Josh Frydenberg under pressure over $444m reef foundation grant – as it happened

Postscript

The Senate has voted on David Leyonhjelm’s bill to restore the territories’ rights to legislate for euthanasia and it has been voted down:

36 to 34.

That means its gone - and it saves Malcolm Turnbull from having another battle in the party room.

It won’t disappear as an issue though, so watch this space.

I’ve had a good and proper scrounge around and all has gone quiet up here on the hill.

To be honest, I think the last 24 hours has left most MPs exhausted. I don’t blame them.

The annual ABC Parliament House Showcase is on tonight, where the ABC brings its best and brightest to the capital and all the MPs get photos with the Bananas in Pyjamas.

Looking to tomorrow, there will be more Neg, more Great Barrier Reef Foundation and more euthanasia - it is possible we will get to a vote on that tonight, but there are a lot of people who have wanted to have their say on this, which could stretch us into tomorrow.

If it passes the Senate - and there is no guarantee of that, given the tight numbers game, then it becomes a problem for Malcolm Turnbull. David Leyonhjelm said Turnbull had promised him a free vote in the House. Turnbull says there wasn’t any such deal. But given the conservative pushback the prime minister is already facing from his party room, throwing in a vote on a bill which will give the territories the right to pass assisted voluntary dying laws, is not a headache he wants right now.

So keep an eye on that one.

We’ll be back bright and early tomorrow to bring you the final day of this sitting week. I don’t think I am alone in hoping we can all put recent events behind us. As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, there will be some attempting to take advantage of their new found infamy. We have all said our piece and we know where the parliament stands. We’ll be watching to make sure they hold the lines they spoke of today, as always, and holding them to account. The ultimate power though, as always, comes down to you, when numbering those boxes at the next election.

A big thank you to the Guardian brains trust for getting this blog though another monster day and to Mike Bowers who has been here since the first rays of sunlight peeped over the hill, capturing the days events, and is still walking the halls, camera in hand, now. Catch up with his day @mpbowers.

And the biggest thank you, to you. For reading, for engaging, for helping to keep us all sane and for reminding us what is important. Take care of you.

We’ll see you tomorrow.

The debate on restoring territory rights - so the ACT and NT can decide whether or not to pass euthanasia laws - has resumed.

Numbers are very, very tight on this. It is possible there will be a vote tonight, but just as possible we’ll be back here tomorrow.

Tony Abbott phoned in for his Wednesday afternoon chat with 2GB.

Newsflash - he is still very against the Neg.

On Fraser Anning:

The numbers on the euthanasia legislation in the Senate seems pretty touch and go at the moment.

Peter Georgiou announced this morning he would be voting ‘no’

15 Aug 201802.30 EDT

Paul Karp

The Greens have just managed to get a Senate committee inquiry set up into the JobActive scheme , despite the Coalition and Labor opposing it.

The Greens moved a motion for the education and employment committee to consider whether JobActive provides “long term solutions to joblessness” , whether mutual obligation requirements such as Work for the Dole are fair, and penalties against jobseekers who breach rules.

Labor senator Anthony Chisholm said the opposition would not support it because - despite advocating on the issues with jobseeker services for years - the committee already had inquiries running looking at safety issues in the cleaning industry and industrial deaths.

But then, when president Scott Ryan asked for voices in favour and against, he declared the motion was carried by the “ayes” (that’s yes). Nobody asked for a division.

Senator Derryn Hinch got up to query the result - noting Ryan had called it for the ayes despite the fact they were clearly in the minority. Ryan responded it was up to senators to request a division.

So it seems despite the parties representing the majority senators opposing it, the motion was successful.

One of the speeches I meant to come back to from this morning, but ran out of time, was Lucy Gichuhis:

Not the usual Politics Live fodder, but there is a pretty serious bushfire burning through the Shoalhaven and Illawarra region. In August.

Stay safe if you’re in that area.

Well, it looks like things are well and truly back to normal in the Senate.

In response to this motion from Cory Bernardi:

That the Senate —

(a) notes that Mr Tom Raue, recently preselected as the New South Wales Greens candidate for the inner Sydney seat of Summer Hill, once wrote in a student newspaper column “why is consensual sex with animals considered so heinous that it must be illegal? Why is it taboo to even talk about it? Yes most Australians find it disgusting, but that is not a good enough reason to legislate against it. Consensual sex with an animal should not be illegal, no matter how distasteful it may seem”;

(b)further notes that these statements are in keeping with the writings of Victorian Greens Party co-founder and former candidate, Professor Peter Singer, who has also sought to break down taboos on sexual relations between humans and animals; and

(c) rejects all pushes by the Greens and other activists to promote sexual intimacy between humans and animals.

Pauline Hanson asked: “I need clarification on consensual sex with an animal. Is the suggestion of consent for an animal one cluck for yes, or two clucks for no?”

There was no answer.

And it’s official, official

Given what has gone on in the parliament over the last couple of days, Q&A has come under some fire for its line up next week.

It has just responded:

Sussan Ley is on Sky discussing ‘borrowing’, although bringing forward is probably more accurate, water from the Murray Darling to ensure the crops can be watered during this next crucial fortnight - the crops which have been planted for the next season’s reaping need water now, or they’ll die.

She says critics have misunderstood and the environmental flows would still be there for the Murray-Darling - but that the water farmers will be getting down the track will be coming too late, which is why she is asking for it to be released now.

“It is simply about a slight change of timing in the release of water,” she said.

Asked on Sky News if the government fails to get its company tax plan through the Senate, will Scott Morrison says:

“We are putting it to the parliament..I took a promise to the last election and I said I would implement it in this parliament and that is what we are seeking to do.”

Pressed about whether or not he’ll take it to an election, if it falls, Morrison again brushes it over again.

But he says the government will “of course” take the Neg to the next election, if the Coalition doesn’t manage to get it through the Senate.

How Mike Bowers saw question time:

View image in fullscreen

View image in fullscreen

View image in fullscreen

View image in fullscreen

And as promised - Malcolm Turnbull’s full speech from the motion this morning:

I condemned the racist remarks of Senator Anning last night as soon as I heard of them. I’ve condemned them already today and I condemn them again here in this House.

Let me say Mr Speaker, we live in the most successful multicultural society in the world and our success is built on a foundation of mutual respect. We have one of the most successful immigration programs in the world. We are a migration nation. Who could claim to have a better one? And we manage it on a thoroughly nondiscriminatory basis. It too is built on a foundation of strong leadership and the control of our borders, so that Australians know that people who come here, come here because the government has agreed to them doing so. The people’s representatives agree to them doing so.

We’ve managed that program in a world where there is so much disharmony. Where, in many places in the world, where people of different faiths and different races have lived side-by-side reasonably harmoniously for hundreds of years and now seem unable to do so.

Despite all of that, here in Australia, in the midst of our diversity, we live in great harmony.

So we have so much to be proud of, but we can never take it for granted.

We must always stand up for our commitment to an Australia that defines itself by reference to shared political values; freedom, democracy, the rule of law, a fair go. Those are our values and they are accessible to people of every race, of any religion, or none, of any cultural background. So that is how we define our nation.

Now, just a little while ago, the Leader of the Opposition and I launched together, a book by Emma Campbell called The Last Post. It tells 30 of the stories of Australian servicemen and women that have been honoured in the Last Post ceremonies at the War Memorial that all of us have attended from time to time.

It reminds us that when you fling open all the doors in this Parliament, from my office, the Prime Minister’s office at the back, through the Cabinet room where the great decisions of government are made, through the Members Hall, uniting the House and Senate, through the Great Hall, looking across the like, what do we see? The Australian War Memorial. It reminds us there, in its splendid simplicity, in its serenity, that every freedom we exercise here was hard-won and today is hard-held by the men and women of the Australian Defence Force. Over 102,000 fallen Australians honoured there. They have come from every race, from every culture, from every religion and of none. Our First Australians to the most recent migrants, all of them united in their commitment to defending our values.

Now the Leader of the Opposition acknowledges it was not always so. It’s true, it was in 1965, the Labor Party abandoned, removed the White Australia policy from its charter. In 1966, Harold Holt, a Liberal Prime Minister, abandoned, repealed any legislation that enabled a White Australia Policy, or discrimination against migrants on the basis of their race or religion.

So that was a great Liberal achievement and of course, in 1967, we had the great referendum. Long overdue, but an enormously uniting statement of commitment to equality.

So we have always stood against racism, ever since those days. The days of the White Australia policy are long, long ago and our success is founded on our commitment to a shared national identity committed to those political values which unite us all.

Now, I want to refer to the remarks that have been made about terrorism. Let me say this; the vast majority of the victims of Islamist terrorism are Muslims. The Islamist terrorists are, in the words of my friend President Joko Widodo, President of Indonesia, they are blasphemers. He says they are not Muslims. They are denounced and abhorred by the vast majority of Muslims around the world and particularly here in Australia.

Let’s be quite clear; those who seek to demonise all Muslims on the basis of the crimes of a tiny minority, are helping the terrorists. Let’s be very clear about this. I say this as Prime Minister, whose most solemn responsibility is to keep Australians safe. I want to say this very carefully, solemnly, seriously.

The terrorists’ argument, the Islamist terrorists’ argument to other Muslims is; “Your country, Australia, is not your country. They don’t want you. They hate you. You’re not ever going to be really Australian. Join the war on our side.” So those who try to demonise Muslims because of the crimes of a tiny minority, are only helping the terrorists.

The reference in Senator Anning’s speech to the ‘final solution’ is a shocking, shocking insult to the memory of over 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust. Can I say here in Australia and particularly in my city of Sydney and the honorable member opposite in his city of Melbourne, we have the largest number of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel.

The reference to the ‘final solution’ in that speech was appalling. We condemn that and the insult it offered to the memory of those Jewish martyrs, just as we condemn the racism, a shocking rejection of the Australian values that have made us the successful multicultural nation that we are today.

Mr Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition said perhaps we should not say too much about the Senator’s remarks, at the risk that we give “oxygen to stupidity”, I think was the Leader of the Opposition’s words. I believe it’s important always, to call out racism. It is. We need to call it out.

We need to stand up for what we are; a free society, the most successful multicultural society in the world, united by democratic values that do not distinguish between race, religion, colour, cultural background.

A nation that is united in its commitment to respect, mutual respect for people of every religion, of every race, of every background.

We should be so proud of our achievement in today’s world. It is remarkable, it is the envy of the world.

We should all here be proud of this and condemn - as we have - racism and discrimination of the kind so regrettably expressed, so shamefully expressed, by Senator Anning.

On that little tidbit of the crisis talks with the backbench Tanya Plibersek asked Malcolm Turnbull about - here is how the prime minister ignored it.

The Matter of Public Importance today is on - ‘the government’s failure to invest in the early years of children’.

Question time ends.

Bill Shorten to Malcolm Turnbull:

Yesterday, the government could not explain why the government had given $440 million of Australian taxpayers’s money to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. Can the Prime Minister tell us who came up with a taxpayer funded idea, or to put another way, if it was such a good idea, why won’t the Prime Minister tell us whose idea it was?

Turnbull:

Well, Mr Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition has clearly not been listening to the minister who has said a number of times, as have others, that the decision to make a contribution to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation was made prior to the budget and went to the full pre budget Cabinet process, with which the honorable Member is no doubt familiar with from his time in government.

But, Mr Speaker, when it comes to ideas, at the very sad thing that we had to confront the day is the Leader of the Opposition and the Labor Party have no ideas were cheaper electricity, they have no ideas for anything else then higher taxes, higher prices for energy, fewer jobs, less investment, and low wages. That is the melancholy list of the Labor Party’s lack of ideas, and when it comes to higher energy prices, they celebrate it and describe it as a triumph of the market working well.