Key events
What we learned, Tuesday 22 July
It’s official: parliament is open! Thanks for staying with us through a busy day on the blog. Here are today’s major developments:
-
The 48th parliament is now in session, with a slate of familiar faces returning to key roles. Labor senator Sue Lines has been returned as the Senate president despite a surprise pitch from Pauline Hanson to see David Pocock in the role. And Milton Dick will be the Speaker of the House once more, after he was “dragged” to the chair.
-
The Coalition will support legislation to cut student debt by 20%, a policy backflip since the federal election campaign.
-
The Senate is set to hold an inquiry into the devastating SA algal bloom, with the Greens warning the crisis is a sign of things to come for other parts of the nation.
-
Minutes from the Reserve Bank board meeting confirmed more interest rate cuts are a question of when, not if, with the focus of this month’s meeting on the best timing for doing so.
-
Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi sparked controversy in parliament today after holding up a sign during the governor general’s speech, reading “Sanction Israel”.
-
Protests calling for sanctions on Israel continued elsewhere in Canberra today.
-
New MPs Ali France – who unseated Peter Dutton in Dickson – and Sarah Witty – who unseated Adam Bandt in Melbourne – gave their first speeches to parliament this evening.
We’ll be back tomorrow with another Australia politics live blog bright and early. Take care.
Josh Butler
Senate likely to convene algal bloom inquiry tomorrow
The federal Senate is likely to convene an inquiry into the algal bloom off South Australia’s coastline, with Labor and Coalition senators co-sponsoring a motion expected to be debated tomorrow.
A motion from Labor senator Karen Grogan and Liberal Andrew McLachlan – both South Australians – as well as Nationals senator Ross Cadell, is to be moved tomorrow, seeking to set up a Senate inquiry into the environmental issue.
The motion, posted on the Senate’s website tonight, calls on the Environment and Communications References Committee to report back, by 28 October, on issues relating to water quality, tourism, ecosystem health, Indigenous communities, fishing, and the responses of state and federal governments.
It also calls for investigation of research and monitoring, as well as prevention strategies.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, also from SA, also her a separate motion of her own on the notice paper, calling for an inquiry.
The environment minister, Murray Watt, announced $14m to help in the recovery, but Cadell – the shadow minister for fisheries and water – said “this is far more than an environmental event”. Cadell said:
The people of South Australia need more than a promise of funding. They need clear answer on what the money will be used for, and how it will support them.
Witty ends with call to fix housing system, address climate change and push equality
Witty ended her speech with a rousing call to tackle the biggest issues facing her constituents in Melbourne, and around the nation:
To represent Melbourne in this place is not just an honour, it’s a calling.
I do not pretend that I stand here alone. I bring with me the voices of renters demanding justice, of people demanding climate action, of communities demanding to be heard, not managed. We are building something bigger than one person. We are building a future where no one is forgotten and everyone belongs.
That is the future I will fight for side-by-side with the people of Melbourne, because building our future together is what I’m here to do. It’s our purpose.
Witty tells parliament how time as foster carer set her on path to Canberra
Witty speaks about her husband, Paul, and their journey to become parents through the foster care system. She says that path was a difficult one, filled with pain and grief:
Becoming parents didn’t follow the well-worn path. When our time came … we weren’t blessed with an easy journey. Over 10 plus years, we endured heartache after heartache, pregnancy after pregnancy, ending in loss. We grieved deeply while we searched for other ways to grow our family …
I stepped into the world of foster care, not out of ease, but out of a deep need to turn my pain into something positive. Paul and I welcomed children into our home and into our hearts. Some days were beautiful. Other days tested every ounce of strength we had.
She said those experiences would influence her time in parliament, noting she will always ask what any child needs to “grow up to be the best person they can be”.
Sarah Witty delivers first speech as member for Melbourne
Witty says that while her journey to parliament may be more “more recent than most”, in many ways she has been walking that path her whole life. She said:
I’ve waited on tables, crunched numbers in banks. Been a small business owner, and rolled up my sleeves in the charity sector. Always working, always learning. I help to raise money for social and affordable housing, and I’ve given free nappies to families in crisis. I’ve witnessed far too often how systems fail can fail the very people they’re meant to protect.
But I’ve also seen something just as powerful how community and community can rise up, surround someone in need and carry them forward with dignity and care.
Next up: Sarah Witty, the Labor MP who unseated Adam Bandt
Sarah Witty, the Labor MP who beat Greens leader Adam Bandt in Melbourne during the election, is also delivering her first speech.
Witty, a Richmond local of two decades, is a foster carer with an unusual path to politics.
Read more about her here:
Albanese just walked up to France and gave her a big hug as she wrapped up.
France thanks PM for ‘unwavering support’
France just delivered a personal thank you to Anthony Albanese and former Queensland premier Steven Miles, saying the pair had “always been in my corner”. She said:
Their support has meant I’ve continued to climb the mountain and succeed, when many others said I should step away.
Prime minister – I remember our first conversation. You were the shadow infrastructure minister in 2018, and you called me out of the blue one morning.
‘Hey, it’s Albo. I’ve just landed in Brisbane, let’s have a coffee.’
What you were really saying was: ‘Hey, you’re one of us.’
I wouldn’t be here without your unwavering support.
Ali France thanks doctors who helped her recover after accident
France’s speech also thanked those who helped her when an 88-year-old driver lost control of his car and pinned her against another car, later resulting in the loss of her leg in 2011. Prof Martin Wullschleger, the doctor who amputated her leg, saving her life, was in the gallery.
Martin, I am still in awe of your courage, expertise and work ethic – and that of so many other health workers who have got me to this place. Everything they do at work ripples outwards.
She personally thanked the orthopaedic surgeon Dr Munjed al Muderis, a refugee surgeon from Iraq who watched the speech from the gallery, for giving her the ability to walk again.
I am so grateful you stepped outside of the boundaries of what was thought to be medically possible at the time. I literally would not be standing here today without you. Modern Australia is the product of migrants and refugees like Munjed who have come here and worked hard to give back and contribute to their adoptive country.
France says Labor values have underpinned family life for ‘generations’
Ali France is speaking about her upbringing and the importance of the Labor party throughout her life. France, the daughter of former Queensland Labor MP Peter Lawlor, said she inherited her values of economic and social justice from the party, adding her father and grandparents instilled them in her from an early age. She said:
Labor values of economic and social justice are not just something my family has voted for, they have underpinned our weekends, our work and our friendships for generations.
Those values drive everything I do and fight for in Dickson. … In Dad I watched a masterclass in perseverance and commitment. He first ran for the state seat of Southport in 1992 with a margin of 12%, eventually winning the seat for Labor in 2001 – his fourth attempt.
Ali France delivering first speech after unseating Peter Dutton
Sarah Basford Canales
Ali France, the fresh Labor MP who unexpectedly unseated former opposition leader Peter Dutton in the election, is delivering her first speech.
The new member for Dickson’s journey through life is quite an extraordinary one – a former journalist who became a Paralympian after her leg was amputated after a car accident in 2011.
France described her win over Dutton as climbing an “insurmountable mountain”, which took seven years, but she nods to her early life as well.
France said:
My epic journey to this place to represent the people of Dickson was not part of a grand plan, or a lifelong dream, rather it was hundreds of little steps.
Police detain 17 people in Parliament House amid protests, woman arrested outside in separate incident
ACT police detained 17 people near the Marble Foyer in Parliament House earlier this afternoon for causing what an Australian federal police spokesperson alleged was a “disturbance” amid a broader protest. The group were detained by officers while they confirmed individuals’ identities, before being removed from the building.
The spokesperson said those individuals would be issued formal banning notices at a later date.
Separately, police said a woman was arrested outside Parliament House around 3pm by protective service officers. The AFP spokesperson said the woman is expected to be charged with failing to obey the direction of a protective service officer.
About 400 people were outside Parliament House this morning as part of a protest.
Caitlin Cassidy
Independent MPs want the government to do more on higher education reforms
A Coalition of six independent MPs have joined together to call for the federal government to go further on higher education reforms facing young people.
With Labor poised to introduce its bill to cut student debt by 20%, Senator David Pocock, Dr Monique Ryan, Dr Helen Haines, Dr Sophie Scamps, Nicolette Boele and Kate Chaney will front the media on Wednesday urging Labor to do more to address placement poverty, reform the timing of indexation on student debt and fundamentally reform student tertiary degrees, including reversing the widely panned jobs-ready-graduate scheme.
While Labor have implemented a number of reforms to student debt, changing the timing of indexation so students aren’t paying interest on money they’ve already paid could save people with Hecs/Help loans $704m over four years, the Parliamentary Budget Office has estimated.
At the same time, Pocock said Labor’s stipend for mandatory placements should be higher and extended to key professions like psychology and radiography, not just nursing, teaching and midwifery:
Now in its second term, Labor needs to stop going for the quick headline and start going for the hard reform. Wiping 20% of student debt is welcome but it treats the symptom, not the cause, and won’t help people who are studying today and racking up eye-watering levels of student debt.
Pocock says Australia should call in Israeli ambassador over Gaza aid deaths
David Pocock said he would like to see the government do more after Australia joined 27 other countries condemning Israel for denying humanitarian aid to Palestinians. Pocock said the government should provide more support to Australian medical staff working in the territory, and that the recent deaths of people in Gaza at an aid distribution centre should see Australia call in the Israeli ambassador.
He told Afternoon Briefing:
I think this warrants that. Look what we’re seeing – young people being shot seeking food, starving young people being shot. What is the threshold for more action? I think it’s a great thing they signed on to this, but you can’t tell me there isn’t more that the government can do as a middle power, to say we can do more.
Read more here:
David Pocock says he didn’t know Pauline Hanson would nominate him for Senate president
Independent senator David Pocock said it was “big surprise” when Pauline Hanson nominated him to be the Senate’s president earlier today, saying he didn’t think “anyone” knew she was planning to call his name. He was asked about the interesting moment earlier on Afternoon Briefing:
I’ll have to talk to Pauline and see what the thinking was, but certainly [I] have no intention of trying to do that job. [I’m] very focused on representing people in the ACT, I’ve been given a second term and I think there’s a lot to do to really push the government to actually deliver on all of the promises they’ve made.
Pocock said he respects that every senator in the chamber was elected by the people of their state or territory, adding “as an independent one of the things I love doing is working across the political spectrum and finding common ground”. He went on:
There’s a whole bunch of stuff I strongly disagree with and I think more and more what I’m hearing from people is they want a Senate, want a parliament that is willing to actually work out ‘these are the things we agree on and we can deliver for the Australian people’, rather than constantly having these divisive debates.
Asked about his ambitions for Senate president in the next parliament, Pocock had this to say:
Maybe next time.
Shadow environment minister welcomes $14m for SA algal bloom, but says government has been ‘flat-footed’
Angie Bell, the shadow environment minister, said she welcomed the $14m in one-off funding to help support the response to the algal bloom in South Australia, announced by environment minister Murray Watt yesterday. But she said the federal government had been “flat-footed” on addressing the crisis. Bell told Afternoon Briefing:
I welcome the funding, finally, from the federal government who has been flat-footed on this … I think the government has not been listening and they speak the big speak on environment, but they have not been delivering.
Nationals leader David Littleproud also rolled out the “flat-footed” remark yesterday, saying Labor should look into financial support measures for agricultural workers affected by the crisis.
Read more here:
