Joyce says Western Australian premier could be ‘flirting with a concept’ that could put own side in opposition
11.59pm GMT
.@TonyAbbottMHR tells @2GB873‘s Ray Hadley, if he was in charge of preferences, he wouldn’t put One Nation ahead of Nationals. 1/2 #auspol
11.49pm GMT
There is some interesting private members bills this morning. Independent Bob Katter has introduced a bill to prevent “non-first Australians and foreigners from benefitting from the sale of Indigenous art, souvenir items and other cultural affirmations and thereby depriving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders of the rightful benefits of their culture”.
Concern is that an influx of mass-produced Indigenous-style artwork, souvenirs and other cultural affirmations are being imported from overseas and undermining:
11.36pm GMT
Just hanging out with the PM.
11.33pm GMT
Shovel ready.
11.27pm GMT
Bill Shorten says Australians want politicians to lift their game. He is introducing the political donation reform bill to assist in this process.
He says parties must help solve the problem of soft influence.
The Coalition has not caused this problem but I invite them to help solve it.
The bill contains provisions that will:
11.12pm GMT
Denison independent Andrew Wilkie is speaking to his private member’s bill to fix the debt recovery system used by Centrelink.
This bill seeks to prevent the Department of Human Services from recovering a social security debt or a family tax benefit debt from an individual if the debt is under review. The bill responds to significant community concern about false debt notices being issued by the department and individuals being required to repay the debt immediately, even if it is later found to be incorrect.
The major parties wonder why voters are shifting support to minor parties and independent.
11.07pm GMT
This week will also see a committee report come down on the exposure draft of a marriage bill presented by the government ahead of the failure of the plebiscite.
Katharine and Paul Karp report new polling suggests 71% of people would look more favourably on the Turnbull government if it allowed a free vote on same-sex marriage instead of holding a plebiscite, including 64% who lean to voting Liberal.
11.01pm GMT
Monday morning in parliament is for private member’s bills and other assorted stuff.
Katharine Murphy reported that Bill Shorten would introduce a private member’s bill that would:
10.57pm GMT
I have failed to bring you this statement put out earlier from the prime minister regarding Liberal state leaders committing to a single renewable energy targets.
Malcolm Turnbull:
I welcome the decision by the South Australian Liberal party, Victorian Coalition and Queensland LNP to do away with ad hoc state renewable energy targets in favour of a single national approach.
Bill Shorten wants to adopt South Australia’s failed ideological experiment, which will lead to even higher power bills and more blackouts.
10.48pm GMT
Labor’s Mark Butler came out the minute Turnbull left the press conference to get back to parliament.
It is clear from today’s revelations that the prime minister made a deliberate decision to ignore that advice and lie to the Australian people about the cause of this very serious event.
Not only did he lie to the nation, he lied to the nation during an emergency, while state emergency officials, people from our defence forces, were out in the field protecting the community from an ongoing risk caused by this extraordinary storm event which also led to very significant flooding.
10.44pm GMT
Turnbull is asked about the advice to his department on the South Australian blackout.
This is a classic case of misrepresentation by the Labor party and by the left generally.
Let me be very clear, of course windmills did not cause a blackout, the blackout, as I have said many times, was caused by a storm breaching transmission lines. That is perfectly obvious. That is the only point that was made.
10.37pm GMT
First question to Malcolm Turnbull is on One Nation preferences. He avoids the question, saying that it was a matter for state divisions – in this case the Western Australian division.
Given Turnbull said there was no place for One Nation in the parliament before the election, he is asked why the change.
The fact is One Nation is represented, has been elected to the federal parliament and, I have to say, we work very closely with the One Nation senators. We work respectfully and constructively with them as we do with all of the crossbenchers in the Senate.
10.34pm GMT
Malcolm Turnbull has started a press conference to push the crossbenchers to support the government’s childcare policy.
[The policy] assures that the largest amount of subsidy goes to families on the lowest incomes. It is a very fair reform and it makes childcare much more affordable and available. It removes the $7,500 cap for families with incomes of under $185,000 and for those over that level, it is a cap of $10,000. This is a vitally important reform and it is a policy that the Labor party and the cross benchers should support.
10.31pm GMT
Ray Hadley is doing his regular interview with the treasurer, Scott Morrison. He says he is a stunt master and asks Morrison whether he was “channelling” him when he took a lump of coal to parliament last week. Morrison says he does all his own work.
We have to “make sure people don’t boil in the dark or shiver in the winter”.
10.26pm GMT
Parliament begins at 10am this morning in both the house and the Senate.
Meanwhile, Malcolm Turnbull is at a childcare centre in Canberra with the education minister, Simon Birmingham, and Zed Seselja.
I start work too early to do the child care drop-off but at least the PM is making sure I don’t miss the experience entirely pic.twitter.com/l6Z632zKOB
10.15pm GMT
This morning, the energy and environment minister, Josh Frydenberg, has nuanced the renewables message this morning following the release of the advice.
What happened in September and the subsequent blackouts in South Australia in December, January and just last week all related to the failure of planning in South Australia by the high uptake of intermittent sources of power, particularly wind and solar. My point is that the Labor party in South Australia and federally can’t escape that fact that their system has become a lot more vulnerable by virtue of the fact that they haven’t planned for the difficult issues involved in integrating renewables into the system.
10.01pm GMT
The trade minister, Steve Ciobo, suggests preferencing the Greens is way worse than preferencing One Nation. He says of Bill Shorten’s criticism of the WA preference deal:
This is coming from a guy who actually preferences the Greens – without doubt one of the most, if not the most, extreme political party in modern Australian politics. And yet, here’s Bill Shorten giving us lectures about preference deals.
I think we have got to make a determination based on what’s best for the people of Queensland, number one. And secondly, what can put us in a position to govern.
That’s a fair swag of voters. That’s one in five voters … now we can’t be dismissive of that. It doesn’t mean that we embrace or cuddle up to their policies.
9.45pm GMT
Right on cue, here comes Barnaby on the preference deal.
It is a statement of fact that the most successful governments in Australia are in Liberal-National government. Colin Barnett has been around the political game a long while and should seriously consider whether he thinks this is a good idea or whether he is flirting with a concept that ultimately will put his own side is in opposition.
9.42pm GMT
After weeks of speculation, it was finally confirmed at the weekend that the West Australian Liberal party will preference One Nation ahead of the Nationals in return for preferences flowing back to the Liberals in lower house seats.
His remarks followed confirmation at the weekend that the Liberal party in Western Australia would preference One Nation ahead of its alliance partner, the Nationals, in the upper house country regions, and in return, demand that One Nation preference the Liberals above Labor in all the lower house seats it is contesting in the state election.
In the 2001 election, the then Liberal premier, Richard Court, insisted that One Nation be put last on the ballot papers. The new preference deal for the coming election, which departs from that practice, is undermining the already testy alliance between the Liberals and the Nationals in WA.
Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce observed cryptically on Sunday that: “Always as times grow cold … new friends are silver but old friends are gold.” It’s a fair bet it won’t be his last word on the subject. In response to earlier talk of the plan he predicted it would bring “another blue in WA”.
9.11pm GMT
Good morning blogans,
Here we stand, looking towards the second parliamentary sitting week. There are floods in the west of the country and bushfires in the east and the major political parties are bickering over energy policy.
A coalition of business, energy, investor, climate and welfare groups has issued a sharply worded wake-up call on the energy debate, declaring “finger pointing” and 10 years of partisan politics have destroyed investor confidence in Australia’s energy sector, “worsening reliability risks”.
The joint statement from 18 groups ranging from the Business Council of Australia to the Australian Council of Social Services follows months of zero-sum political debate about energy policy, power prices and reliability, during which time the federal government has pre-empted a major review by the chief scientist, Alan Finkel, by ruling out carbon trading in the electricity sector.
There has been unprecedented damage to the network (ie bigger than any other event in Australia), with 20+ steel transmission towers down in the north of the State due to wind damage (between Adelaide and Port Augusta). The electricity network was unable to cope with such a sudden and large loss of generation at once. AEMOs advice is that the generation mix (ie renewable or fossil fuel) was not to blame for yesterday’s events – it was the loss of 1000 MW of power in such a short space of time as transmission lines fell over.