? If he does make that claim will he provide meta data to support it as the city of Sydney has?”

Christian Porter steps in.

The first question went to, any subsequent question went to the origins of a document. The minister has been absolutely straight in his answers with respect to the origins ... It may not have been the answer that members wanted, but the answer was provided. Now they ask a question which infers and imputes that an offence has been created or, indeed, then ask the minister, with respect to that which is not at all proven and not at all clear.

Tony Burke:

The question is effectively in three parts. The first describes an offence, the second asks whether the minister has reported it, and the third asks situations whether the minister is in fact claiming this would happen, in which case, an offence would not have been committed. So none of the imputations that the Leader of the House just refer to a meeting the question.

Tony Smith allows the question.

Updated

Peter Dutton is now saying Labor introduced the medevac legislation, which Anthony Albanese pulls him up on.

“Introduced by Labor?” he yells across the table.

“Absolutely introduced and supported by Labor,” Dutton says.

Medevac was introduced by independent Kerryn Phelps, and supported and seconded by the crossbench.

After Peter Dutton was pulled up yesterday for attacking Labor, without talking about the government’s policy (launching straight into the “alternative approaches”) Dutton now has a dixer which is ONLY alternative approaches.

Minister, what are the risks of alternative approaches to the Morrison government’s well-known stable and secure approach to border protection policies?”

Tony Smith steps in immediately:

Obviously I’ve made my position clear yesterday on the content of answers. And I’m not in a position, obviously, to know what the minister is going to say. But I have a fair idea.

I will say to the minister that the House of Representatives practice and standing orders are very clear. I think the question is cleverly written and is in order, but it is the answer I will be focusing on. And I’m not going to allow questions. I’m just saying this and they make this point about House of Representatives practice. In fact, you may as well take a seat. I will make this point.

The standing orders make it clear that ministers can only be questioned about matters for which they are responsible. And they say, in all seriousness, the government is very keen to enforce that when it gets questions from the opposition about matters for which they are not responsible.

The practice makes it very clear that some speakers have had a very strict approach and indeed not even allowed taglines like “alternative policies”. I have been more liberal. I have been more liberal.(“That’s been the problem,” Ed Husic laughs)

But there has never been a time when an entire answer can be about an opposition’s policy. The question is, as I said, cleverly written and in order, but for the minister to be in order in his answer he needs to take the approach that I have been allowing. I will let him have a go.”

Dutton gets back to the despatch box with a big smile.

“He’s been practising,” Husic yells.

After 40 seconds, he is into how terrible he believes Labor’s approaches to be.

Updated

Mark Butler to Angus Taylor:

Does the minister stand by his claim that he downloaded the document from the City of Sydney’s website in light of information released today by the city that metadata logs proved conclusively that the original documents had not been altered since being uploaded to their website almost 12 months ago?

(From the Liberal backbench ‘that is not what it says’)

Taylor:

“As I say again, I am advised that document ...

Labor very loudly ‘oooooooghhhhhhhhhh’ at the ‘I am advised’

Taylor continues:

The document was drawn from the City of Sydney website and it was publicly available. I reject the bizarre suggestions and assertions being peddled by those opposite.

Updated

From Anne Davies and Christopher Knaus’s story:

Emails between the council and the Telegraph show that Taylor’s office said it downloaded its erroneous document from the council’s website on 6 September 2019.

But the council has now provided evidence to the Guardian that it had not altered the publicly available version of its annual report at any point since it was uploaded with the correct figures in November 2018. That evidence includes emailed advice from its IT department and screenshots of its content management system.

“Metadata logs prove that the City’s annual report documents, both PDF and Word versions, were uploaded on 27 November 2018 and not updated after that date,” a council spokesman said.

Mark Butler to Angus Taylor:

I refer the minister to his previous answer. Where did he get the document?

Taylor:

The document was drawn directly, from the City of Sydney’s website.”

Mark Coulton is taking a dixer, reminding me of his existence, so I suppose they serve some purpose.

Mark Butler to Angus Taylor:

“I refer to the minister’s previous answer – where did the minister get the forged document?”

Taylor:

I absolutely reject the premise of the question and the bizarre assertions being peddled by those opposite.

Updated

Mark Butler to Angus Taylor:

My question is to the minister of emissions reduction. Section 253 of the New South Wales crimes act creates a serious offence for making a false document to influence the exercise of a public duty. I refer to his provision of a forged City of Sydney document in the Daily Telegraph in an attempt to influence the Lord Mayor of Sydney in exercise of her public duty. Will he administer to this house that this forgery was not made by him or his office?

Taylor:

Yes.

(That’s the whole answer)

Updated

Anthony Albanese to Scott Morrison:

My question is to the prime minister. And I refer to his comments in this parliament on Monday, when the prime minister told the house that the following, quote, “Whether they are politicians, journalists, public officials, anyone, there is no one in this country who was above the law”. Does he apply the standard to his own ministers?

Morrison:

“It’s a fairly obvious answer to that question. No one is above the law in this country.

Updated

David Smith to Scott Morrison:

Is the real reason the Prime Minister obsesses about Labor, because he wants to distract Australians from the fact that net government debt has more than doubled on his watch?

Morrison:

Net debt under this government now is coming down.

(It more than doubled, Jim Chalmers yells)

We are in surplus this year, Mr Speaker. And it’s been a long time ... It has been a long time since we have been in surplus and after six painstaking years of getting the budget back into shape, getting spending under control, conservatively budgeting on their forecasts on revenue and ensuring we are getting Australians back into work so they are going off welfare and they are paying taxes, the budget is now in surplus this year and that means that debt ... is coming down as the budget was a by $50bn over the forward estimates.

They will tell you why I’d talk about Labor, Mr Speaker, because they don’t think we should ever return to the reckless policies of the Labor party when it comes to budget and any other things, Mr Speaker. Australians know the mistakes that Labor made when they were last in power and the reason we are talking about them again is because the shadow treasurer wants those policies reintroduced by Mr Speaker. In that wonderful book which the treasurer quotes, glory days, Mr Speaker, he talked about ... He asked me about Labor!

Anthony Albanese calls him up on relevance, but the question includes Labor, so it is allowed.

Morrison:

So in Glory Days, the shadow treasurer was talking about his glory days as the chief of staff to Wayne Swan. He said the chief of staff was my job. It was tremendous – worth the greying hair and expanding waistline. All at once you are the key advisor and confidant to the Treasurer. This requires a closeness with the boss and the ability to know his mind without even speaking to him about every issue.

He was at one with Obi ... Swan, Mr Speaker. And as he listens to the [leader] of the time, Kevin Rudd, all he can hear is “Higher taxes, he must, higher taxes, you must”.

This recklessness is because on our watch we will put in place for stable and certain fiscal matters. We will not return to the policies of panic and crisis of the Labor Party, which Wayne Swan and Kevin Rudd champion, Mr Speaker.”

The Liberal backbench goes mental at this Star Wars reference, but jokes on them, because Obi Wan didn’t speak like that, Yoda, who trained Obi Wan, did. Ugh. Fakers.

Also, Han shot first. Don’t @ me.

Updated

A lot of MPs are wearing red ribbons ahead of Day for Daniel tomorrow, the child safety charity set up by Daniel Morcombe’s parents, Bruce and Denise.

Josh Frydenberg does not say yes:

Mr Speaker, we’re not going to take a lecture from the Labor party, a lecture from the Labor party that delivered $240*bn of accumulated deficit. Do you remember the four budget surpluses that the Member for Lilley, Wayne Swan ...

... The reality is, Mr Speaker, we are paying that back, Mr Speaker and we are doing that by growing the economy. And what we will never do is we will never whack the Australian people with $387bn of higher [taxes].

*original post had $204bn. I blame tveeder, but would remind the member that not yelling into the microphone, makes the transcription easier.

Updated

Jim Chalmers to Josh Frydenberg:

Is the real reason the treasurer always bangs on endlessly about Labor because he wants to distract Australians from the fact he has presided over higher household debt and business debt than any other treasurer in the history of this country?”

“Just say yes, the answer is yes,” Ed Husic calls out.

Updated

Labor cheers as Josh Frydenberg gets to the “I’m asked about alternative approaches” part of this lickspittle.

“You’re obsessed. You’ve got issues,” Jim Chalmers yells.

At the moment, the rugby field is as hard as this dispatch box, but thanks to their $1m drought community support program, it will be green as the leather on the chairs we are sitting on, and that is a great thing.

These drought stricken communities want to see us talking about them, not about each other.”

Michael McCormack, on how drought-stricken communities want politicians to talk about their communities, not each other, straight after using a drought analogy using parliamentary chamber furniture.

You just know he is the sort of passenger who reads out every sign the car passes. YOU JUST KNOW

Updated

Joel Fitzgibbon to Scott Morrison:

Who is running the government’s chaotic drought response? The prime minister or the National party backbench?

Morrison:

The cabinet.

Updated

Michael McCormack is still talking.

It’s like watching jelly melt in a slow cooker.

Michael McCormack says he “thought it was my national party colleagues cheering me on”. The prime minister and him then turn to the Nats, and they all cheer.

The protesters are talking about “death and destruction” brought on by the drought, as well as “people are dying”.

But sure. Sounds like a cheer squad.

A climate protester is being removed from the gallery.

There’s a series of them – the third or fourth is being removed now.

Updated

First mention of “panic and crisis policies of the Labor party”.

Point of order – the Labor party don’t actually have any policies. They are all under review.

Also, stop trying to make fetch happen.

Updated

Question time begins

It’s a short one to start off with.

Anthony Albanese to Scott Morrison:

Is the reason his government won’t commit to a bipartisan approach with Labor on the drought because he cannot even manage a bipartisan approach with the National Party?

Morrison:

“No.”

I appreciate the brevity.

I wish that same brevity was applied to this latest “how amazing is the economy and this government” dixer.

There really needs to be a moratorium on “alternative approaches”.

Updated

Christian Porter gets walking in privileges with Scott Morrison today.

It’s the last question time for a month (senate QT doesn’t really count, sorry not sorry)

We are heading into the chamber for what, I am sure, will be the Angus Taylor hour.

Because how could it not be.

Here is a bit of where Chris Bowen is going on the Greg Hunt attack:

Under questioning from the Labor party last night the department confirmed that in fact only 227 new medicines have been listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme on this Government’s watch.

1,354 listings were at no cost to government. So every time Scott Morrison and Greg Hunt say ‘we can only list this medicine because of the strong budget’ the truth is the listings were made at zero impact on the budget and 316 listings have actually just been price changes for normal business of Government.

Greg Hunt says he’s listed 2,200 medicines in fact it’s 227, around 10 per cent of what he claimed. 10 per cent of what he said. 10 per cent of what Scott Morrison boasts about.

Updated

Facebook is still grappling with what role it plays in monitoring election misinformation which is being put on its platform.

Australia was dragged into that in May. The US is dealing with it once again. Andrew Leigh says more needs to be done:

In the most recent election, Facebook was used as a platform to disseminate misinformation by not only political parties, but also actors associated with them.

Australians should be able to see what political advertisements are being run on these platforms. Australians have a right to know what misinformation is being propagated. Facebook should not allow itself to become a platform for propagating mistruths.

Politics should be a contest of ideas, not a war of falsehoods. I call on Facebook and other social media platforms to do the right thing.

Updated

Anne Davies and Christopher Knaus have new information on one of the weirdest stories of the year so far:

The City of Sydney has produced evidence to back up its insistence that it never altered a document to introduce the false figures used by Angus Taylor in an attack on the lord mayor over her travel-related emissions.

The evidence places further pressure on the office of the energy minister to explain how the false figures came to be in the document he used to launch the extraordinary attack on Clover Moore last month. On Thursday Taylor labelled the affair a “conspiracy theory being perpetrated by the lord mayor” and accused her of “hollow virtue-signalling” on emissions.

The Guardian revealed on Wednesday that Taylor sent Moore a letter, which was received on 30 September, criticising what he said was a $15m travel bill during 2017-18 and suggesting she could reduce the council’s carbon emissions by cutting down on international travel.

Updated

Right.

After the flurry of the morning, it is now the dead zone before question time.

To recap, the bipartisan joint committee on intelligence and security cannot tick off on a government surveillance bill, and has sent it back to be withdrawn. It’s the first time since 2002 it has taken this step. The government doesn’t have to do it but it probably will, because to ignore this sort of response would be a pretty big deal which would have ongoing ramifications.

Angus Taylor will have a lot of questions to answer over how his office came to have vastly different travel costs for the City of Sydney council, which were provided to a News Corp journalist.

And we are finally getting some answers on Australia’s involvement in the William Barr investigation into the Mueller report – which we are involved in because of Alexander Downer.

Updated

From AAP:

Private schools will be able to spend $1.2bn of taxpayer funds however they see fit, regardless of how much money they rake in from fees and donations.

Education bureaucrats told senators on Thursday they would have no role in assessing applications for money from the special fund, set up in a side deal with Catholic and independent schools a year ago to ease their transition to new funding arrangements.

The department will publish guidelines for the funds but it will be up to the Catholic Education Commission and associations of independent schools in each state and territory to dole them out.

“The department itself won’t be assessing any applications for funding under the fund,” deputy secretary Alex Gordon told the estimates committee hearing in Canberra.

The guidelines will set out the kinds of priorities the funds should be used for, but won’t set eligibility for individual schools.

Updated

And Joel Fitzgibbon has responded to the Nationals backbench drought plan:

The National Party backbench hasn’t produced a national drought plan, just a plan to save the Nationals,” he said

The Nationals are in revolt within the Coalition because the prime minister doesn’t have a drought plan.”

Updated

Chris Bowen is starting to speak up a lot more in his new shadow portfolio (health)

He just held a press conference on this:

Last night in Senate Estimates the department confirmed, out of the 2200 medicines the minister claims to have listed on the PBS, only 1 in 10 of those represents a new medicine.

In an exchange with Senator Murray Watt, the department confirmed, since 2013 only 227 new medicines have been listed by the Abbott, Turnbull, and Morrison Governments.

Department of Health Official: “New PBS listings which mean a brand new molecule listed for the first time on the PBS or listed for the first time as a new indication, 227.”

And last night in Senate Estimates the Department of Health confirmed out of the 2200 medicines the minister claims to have listed, 316 are actually just price changes, and 1354 listings were at no cost to government at all.

Department of Health Official: “Price changes, 316. And we have a number of listings that are all with nil financial cost, 1,354.”

This government has been misleading Australians on how many affordable medicines they have listed on the PBS.

Greg Hunt claims improving access to medicines is one of his four pillars of health.

Updated

Over in the house, the education amendment which deals with the state funding allocations

Shadow assistant treasurer Stephen Jones and shadow cabinet secretary Jenny McAllister have gone on the attack over the “deeply concerning” revelation Michael Sukkar’s office had input into the ABS decision not to ask about gender and sexuality in the census test:

“Australians should feel let down that their government are more interested in playing politics than doing the job Australians expect and deserve.

“The minister’s objection to a community or their sexual orientation is no reason to refuse to collect import information to help guide government service delivery.

“Even after years of progress, there are still significant health and wellbeing disparities that effect Australia’s LGBTI community.

“LGBTI Australians have been ignored in Australian policy planning for too long.

“All Australians deserve to be counted in the census.”

Updated

Another piece of legislation has been sent to vibe in the senate, waiting for it to reconvene

Back to estimates. DFAT officials are reluctant to provide an immediate answer about how many meetings there have been with the Barr investigation.

Labor’s Senate leader Penny Wong has counted four referenced in evidence this morning.

Have there been more than four? Officials want to take it on notice to ensure the answer is accurate.

Wong wants an answer today. Officials signal that’s likely possible. Wong says she believes that she’s being reasonable.

Marise Payne accepts Wong’s professed reasonableness, but she still doesn’t intend to answer the questions.

Oh, hang on, here are a couple of straight answers.

Payne says she has not discussed the Barr inquiry with Alexander Downer and neither has Scott Morrison “to my knowledge”.

DFAT secretary Frances Adamson says she has. But now we are back to the brick wall. No-one will answer a question about whether Downer reported his insights about possible Russian intelligence on Hillary Clinton to his American counterpart in London.

(I reported a few weeks ago Downer did have a conversation with his American diplomatic counterpart in London, and he did that without reference to senior colleagues in Canberra.)

Wong asks Payne whether she has confidence that Downer acted appropriately. “Yes senator,” the foreign minister says.

In general terms, Adamson says diplomats in the Australian service are allowed to interact with their colleagues in foreign services without seeking permission.

The DFAT secretary stresses she is not speaking about any particular head of mission.

Updated

Back to mysteries
Back to DFAT, officials will not answer a question about whether Australia has handed over diplomatic cables to the Barr investigation.

They say it would be prejudicial to answer that question, given the ongoing inquiry, and the backdrop of foreign relations. DFAT secretary Frances Adamson says Australia is working to assist the Barr inquiry in Australia’s national interest.

Labor’s Senate leader Penny Wong says she doesn’t really understand that answer. She wants to know who makes the decision about what is in Australia’s national interest. Wong wants to know what decisions Marise Payne has made.

Have you made any decision to release material, Wong wonders?

Payne says it’s not appropriate to provide a “running commentary” on these matters.

Wong asks whether Alexander Downer is getting support from the government, either legal or financial, and hits a brick wall.

Officials tell her they can’t answer.

“Why is that a secret?” Wong asks. “This is public money. This really is overly secretive.”

Payne says, “We are dealing with an active investigation in the United States.”

The foreign minister says the inquiry is the sensitivity, so she can’t answer.

Wong defaults to sarcasm. “Nobody understood that,” she says.

Wong is not happy.

Updated

DFAT secretary Frances Adamson has just told estimates she is the Australian government’s point of contact for the Barr inquiry, as well as Joe Hockey. This has been a mystery up until this moment.

Officials from PMC declined to answer this question on Monday. Adamson also explains that Donald Trump called Scott Morrison ahead of the US visit to request a point of contact for the Barr inquiry because Hockey was away at the time.

Another mystery solved this morning.

Adamson says she’s had one meeting with William Barr, on September 21 (which is I think when we were in the US on the Trump visit, but will need to check).

Updated

Worth noting that Amanda Stoker is engaged in a Senate ticket battle with James McGrath at the moment – Matt Canavan has one of the two spots and unless he makes the jump to the house, either Stoker or McGrath will miss out. Even if Canavan does decide the grass, as well as the carpet, is greener on the other side (there are a couple of safe LNP central seats he could move to, if so inclined and the branch was onside) it is still a Nationals spot, so there would need to be more negotiations.

Either way, right now there is one Liberal LNP spot on the top of the ticket and Stoker and McGrath are fighting for it. Stoker has certainly stepped up her profile in recent months and shows no signs of slowing down. In the end, she only needs the LNP members to pay attention, and quite a few in central and north Queensland eat this up.

Updated

Expect to hear this sort of thing a lot more often from the prime minister and others so inclined, during their introductions.

Scott Morrison last night:

Can I also acknowledge the Ngunnawal people tonight, their elders past and present, and future, can I acknowledge if there are any members of the Australian Defence Forces here tonight, any veterans who may be with us and simply say to you on behalf of a very grateful nation, thank you very very much for your service.

And our migration community over generations have made up those numbers certainly, those who’ve served in uniform to defend the very country that they’ve come to call home. And so particularly tonight, those members of our defence forces those who’ve served, as veterans, who’ve come from other places and called, not only this nation home. But then turned up to defend it as well in our uniform.

Updated

In the midst of the temporary exclusion order debate (where the government refused to accept all of the committee’s recommendations, a rare slip of bipartisanship with this committee), Peter Dutton had this to say about Mark Dreyfus on ABC radio on July 24:

He has watered down pieces of legislation to a point where they can become ineffective, and we’re not going to tolerate that any longer. We will accept the recommendations from the committee where they are in a national interest to do so.”

In parliament, the day before that AM interview, Dutton had said this:

We are going to work with the committee. We will look at the recommendations made by the committee in relation to the relevant legislation that they might explore, and we will ultimately decide, in our country’s interests, in an attempt to keep Australians safe, which of those recommendations we accept. Ultimately, the government has been elected on a mandate to provide legislation to this parliament to protect Australians from a very real threat.”

Given the government did not take on all of the committee’s recommendations then (something Labor had also done once while in government) there were fears that the PJCIS would be treated “just like any other committee” so the government response to this will be interesting.

Updated

ABS dumped census test forms with new sexuality questions after input from minister's office

Australian Bureau of Statistics chief David Kalisch has just given evidence that 20,000 census tests containing questions on gender and sexuality were printed but not used after input from the assistant treasurer, Michael Sukkar’s office.

Under questioning from Labor, Kalisch acknowledged that the gender and sexuality questions were among eight that were shortlisted as possible inclusions in the 2021 census, but were not used in the census test conducted in Wagga Wagga and Logan in mid-October.

Kalisch told Senate Estimates the ABS printed 40,000 forms for the test: 20,000 with the gender and sexuality questions (Form A); and 20,000 without (Form B). Only Form B was put into the field.

Asked if he had any communication with the prime minister, Sukkar or their offices, he replied – no contact with Scott Morrison or his office, no contact with Sukkar but:

I have had some conversations with the minister’s office about helping them understand the nature of the consideration around the decision.”

Asked if Sukkar’s office sought to influence which questions were used, he said, “They put a view to me but ultimately it was my decision.”

Kalisch then tried to avoid questions about what view Sukkar’s staff had put to him, claiming “they did not provide any guidance about what should be on or off the [test] form”, before conceding “they did express a preference but ultimately it was my call”.

Asked if the preference was to exclude gender and sexuality questions, he replied:

They were contemplating what response they would make around census topics, and didn’t want the census test to pre-empt that decision.”

Updated

Joe Hockey leans in to the Barr inquiry without an official request

DFAT estimates is now onto the Barr inquiry (which is Donald Trump’s effort to discredit the Mueller inquiry). The evidence from officials is Joe Hockey, Australia’s ambassador to Washington, offered to participate in the Barr inquiry without the Americans asking.

The officials say it was Hockey’s advice to signal that cooperation (he did flag the idea with the foreign minister Marise Payne prior to sending his letter), and he met subsequently with William Barr, alone, to discuss the inquiry. Officials say there is a readout of that Hockey/Barr conversation, but they don’t intend to share it with the estimates committee.

DFAT secretary Frances Adamson says Hockey reiterated Australia’s willingness to cooperate. She won’t answer whether Barr requested any detailed information from Australia.

If you’ve forgotten all this, Australia has agreed to participate in the Barr inquiry (even though it is clearly a partisan exercise) because our former high commissioner in London, Alexander Downer, reported the existence of possible Russian intelligence on Hillary Clinton after a meeting with a Trump aide, George Papadopolous when Trump was running for the presidency.

Trump rang Scott Morrison prior to his recent visit to Washington to establish who was the point of contact in Australia for the Barr investigation.

Labor’s Senate leader Penny Wong has signalled there will be a lot of questions on this issue this morning.

Updated

Kristina Keneally has responded to the intelligence and security decision not to recommend passing the ID matching bill:

Today the PJCIS tabled a report declining to recommend the passage of the current Identity Matching Services Bill – in any form.

Instead, Labor and Liberal members of the committee are uniting to recommend that the Identity-matching Services Bill be completely re-drafted and referred back to the Intelligence and Security Committee for a further inquiry.

The committee has concerns about privacy, transparency, reporting and oversight and does not consider that the bill in its current form can be amended, but rather that it should be completely re-drafted.

A distinct lack of politics there, as both parties (so far) embrace the bipartisan nature of the PJCIS, which is meant to be above politics. Given it involves Peter Dutton, let’s see how long that lasts.

Updated

The Greens are picking up on the Anne Davies and Christopher Knaus story involving doctored documents, and will be holding a press conference on it a little later today.

Updated

It seems to be the first time since 2002 that this committee, one of the most powerful in the parliament, has recommended a bill be re-drawn (that was about questioning and warrant powers in the wake of September 11) and then referred back.

Usually it just recommends changes to amend the bill, which the government of the day largely – temporary exclusion order aside (not all of those were adopted in full, which created a pretty big kerfuffle) but it is very, very rare for the committee to just say – start again.

Updated

Mark Dreyfus:

Like my colleagues on the committee, I do not believe that the government is proposing to engage in or to facilitate the mass surveillance of Australians. But I do accept that, given the near complete absence of legislated safeguards in the Identity-Matching Services Bill 2019, those concerns cannot simply be ignored. If there is no intention for the proposed identity-matching services to be used to engage in mass surveillance activities, the government should not object to amending the bill to ensure that those services cannot, as a matter of law, be used in that manner.

Concerns were also raised about the proposed one-to-many identity-matching service being used to identify people who are engaging in protest activity. This does concern me. It was only this month that the Minister for Home Affairs, the minister responsible for this very bill, called for mandatory prison sentences for people who engage in protest activity; called for the same people to have their welfare payments cancelled; and also called for them to be photographed and publicly shamed. As presently drafted, this bill would not prohibit authorities from using the proposed face-matching services to identify individuals in a crowd who are engaging in lawful protest activity. That would be concerning in the best of times; it is particularly concerning in the light of the authoritarian disposition of the Minister for Home Affairs.

A raft of other concerns was expressed about the Identity-Matching Services Bill, including in relation to this government’s abysmal record on cybersecurity.

I do not propose to list all of the concerns here today, but I encourage everyone to read about them in the committee’s report.

I would like to thank my colleagues on the committee, Labor and Liberal, for their work on this important report. It should not escape anyone watching these proceedings today that, by agreeing to the set of recommendations contained in this report, the Liberal members of the committee have placed the national interest first. For that, I would like to pay tribute to Senators Stoker, Fawcett and Abetz, and the members for Canning, Berowra and Goldstein. I would like to pay particular tribute and extend my thanks to the chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, the member for Canning. I also thank the committee secretariat for their excellent work, both in this parliament and in the last parliament, which underpins this report.

Updated

Andrew Hastie:

The committee also simultaneously examined the Australian Passports Amendment (Identity-matching Services) Bill 2019. The passport bill proposes amendments to the Australian Passports Act 2005 which would authorise the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to disclose information in order to participate in identity-matching services and provides for computerised decision-making in confirming identity. This bill would also support the objectives of the IMS bill by making Australian travel document data available to identity-matching services by the interoperability hub.

Again, submitters supported the broad objectives of this bill. Few objections were raised but there were some concerns regarding the use of automated decision-making, in particular where unfavourable outcomes were made for the subject. Most felt that an element of human decision-making should be kept and avenues for review of decisions should be implicitly incorporated into the bill. The committee agrees and recommends that the bill should be amended to ensure automated decision-making can only be used for decisions that produce favourable or neutral outcomes for the subject and that automated decisions should not ... affect outcomes.

The committee recognises redrafting of the identity-matching services bill 2019 may have consequential effects to the passports bill. Should this occur this, this report also recommends that the amended passports bill also be referred to the committee for further review. I want to reiterate the importance of the objectives of these bills and that these objectives have the committee’s full support. Wanting to ensure the safety and security of all Australians is something we have in common but we also need to protect citizens’ rights while doing so.

Updated

Basically, the bill, as drafted, would allow the government to follow you around as you went about your day.

It seems we have finally found a bipartisan line MPs don’t want crossed.

Mark Dreyfus, as the most senior Labor member on the committee, also commented on the bill:

The Intelligence and Security Committee of the Parliament is declining to recommend the passage of the identity matching services bill.

Instead, Labor and Liberal members of the committee are uniting to recommend that the identity matches services bill be completely redrafted and referred back to the Intelligence and Security Committee for further inquiry when it is reintroduced.

In taking this step, I congratulate all members of the committee for putting the national interest first and sending a strong message about the value of this committee.

The identity matching services bill purports to facilitate the exchange of identity information pursuant to the objective of an intergovernmental agreement reached by Coag [in] October 2017.

But it includes none of the limitations or safeguards anticipated by that agreement.

The bill includes almost no limitations or safeguards at all.

As explained in the committee’s report, the identity matching services bill would authorise the Department of Home Affairs to create and maintain facilities for the sharing of facial images and other identity information between government agencies and in some cases, non government agencies entities.

The bill would also authorised the Department of Home Affairs to develop and maintain to centralised facilities for the provision of what are called identity matching services.

The first of these two facilities would be called an interoperability hub.

The Hub would act as a router through which government agencies across Australia could request and transmit information as part of an identity matching service.

The second would be a federated database of information contained in government identity documents. As discussed in the committee’s report, the potential implications of these two new facilities for the privacy of all Australians are profound.

Those implications do not appear to have even been considered by the Minister for Home Affairs or by his department.

While a bill provides for six different identity mentioned services, the service that elicited the most concerned from submitters to the committee’s inquiry is the face of identification service.

That service would enable authorities across Australia to use huge databases of facial images to determine the identity of an unknown person.

Using that service, a law enforcement agency could submit a facial image for matching against a database of facial images contained in a in government identification documents, such as a database containing every driver licence photo in Australia.

In return, the agency would receive a small number of matching or near matching facial images from the database.

The agency could then access biographical information associated with those images.

The potential for such a service to be used for mass or blanket surveillance, such as CCTV being used to identify Australians going about their business in real time was raised by numerous submitters to the inquiry.

In September Guardian Australia reported on Labor and union outrage about the social media posts of a Coalition-appointed deputy president of the Fair Work Commission, Gerard Boyce.
In a series of social media posts Boyce:

  • Said it was “definitely time” for Labor to conduct a review, after losing the 2019 election
  • Described the unions’ election campaign as a “big waste of money”; and
  • Days after the 18 May election loss, posted an article from the West Australian arguing that Labor had botched the “unloseable” election with the observation “oooooooops!!”


AAP has this update from Senate Estimates on Wednesday night:

Fair Work general manager Bernadette O’Neill said all commission members had a code of conduct which included not engaging in political matters.

She said the issue had been dealt with internally after Fair Work president Ian Ross spoke to Mr Boyce.

“The member gave an undertaking not to engage in social media,” Ms O’Neill told a Senate hearing on Wednesday night.

While the security committee boilover was proceeding in the House, DFAT estimates was focussed on the Uighurs. DFAT officials have told senators China has noted international concerns about human rights abuses in Xinjiang in the north west of the country, and feels it is “under the scrutiny of the international community”.

There is growing agitation about this issue among Australian MPs. Andrew Hastie (who played a starring role a minute ago in the House on the identity sharing bill) used an adjournment speech last night to declare he was troubled by the way that Uighurs culture and identity “is being systematically assaulted, deconstructed and scrubbed out by authorities”.

Officials say the foreign minister Marise Payne has raised this issue with her Chinese counterpart directly on several occasions.

Liberals are also expressing concerns in this hearing about Chinese students in Australia.

Instances have been raised about people reporting on their remarks in educational and social settings which are then relayed back to their families in China.

Labor’s Penny Wong also asked for an update on Dr Yang, a writer and democratic activist detained in China.

Officials say Australia has made it clear that Dr Yang should be treated fairly and transparently, and if he is being detained for his political reviews, he should be released.

Andrew Hastie, the chair of the joint intelligence and security parliamentary committee makes the first statement. He essentially says that while the committee supports the spirit of the bill, it gives home affairs too much surveillance power, with a lack of oversight into how they could use it.

... Many participants to this review express broad support for the underlying objectives and rationale the bill. For example, measures that aim to address identity related crime and enable law enforcement bodies to cooperate to achieve this objective.

Statement such as this, were echoed throughout the evidence that the committee received.

However, some participants rise with the committee and they to ensure appropriate governance and accountability and protection of the individual’s right to privacy.

The committee acknowledges these concerns and believes that while the bills explanatory memorandum sets out governance arrangements, such as existing and contemplated agreements and access policies that are not adequately set out in the current bill.

In the committee’s view, robust safeguards and appropriate oversight mechanisms should be explained clearly in the legislation.

The committee expresses broad support for the objectives of the bill but agrees that the bill as it stands does not adequately incorporate enough detail.

It is for this reason that the committee recommends that the identity matching services Bill 2019 be redrafted according to the following principles:

One, the regime should be built around privacy, transparency and subject to safe to rather robust safeguards to the regime,

two: the regime should be subject to parliamentary oversight, and reasonable proportionate and transparent functionality.

Three, the regime should be one that requires annual reporting on the use of the identity matching services and four the primary legislation should specifically require that there is a participation agreement that sets out the obligations of all parties participating in the identity, identity matching services in detail.

Additionally, the Committee recommends that the redrafted bill will be referred to the committee for further review.

Updated

Both government and Labor MPs on the intelligence committee are united in recommending the identity sharing bill NOT be passed, because it appears to give home affairs too much power, without any oversight.

Like I said, this is a BIG deal.

Usually it’s ‘we think it can be fixed and here are our recommendations on how to do it’ not ‘DO NOT PASS THIS BILL’.

Updated

Intelligence committee knocks back government surveillance bill citing oversight concerns

Andrew Hastie is speaking on that identity bill – he says the committee is recommending it be re-drafted.

That’s a big deal. A government led committee is saying a government bill does not have enough oversight.

More to come.

Updated

Over in Social Services estimates, Labor’s Murray Watt has been grilling the department and the NDIA about the agency’s chair, Helen Nugent, using a Macquarie Group email to conduct NDIS work. That was revealed in this story by Rick Morton here.

Watt is concerned about potential conflicts of interest and privacy concerns. Macquarie is the only bank listed on a NDIA housing reference group. It is also reportedly eyeing investments in the specialist disability accommodation sector. The external email is outside the scope of FOI.

It should be noted Nugent no longer has a formal role at Macquarie.

Watt points to a story, in the AFR, that says Nugent received emails to her Macquarie account that contained “highly sensitive case information on Tim Rubenach, a 32-year-old man with severe epilepsy who died in northeast Tasmania awaiting NDIS care”.

He asks if NDIA’s acting CEO, Vicki Rundle, and the department are guilty of “wilful blindness”. They reject this. The DSS secretary, Kathryn Campbell, says Nugent had actively discouraged NDIA staff from contacting her using the external email.

Rundle tells the hearing Nugent is “cognisant” of using her official NDIA email. But of any conflict of interests, she adds: “I’m trying to work out what the actual issue might be.”

Nugent has not been reprimanded or officially advised to refrain from using her Macquarie email for NDIS/NDIA work.

They have taken on notice questions about how many NDIA-related emails she has sent and received using her Macquarie email.

Updated

The head of the department of foreign affairs and trade, Frances Adamson, was asked about Australia’s relationship with China, by Penny Wong, in estimates this morning.

Here is the chief diplomat’s view:

Well, Australia’s relationship with China in fact, I think across the world ... every country’s relationship with China is a subject of keen interest and conversation across a wide range of stakeholders.

And in that respect, Australia is no different particularly given the nature of our relationship with China.

Of course, in formal terms, we have a comprehensive strategic partnership, but we very quickly then, within that, look at the various pillars of activity that we have, including obviously trading investment, people to people links, prominently captured by numbers of tourism and students, and all of those things.

In broad diplomatic terms, though, Australia continues to engage with China, the prime minister had a good meeting at which I was present in Jakarta on the weekend with Vice President Wang Qishan. The foreign minister also had a very good meeting at which I was present in New York with her counterpart.

Those meetings, it’s important that they occur as regularly as they can, because they enable us to talk to each other about the nature of the relationship in all of its dimensions, including areas where we have differences. Those differences have been well publicised, not always accurately, but they exist and I think there’s no point in us at all, pretending that they’re not there.

In fact, I think if we were to characterise our current relationship with China and the relationship going forward, it will be a relationship where we will need on both sides to work quite hard to manage what I really think will be enduring differences.

Some points of difference may come and go and be able to be resolved. But other points of difference, which go more deeply to the differences between our systems and our values are likely to endure.

It should therefore not be surprising in my view that a relationship where there are points of difference, some of them which are actively canvassed in the public domain, that is – I don’t particularly like the term “new normal”, but I think it does apply in this situation.

Updated

That bill Andrew Hastie is about to report on has been quite controversial. Mostly because it creates a national ID register:

1. This Bill amends the Australian Passports Act 2005 (Passports Act) to provide a legal basis for ensuring that the minister is able to make Australian travel document data available for all the purposes of, and by the automated means intrinsic to, the identity-matching services to which the Commonwealth and the States and Territories agreed in the Intergovernmental Agreement on Identity Matching Services (IGA), signed at a meeting of the Council of Australian Governments on 5 October 2017.

2. The services will enable identity matching based on personal information held in government systems nationally. They include a number of biometric services in which the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade intends to participate. One, the Face Verification Service (FVS), will allow Commonwealth, state and territory agencies, and potentially in future the private sector, to verify the known or claimed identities of individuals by reference to facial images in government identity records. Another, the Face Identification Service (FIS), will allow authorised facial recognition specialists in law enforcement, national security and anti-corruption agencies to identify unknown persons. Beyond the FVS and the FIS, an Identity Data Sharing Service will allow for the secure sharing of biometric identity information in other circumstances.

3. Subsidiary to the IGA, a Participation Agreement (PA) will regulate access to the services by individual Commonwealth, state and territory agencies. Among other things, the IGA provides that strict privacy, transparency and accountability controls must apply to all the services. The Department of Home Affairs will administer the services and oversee compliance with these controls.

Updated

This has been put on the notice paper for this morning:

Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security — Mr Hastie (Chair — Canning) to present the following report and seek leave to make a statement:

Advisory report on the Identity-matching Services Bill 2019 and the Australian Passports Amendment (Identity-matching Services) Bill 2019 .

Updated

The bells are ringing – the house is about to get under way.

Updated

Matt Canavan will be fronting estimates this morning, where the northern Australia infrastructure fund will be under the microscope.

It’s unkindly called the “no actual infrastructure fund” by its critics in the hallways, because there hasn’t been a lot of things actually built by the $5bn concessional loan fund, which was Tony Abbott’s idea to turn the north into an “economic powerhouse”.

Updated

Scott Morrison made a speech at the awards, where he heavily focused on the economic contribution of migrants. Peter Scanlon, a former Migration Council of Australia chair, spoke immediately afterwards. SBS was there and kindly let me let listen to the speech (and, if you aren’t watching SBS news, you should be, because they are doing great work in this space):

For at least 50 years after world war two, political leaders from both major parties spoke directly to the Australian people about the economic, social and cultural benefits of the nation’s immigration program.

To me however, I sense in the last 20 years, our leaders have become more reluctant to discuss the program’s full impact on Australian life, dwelling mainly on its economic benefits and less on its nation building.

There was spontaneous applause. Scanlon continued.

This approach, I feel, has shrunk the Australian story.

There was more applause and cheers.

While I believe the economic benefits of migration are considerable, Australia has a much bigger story to tell, about how migration has built this nation. A story that most Australians accept and endorse. To Scott [Morrison], to Anthony [Albanese], to David [Coleman], please tell our story. Make us proud of what we have achieved. Just like my dad did for me.

Updated

Last night, the Migration and Settlement awards were held in Parliament House, where attendees were served a goat cheese circle (no one tell Paul Fletcher).

Peter Scanlon won the lifetime achievement award.

Updated

Angus Taylor calls Clover Moore doctored documents story 'conspiracy theory'

Angus Taylor’s office has sent through a statement in regards to this story from Anne Davies and Christopher Knaus:

The conspiracy theory being perpetrated by the Lord Mayor is rejected.

I make no apology for suggesting that the Lord Mayor should take real and meaningful action to reduce the City of Sydney’s carbon emissions instead of hollow virtue-signalling through letters.

One way to reduce emissions is through limiting unnecessary air travel and I suggest that the Lord Mayor’s flights to Paris for the Women for Climate conference was an unnecessary indulgence.

Updated

Anthony Albanese is happy to talk about the tensions within the coalition partners over the drought strategy. Here he is talking to the Nine network this morning:

This is a national emergency. Quite clearly, the National Party backbench are very unhappy with their own leadership and the leadership of the coalition.

We need a comprehensive plan. It’s one that deals with the crisis which is there right now in terms of not just farmers, but people who rely upon farming and agriculture for their work, the workers in those areas.

And, of course, the towns that are running out of water. We need to cooperate across federal, state and local government.

We need to listen to farming organisations. At the moment, what you’ve got is the national farmers federation that have a plan, the National Party have a plan, Scott Morrison had a leak last night to one of the TV networks about a plan coming out next week. For goodness sake.

Why can’t we all sit down and put the national interest first and come up with a coordinated, comprehensive, bipartisan national drought strategy.

It’s community affairs, economics, education and employment and foreign affairs, defence and trade in estimates land today.

Updated

Andrew Hastie continued:

These individual and personal stories helped us to understand and humanise the greater tragedy that is unfolding in Xinjiang province, China. I, along with many other Australians, am very troubled by the repressive surveillance state and how the Uighur people are being banned from practising their religious faith and how they are being oppressively monitored in their homes, in their communities 24/7. I am very troubled by the way that Uighurs’ culture and identity is being systematically assaulted, deconstructed and scrubbed out by the authorities. I am very troubled about the clear evidence of re-education camps, where 1 million Uighurs have been forcibly detained and indoctrinated into communists’ thinking. The ABC, along with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, have managed to identify 28 detention camps using satellite imagery. Most of these detained have never committed a crime. I could go on. It was a heartbreaking episode that we all needed to watch and absorb. I congratulate the ABC for running it and for the work that went into it.

Last month I met with members of the Australian Uighur community in my parliamentary office. That delegation was led by Nurmuhammad Majid. It was my great honour to host them and to hear their personal stories. Every single one of them sitting in my office had family and friends interned or trapped in Xinjiang province. They have shown great courage and perseverance despite the tears, heartache and pain. I made a commitment to them that I would raise their plight in this House, tonight I fulfil that commitment. I say to them that we might not see resolution soon, but we will continue to work with you and make sure your loved ones are not forgotten.

Finally, the Four Corners program identified a range of Australian businesses that were sourcing cotton from Xinjiang province, potentially using Uighur forced labour. Cotton On and Target Australia were two of them. Subsequent to the program, both businesses conducted internal reviews of their supply chains and have ceased sourcing cotton from Xinjiang province. I want to note the actions of Cotton On and Target Australia in this House and applaud them for taking the action that they have taken. Australia is a country that lives by the values of freedom and fairness, and so it is right that we acknowledge when our businesses do the right thing. I thank the House.

Updated

Andrew Hastie speaks up for persecuted Uighurs in China

Looks like Andrew Hastie made an interesting speech in the House late last night:

Tonight I rise to speak on behalf of those who are vulnerable, persecuted and separated from their loved ones. Tonight I speak for Uighur Australians, who have family and friends facing systematic persecution and internment in Xinjiang province, in the People’s Republic of China. But first I want to say a few words about the role of Australian investigative journalism and its importance for a free, democratic society.

As this House is aware, the parliamentary joint committee for intelligence and security is conducting an inquiry into the freedom of the press. As the chair, it would be improper for me to make remarks about committee deliberations or what conclusions we might reach in our report, but I do want to say that we all agree that public interest and investigative journalism is vital to a thriving, liberal democracy – particularly when it comes to national security or human rights issues.

A superb example of good investigative journalism is the July Four Corners program of Tell the World by ABC reporter Sophie McNeil. The program detailed the plight and suffering of more than 1 million Muslim minorities who have been rounded up, detained and and forcibly indoctrinated by the Chinese communist regime. Australian citizens or permanent residents have been targeted and jailed. Others are trapped under state surveillance, their passports seized. I was deeply moved by those who courageously showed the story on the program. I was moved by those who have been separated from their loved ones. I think of Sadam Abudusalamu, who is separated from his wife and child – a child he has never met in person.

Updated

Good morning

Welcome to the final sitting day for October – and the last day we’ll see the House MPs here for a month.

Which will hopefully give the Nationals some more time to get themselves together, as they gear up to take back the issue of drought from both the Liberals, and minor parties like One Nation – with Barnaby Joyce leading the charge.

The Nationals backbench have put together its own drought plan, which Sarah Martin has laid out here:

Under the plan being spearheaded by Joyce, drought-affected councils would receive $10m each, co-funded with state governments.

There are 123 councils that have been deemed eligible for funding under the Coalition’s existing drought communities program, suggesting the total cost for the proposal would be at least $1.2bn.

The Nationals policy document says that the drought is a “seminal issue” for the economies of the regions and for “the politics in our representation to these regions”.

Joyce has been on the ABC this morning backing that in – he says it is time for the Nationals to push back.

“The cabinet will come out with a drought policy, I presume next week, and if we drive our agenda which influences their outcome, that is a good outcome,” Joyce told Sabra Lane.

“Obviously, if the cabinet outcome is completely lacking, we’ll continue to drive our agenda harder … We get this, and we have been playing a proper game, and we’ve been playing as the dutiful Coalition partner, we’ve been making sure we’ve been part of the team, but there is a sense out there that we are not doing enough and that is not correct, we are driving these agendas as hard as we can.”

It is no coincidence that Joyce is driving this fightback. As we’ve reported, there have been tensions with the Nationals leadership for sometime, since even before the election. That’s dialling up again, with One Nation starting to make inroads, at least publicly, by taking ownership of traditional National party domains.

We’ll have that ongoing tussle, as well as this story from Anne Davies and Christopher Knaus:

Angus Taylor baselessly accused Sydney’s lord mayor of driving up carbon emissions by spending $15m on travel, a claim that was later backed up with a doctored council document provided to the Daily Telegraph, which reported the figure.

It is unclear who altered the document. There is no suggestion that Taylor himself was responsible. If you have missed the story, you’ll find it here.

I am going to hunt down my third coffee (it’s a fiver day, peeps, I can feel it) but I hope you’re ready.

Let’s get into it

Updated

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