Tony Abbott moves closer to repeal of the carbon "tax" as the financial services inquiry publishes an interim report. All the developments, live, from Canberra
5.08pm AEST
PUPs on the porch.
5.03pm AEST
The Senate is dividing now. The PUPs, Ricky Muir, David Leyonhjelm and Bob Day are with the Coalition. Nick Xenophon is with Labor and the Greens. John Madigan was not in the chamber. That's victory for the government.
4.55pm AEST
Here's the finance minister, reading the terms of his agreement into the hansard. There's a stranger in the chamber Clive Palmer is in the Senate for this debate.
4.50pm AEST
Lots of hollering in the chamber.
Dastyari contends this is a victory for the big banks, with their lobbyists; a victory for special interests, not the consumers who suffered in Storm Financial or from poor advice from the Commonwealth Bank.
If the Senate is to be dirty deals done cheap at the last minute well the Australian people didn't vote for this.
4.42pm AEST
Cormann is reading into the hansard the precise terms of the agreement struck with Palmer on the FOFA package. The government will amend its package in the manner Palmer wants.
Cormann:
This is very good news for consumers.
Consumers will have certainty about the regulatory settings going forward.
What we see now is a government that has lost control of its own agenda.
What we have is the pup, wagging the tail, wagging the dog.
4.36pm AEST
Cormann notes now that he's had some discussions with the PUPs and with Ricky Muir. He says he's spent ..
.. quite a bit of time with Mr Palmer.
4.29pm AEST
Labor's Sam Dastyari kicked off proceedings in the FOFA disallowance debate this afternoon. Green Senator Peter Whish-Wilson then took his turn.
The finance minister Mathias Cormann says in reply the government doesn't want to see these regulations disallowed. Cormann says Labor, in rejecting the government's FOFA model, is simply pushing the agenda of its "friends" in Australia's industry superannuation funds.
4.21pm AEST
If you'd like to look at the primary material.
Information on the Regulation is available here http://t.co/u12KeImDZw
4.18pm AEST
Speaking of financial services, as we just were, Labor in the Senate is now bringing on a disallowance of the government's controversial FOFA regulations.
We'll know very shortly whether the PUP Senators will help the government preserve its FOFA proposal, or whether they will help Labor sink it.
4.10pm AEST
Tracking back now to the financial services inquiry and its author, David Murray. Poor Murray got hopelessly squashed at lunchtime.
This below is an excerpt from Daniel Hurst's news wrap of the interim report and the press club speech.
Concerns that Australia's largest banks are "too big to fail", superannuation fees are too high and the competence of financial advisers varies widely are among the findings of the governments financial system inquiry.
The interim report also said Labors Future of Financial Advice (Fofa) reforms in 2012 had "provided greater clarity over the expectations and requirements for financial advisers" and highlighted the Coalition's subsequent changes to elements of those arrangements.
3.45pm AEST
Looks like someone other than the page one designers at the News Corp tabloids can knock something out on photoshop.
Somehow the loss making @australian has been going 50 years - enjoy the fancy dress party @rupertmurdoch pic.twitter.com/3rwPXQ7yS1
3.32pm AEST
Here's today's ejectees. Pat Conroy, number 149.
3.20pm AEST
Question time is over. I'll chase some more chamber pictures for you as they come in. The Senate, by the by, has not yet resolved when the carbon repeal debate will start. The delay relates to a procedural skirmish over which bills will be debated in what order this week.
Thus far, there's been no resolution. But stay tuned. I suspect there will be a resolution, in due course.
3.07pm AEST
Both chambers are fielding FOFA questions.
Let me summarise thus Labor is inquiring why the government is apparently intent on letting poor financial advice be given to vulnerable groups like pensioners.
We have no plans to water down the quality of financial advice. We intend to get rid of some of the red tape so it operates more efficiently and more smoothly.
2.59pm AEST
The health minister Peter Dutton has tried to be funny about The Hollowmen.
I can't top James Jeffrey, The Australian's Strewth columnist.
Dutton trying to be droll. Coming up next: a ferret trying to be a nuclear submarine. #qt
2.55pm AEST
The education minister Christopher Pyne has told the chamber carbon repeal will save schools $340m. I'm not sure where this figure comes from.
Pyne says he's very grateful Labor is digging in behind a carbon tax. The fact that Labor isn't, in fact, digging in behind a carbon tax (Labor currently supports a market based mechanism to reduce carbon pollution) doesn't seem to perturb him.
I would like to thank the Labor Party for making the next election about the carbon tax again. We have won one election on it and I can tell you if the Australian public find out that if they vote Labor, the carbon tax will come back, the members in the marginal seats who think they are coasting for victory at the next election, they will get a nasty surprise.
2.45pm AEST
Agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce is at the dispatch box on carbon repeal. His answer is completely incomprehensible. Truly. I say this with respect. It is impossible to follow his reasoning. I think a sheep was given a state funeral at some point.
Labor's Pat Conroy takes a point of order.
Relevance, has the minister found that $100 leg of lamb yet?
2.39pm AEST
Like ships in the night, Labor inquires about Tony Abbott's "budget of broken promises."
The deputy prime minister Warren Truss talks about the carbon tax.
Whatever the cost, it will be higher under Labor because Labor wants to have a carbon tax that goes up every year.
2.33pm AEST
Here's that Katter/Bishop moment.
Madam speaker threatens to boot Bob Katter I'd he uses his boots prop @murpharoo @GuardianAus #politicslive pic.twitter.com/FhnwP2SgDA
2.32pm AEST
On Politics Live yesterday we referenced concerns from independent Senator Nick Xenophon about boot manufacturer Rossi being snubbed in a recent defence tender.
Queensland's Bob Katter goes there today. He'd like to brandish a boot to illustrate his point. Madam Speaker would prefer he kept his footwear to himself.
(Rossi) were not successful tendering for the fawn industrial footwear due to overall value for money considerations, in other words, they were considered too expensive.
(The ADF's footwear) will be supplied by Steel Blue who will manufacture the boots in Indonesia.
For the last three years those industrial boots have been manufactured in China on behalf of an Australian company now they will be manufactured in Indonesia by an Australian company.
2.22pm AEST
A couple of quick snaps from Mike Bowers. It is, as he notes, the battle of the deputies.
Battle of the deputies today Truss-VS-Plibersek @GuardianAus @murpharoo #politicslive http://t.co/7zJiPWEntA pic.twitter.com/C14sy9WceH
#PynePalm #Day2 @murpharoo @GuardianAus #politicslive http://t.co/7zJiPWEntA pic.twitter.com/A5Ft9jRblE
2.19pm AEST
Another Dixer on repeal, this time to treasurer Joe Hockey, who points out Labor seems to have forgotten to ask any questions on carbon pricing today. Yesterday, carbon pricing was central to Labor's Question Time strategy in the House.
Hockey:
We are getting rid of the carbon tax because the carbon tax is a failed policy. It is flawed policy and how ironic it is that after yesterday addressing every question on the carbon tax and after opposing the repeal of the carbon tax on three occasions, today the Labor party is not even asking a question.
They are going to have to defend the carbon tax, not just yesterday but for every day up to the next election and beyond. The carbon tax and the Labor party are one and the same.
2.16pm AEST
I'm not sure whether Labor has new information about the vessel or whether that was a fishing exercise by Marles. Moving on for now in any case.
A Dorothy Dixer on carbon repeal. Then Labor wants information about nurses.
We want fall for those stupid mistakes. We will not make the mistakes that the member for Sydney did when she was the health minister.
2.06pm AEST
Man, what a day.
Both chambers have moved now to Question Time.
The matter is before the court and the government is not going to expand on the issues or the responses we have already made to court as it considers these matters.
2.00pm AEST
We'll take this as a (fair) comment.
Joe Hockey is so angry at ASIC's poor policing of financial planning that he slashed its budget...
1.51pm AEST
One item I neglected in that last post the treasurer Joe Hockey also told colleagues this morning that he was currently very cranky with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic). Hockey said one of his key agencies, the corporate regulator, had failed miserably.
Rather strong words from the boss. (This concerns the Commonwealth Bank and the poor financial advice it provided to clients, which prompted a damning Senate report very recently.)
1.42pm AEST
Daniel Hurst has don a manful job of keeping Twitter up to date with the joint Coalition party room meeting this morning. Now I'll attempt to update you all.
Let's deal with security policy first.
This is the way the west is moving.
Learning how to deal with the crossbenchers to achieve our agenda.
1.13pm AEST
The Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition and Torres Strait Islander Peoples has tabled a report which proposes various options to achieve the landmark reform that all Australia's political parties say they are committed to.
In essence, if I've managed to grasp a complex report with a very speedy read it is proposed that current Constitutional provisions referring to race, go.
In this interim report, the committee considers that the Commonwealth should continue to be able to make laws with respect to Indigenous Australians because of and I quote the expert panel 'their unique place in the history of the country and their prior and continuing existence'.
This means that any referendum that would propose to remove section 51(26) should also propose to replace it with a section that allows the Commonwealth to make laws for the benefit of Indigenous Australians.
12.52pm AEST
There are now a number of things happening at once always the curse of Tuesday lunchtime.
Just so readers know how I intend to triage issues that you might, variously, be interested in, I'm going to leave David Murray for now and come back to the financial system inquiry with a catch all update after Question Time. Murray is being broadcast on the Sky business channel if you are a pay TV subscriber and really keen to see that speech in real time. (Possibly the ABC also, but just haven't had a moment to check.)
12.35pm AEST
Forgive me having a small wry laugh. It's clear that the government has not yet secured the numbers in the Senate right now to bring on the carbon repeal debate.
Manager of government business, Mitch Fifield, is moving to bring on the mining tax repeal instead. We are going to start there.
12.31pm AEST
There's quite a brisk exchange going on on Twitter at the moment between Crikey's Bernard Keane and the finance minister Mathias Cormann about FOFA.
Keane is pointing out that the Murray inquiry cuts across a key message the government is trying to sell with its FOFA changes. Cormann is begging to differ.
"The quality of personal advice is an ongoing problem," says the Murray Inquiry. Still want to repeal FOFA, @MathiasCormann?
@BernardKeane We're not repealing FOFA but improving it. Cutting unnecessary red tape, keeping consumer protections that matter to consumers
.@MathiasCormann you're gutting it - and there's a huge drafting error that restores conflicted remuneration entirely!
@BernardKeane I disagree.
12.25pm AEST
My colleague Daniel Hurst has popped down to the Labor caucus debrief. Labor will try on a procedural skirmish in the House in a little while trying to disallow the Migration Amendment (Repeal of Certain Visa Classes) Regulation. Given the numbers in that chamber, this provocation seems unlikely to succeed.
The opposition has also decided to set up three new caucus committees a country committee; a waste watch committee; and a cost of living committee.
11.57am AEST
Beijing, it would seem, is not amused. The foreign minister, Julie Bishop, is the subject of a very snippy editorial in the Global Times this morning courtesy of her recent defence (by way of contrast) of Australia's liberal democratic values.
Here's the ice bucket.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop appalled Chinese people on Wednesday by saying that Australia will "stand up to China to defend peace, liberal values and the rule of law," and "China doesn't respect weakness."
It just added fuel to the outrage caused by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott's earlier comments on Japanese submariners involved in the attack on Sydney Harbor in 1942, in which Abbott said he "admired the skill and the sense of honor" of the Japanese troops.
If Abbott's words were meant to flatter his visiting Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe, Bishop's provocation appeared to have come out of nowhere.
Many Chinese people who read about this could not believe these words came from the Australian foreign minister.
China is Australia's biggest trade partner and has not offended Australia in any way. Bishop's verbal provocation made her look more like one of the often pointless "angry youths" found in the Chinese cyber sphere than a diplomat.
The current Australian government has been widely considered as inexperienced, particularly in dealing with foreign relations. Still, the naivety of its foreign minister still surprised Chinese people.
11.37am AEST
I flagged this issue earlier as well an interim report on Constitutional recognition of indigenous Australians.
Signed Interim Report of the JSC on Constitutional Recognition - tabling in little under an hour in the House #auspol pic.twitter.com/uNR8uCqrQO
11.32am AEST
I've poked my head into the financial services inquiry interim report, which has now been released. As I flagged first up, the report's author, David Murray, will address the press club at lunchtime.
If you are inclined to wade on in, you can read the executive summary of the report here.
There is little evidence of strong fee-based competition in the superannuation sector, and operating costs and fees appear high by international standards. This indicates there is scope for greater efficiencies in the superannuation system.
Australia generally has strong, well-regarded regulators, but some areas of possible improvement have been identified to increase independence and accountability.
11.06am AEST
My colleague Lenore Taylor has been chasing the fate of Clive Palmer's zero price emissions trading scheme the glittery veil the PUP leader waved at his famous press conference with Al Gore.
10.51am AEST
While I've got a moment, there's an interesting poll out this morning from Crosby Textor on public support for same sex marriage. This poll suggests community attitudes are shifting decisively and positively in favour of marriage equality.
Here's Mark Textor:
Almost three-quarters of Australians (72%) now support legalising same-sex marriage, including around half (48%) strongly supporting it. Just a fifth (21%) opposed this to any degree with those strongly opposed, a small and shrinking 14%.
The fact that nearly three-quarters of Australians support allowing gay couples to marry is exciting in itself rarely do you get such a clear-cut endorsement.
10.30am AEST
There's still not settled guidance from the Senate about whether the carbon repeal bills are likely to come to a decisive vote today. Discussions are ongoing.
Once the red place sits at 12.30pm, we can expect a procedural motion from the government to bring the bills on for debate. Whether that debate is short and sharp, or long and winding, depends on whether or not the government can secure the requisite support of the chamber to crunch it all through.
10.05am AEST
It being Tuesday of the parliamentary week, the joint party room of the Coalition is meeting downstairs, as is the Labor caucus.
The House will sit at noon. Having cleared the decks on carbon yesterday, the green place will consider matters including the tabling of an interim report on the recognition of indigenous Australians in the Constitution, and the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2014.
9.24am AEST
Our collective preocupation with carbon pricing yesterday obscured (in my case anyway) a very interesting little political manoeuvre by a long standing member of the parliament's joint intelligence committee, Anthony Byrne.
Byrne is a Labor man, and given his lengthy service on this influential parliamentary committee, has credibility across the political divide on security matters.
.. eventually and inevitably in this country, an event will occur on this soil of the magnitude of the Bali event ..
If a government is concerned and is making the right noises about being concerned about this nation's security, it must give its agencies all of the suite of powers that they need to deal with the terrorist threat.
It has not done so. I urge the attorney-general, using this forum to have this conversation with him, to bring all of the suite of powers that the intelligence agencies have been asking for for some period of time, including with the previous government, to the parliament at its earliest opportunity.
8.56am AEST
Meanwhile, back at the Press Club.
#openPUP staffer knocks on the window to gain access @GuardianAus @murpharoo #politicslive http://t.co/7zJiPWEntA pic.twitter.com/IRMwyFWBt0
8.50am AEST
Inspired, this contribution from ChokyiNyingpo.
With yesterday being a bit chilly in 'berra, it was dubbed "Minus Clive". Now (@8:26) it's a balmy 5 degrees so, Katharine, could you call today's temp increase "Lazarus Rising"?
8.42am AEST
Meanwhile, back at the Press Club.
8.41am AEST
My colleague Lenore Taylor tells me the government is now proposing the Senate continue sitting into its scheduled winter break until it has voted on 17 bills but the upper house gets to vote on whether it is in fact kept in.
Here's Lenore:
A procedural motion circulated by the government Tuesday morning says the question for the adjournment of the Senate shall be proposed after the Senate has finally considered the bills, including the carbon tax repeal bills and the now separate climate change authority bill (into which Clive Palmer wishes to try to insert a dormant emissions trading scheme.
It also requires passage of the mining tax repeal bills which include the abolition of several policies paid for from the tax including the schoolkids bonus and which the Senate appears set to vote to retain; the Qantas sale amendment bill removing foreign ownership and other restrictions from Qantas; bills setting up the governments "asset recycling fund"; and bills to abolish Health Workforce Australia and the Australian National Preventative Health Agency.
8.26am AEST
The new post July paradigm presents some logistical challenges for those of us who like to bring Australia's politics tragics as much of the Canberra day as possible.
8.16am AEST
The Senate clerk remains something of a talking point around the corridors of parliament house this morning.
Clive Palmer really is a master of mass distraction. In an effort to reframe a negative story in the Daily Telegraph reporting that he yelled at the Senate clerk Rosemary Laing last week during the chaos around the repeal amendments Palmer sought yesterday to go on the attack against a person he was intent on characterising as a faceless pen pusher exerting improper influence over elected representatives. (Better to deploy the classic 'look over there' technique than facing a debate about whether or not he should have voted in the carbon repeal debate, given his commercial interests, presumably. Or questions about why his operation drafted a sloppy and likely unconstitutional legislative amendment.)
If the clerk advises you that the way that youve constructed an amendment or a motion or something is not right, its not going to go through in the way that youve put it together, these people are experts.
Theyre there trying to help you. Why attack them?
7.52am AEST
Good morning one and all and welcome to another day in Canberra where too much of everything will be barely enough. Thanks for turning out in such numbers with me yesterday it was delightful to have your company.
As far as can be predicted, the carbon repeal bills are Senate bound today. Those with me yesterday will know that Clive Palmer came in from the cold on repeal, transiting effortlessly from self-styled professional maverick to establishment player without skipping a beat. The wonderful Mike Bowers captured the atmosphere of Palmer's return to the conservative fold brilliantly yesterday.
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