Josh Butler
Greens senator David Shoebridge and minister Murray Watt have had a tense stand-off in senate estimates, over the timeliness – or lack thereof – of answers to questions about the department of home affairs.
Watt, the environment minister, claimed opposition and crossbench senators were being “over the top” and seeking to “jam up the system” in how many questions they’re asking at Senate estimates.
Senate estimates always gets a bit tetchy, and when ministers or public servants can’t or won’t answer questions at the table, they’re often asked to take them “on notice” (to respond later in writing).
Shoebridge was asking the department of home affairs about previous questions he’d asked – about the Dural caravan bomb hoax, and the department’s contracting arrangements around offshore detention – saying he’d been waiting a long time for responses.
Watt, representing the minister for home affairs, explained there had been “an absolute explosion of questions on notice” in this parliament and the last one, compared to the last time Labor was in opposition, and that Labor had been more “responsible” with their questions. He claimed the department had responded to about 90% of the questions on notice put to it, and hit back: “Senators need to take some responsibility for the sheer number of questions being asked”.
Shoebridge responded:
These are matters of public interest and they deserve timely answers.
Watt:
With respect senator, every senator thinks their questions on notice are significant … it takes time to resolve in addition to the important work this department does.
Updated at 21.30 EST
Key events
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It’s question time!
Sussan Ley takes a different tone today and asks the prime minister about what action the government will take over the deaths of Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles by methanol poisoning.
Workers responsible for the poisoning which killed six people including Jones and Bowles have only received fines of A$185.
Albanese says the department of foreign affairs and trade as apologised “unreservedly for their failure to ensure that the families were informed”.
Albanese continues:
The Foreign Minister’s [Penny Wong] made it clear to her counterpart in Laos that Australia expects full accountability and the charges should reflect the devastating seriousness of this incident. We will continue to engage Laos authorities on these cases.
Amanda Meade
New radio rules on artificial intelligence use
Radio broadcasters will have to disclose when an AI voice is used, under a new code of conduct registered by the media authority.
In other new rules in the commercial radio code of practice 2026, broadcasters will have to exercise “special care” when airing content from 8-9am and 3-4pm on school days, when children are more likely to be listening.
The special care rule follows the repeated broadcasting of “vulgar” and “deeply offensive” content by Kyle and Jackie O’s program on the Kiis network.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma) has announced a notice of intention to impose an additional licence condition on Kiis, a regulatory tool not imposed on a licensee since 2Day FM’s infamous royal hoax call in 2012 to a London hospital where Kate Middleton was a patient.
“Listeners are also worried about inappropriate content at peak travel times when families listen together,” the Acma chair, Nerida O’Loughlin, said.
Acma registered the updated rules for commercial radio broadcasters today.
O’Loughlin said:
Listeners want greater transparency about when AI is being used. We welcome the commitments by the radio industry to address listener concerns.
Updated at 21.56 EST
Larissa Waters defends Grace Tame against critics
The Greens leader, Larissa Waters, has defended former Australian of the Year Grace Tame, who took part in a protest in Sydney on Monday night, after calls from Barnaby Joyce to have her title stripped.
The One Nation MP said on Tuesday that Tame’s use of “globalise the intifada” at the protest should see her honour revoked. The Liberal MP Tim Wilson also publicly criticised Tame.
Waters told journalists in Parliament House a little earlier that if Joyce thinks that Tame is the problem, “that says a lot more about Barnaby Joyce than it does about Grace Tame”.
The gender dynamics of that call are pretty apparent, aren’t they, two extreme conservative men who have a terrible track record of standing up for women’s rights anyway, now calling for a brave Australian Grace Tame, who has every fibre of her being defined as a social justice warrior, and this is the response that she gets.
Larissa Waters speaks to the media with Mehreen Faruqi and David Shoebridge at Parliament House. Photograph: Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty ImagesShare
Updated at 21.43 EST
‘I’m not resigning today,’ Liberal frontbencher McIntosh says
It’s getting harder and harder for Liberals to try to bat off questions around Angus Taylor’s prospective leadership spill.
On Sky News, Kieran Gilbert gives it a red hot crack, putting to frontbencher Melissa McIntosh that the spill “looks like it will come to a head this week. Is that your understanding?”
McIntosh tries not to bite and says “it’s still unknown to be honest, as nothing has happened yet”.
She adds that she hasn’t received any phone calls today.
Gilbert asks whether she’s interested in the deputy leadership role, with her name having been mentioned as a possibility. McIntosh has made it known in the past she’d one day like to be leader.
And then in either a slip of the tongue or genuine mistake, she says:
It’s a pretty long and extensive list of who could or could not be a deputy leader. So no, I’m not having any of those conversations with colleagues. I’m still in shadow cabinet, I’m not resigning today from that position.
Gilbert notices the qualification of “today”, to which she has to backtrack slightly and says she has no intention of resigning, “unless something surprises me”.
Melissa McIntosh during Monday’s question time with David Littleproud and Sussan Ley. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAPShare
Updated at 21.39 EST
Andrew Messenger
Queensland LNP MP crosses the floor to vote on abortion motion
The Queensland LNP MP Nigel Hutton has crossed the floor to vote against his own government on an abortion motion.
The issue dogged the party during the 2024 state election.
The government implemented a gag on any debate about abortion on its first regular sitting day. It bans any “motion or amendment” seeking to have the house “express its views” on abortion and also prohibits any amendment to the termination of pregnancy act.
On Tuesday, the Katters’ Australian party MP Robbie Katter asked for leave to move a motion without notice to overturn the gag.
The government opposed the motion. Labor MPs called across the room for LNP MPs to join them as the bells rang.
Labor has always opposed the gag order, which it says prevents expansion of abortion rights in Queensland.
Hutton voted for it, crossing the floor to do so.
Despite Labor, most of the crossbench as well as Hutton voting together, it still failed 50 votes to 35.
Updated at 21.24 EST
Josh Taylor
eSafety hasn’t told government the breakdown of accounts removed in ban
Officials in the communications department say the eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has not disclosed the number of accounts removed on each of the 10 platforms required to comply with the social media ban.
In Senate estimates this morning, Liberal senator Jane Hume asked whether the figure of 4.7 million accounts removed in the days following the 10 December start date was now “discredited”. It is understood that the figures include duplicate accounts and accounts that were never used in YouTube’s case.
Officials were unable to give a breakdown for each platform, confirming Inman Grant had not provided the breakdown to the department citing her investigation into the platforms’ compliance.
eSafety refused to provide the breakdown when requested by Guardian Australia, also.
So far only Meta and Snap have provided their individual figures.
Questions on the figures were directed to eSafety, which is due to appear before the estimates hearing this afternoon.
Jane Hume in Senate estimates. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAPShare
Updated at 21.18 EST
The Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, has visited a Jewish school in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, speaking to students and teachers.
Herzog is meeting with the Jewish community, including survivors and families impacted by the Bondi terror attack.
Isaac Herzog meets with students and staff at Moriah War Memorial College in Sydney. Photograph: Getty ImagesHerzog meets with students and staff during the school visit. Photograph: Getty ImagesHerzog and first lady Michal Herzog (L) at the school in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. Photograph: Getty ImagesShare
Updated at 21.05 EST
Authoritarianism and fascism ‘happening right here’: Greens
The Greens deputy leader, Mehreen Faruqi, is hounding the state and federal Labor governments over yesterday’s protests against Israeli president Isaac Herzog’s visit.
Faruqi, speaking to reporters in Parliament House, says it “beggars belief” that the NSW premier, Chris Minns, and NSW police are justifying the actions of police.
The senator for NSW, who is Muslim, says the Muslim community has “known that we are second class citizens in this country for a very long time.”
Now everyone can see that Muslims are not just gaslighted, they are not just scapegoated, but they are actually assaulted by the very people who are supposed to protect us and under the Labor government. It is really an upside-down world.
Authoritarianism and fascism isn’t just happening over there in Trump’s USA. It is happening right here in Minns’ New South Wales and in Albanese’s Australia.
New South Wales now is well down the path of a violent police state.
Updated at 20.31 EST
House passes bill to establish Australian Tertiary Education Commission
Things have been moving fairly quickly already in the House this afternoon, which just started sitting at 12pm, due to all the party room meetings. Over in the Senate, estimates is still going on, and public servants are still facing a grilling.
The House has just voted to pass a bill establishing the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (ATEC) which is a body that will be charged with designing university reforms, following the university accord.
The ATEC will also look at more contentious policies like the Job Ready Graduates Scheme and possible ways to fix it.
The body was supposed to be established last month, but the bill was only introduced on the last sitting day of last year.
ShareCoalition calls for government to take action against Laos over methanol-poisoning deaths
The Australian government should take stronger action against the Laotian government over the deaths of two Australian women, Sussan Ley and the shadow foreign minister, Michaelia Cash, have said.
In a statement, the pair said the Laotian ambassador should be brought in to give a formal explanation over revelations that workers at a hostel responsible for the deaths of Bianca Jones and Holly Bowles by methanol poisoning have only received fines of A$185.
Ley and Cash said Australia makes a “significant contribution to Laos through our foreign aid program and other development assistance”:
A year ago we learned the Laos government was refusing Australian Federal Police assistance in the investigation. A year ago Australians were told by the Albanese Government that the matter was in hand.
We now know there has been no meaningful justice for Holly and Bianca, and their families did not learn of these outcomes from their own government but via the British woman’s family.
The Albanese government should remind the Laotian government of the important contributions Australian taxpayers make to key programs in Laos in line with the friendship between our two countries.
A photo of Holly Morton-Bowles and Bianca Jones, who died in November 2024 after inadvertently drinking alcohol laced with lethal methanol at Vang Vieng in Laos. Photograph: Charlie Kinross/The GuardianShare
Updated at 20.25 EST
Lisa Cox
Climate groups say big emitters should pay for disaster recovery
Climate groups are calling for a pollution levy to be paid by major emitting companies, including gas and coal producers, as communities are hit by the costs of increasing global-heating driven disasters.
Climate Action Network Australia (CANA) and Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action said data from the Insurance Council of Australia showed fires, floods, heatwaves and storms had resulted in about $1.6bn in insured losses in Australian communities this summer so far.
The groups said Australia’s biggest emitting companies should “pay their fair share for the damage now being caused” via a levy that could fund disaster recovery in hard-hit communities, adaptation measures, and accelerating the clean energy transition.
Jan Harris, the co-chair of Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action, lost her home to a bushfire in 2018. She said “it is families just like mine who are shouldering the burden of climate change and we are close to breaking”.
Barry Traill from CANA said:
Communities are paying for this savage summer with their homes, livelihoods and, in too many cases, their lives … It’s time our parliament made those profiting from climate pollution help pay for the cleanup and the protections we need.
Updated at 20.06 EST
Penry Buckley
How many people attended last night’s protest in Sydney?
Police have so far declined to provide an estimate an how many attended last night’s protest, although as Guardian Australia has reported, police and organiser estimates can differ significantly.
When the Palestine Action Group unsuccessfully sought to challenge the government’s invocation of “major event” powers at the supreme court this week, organisers said they expected about 5,000 people to attend the protest at Town Hall square, which they said had a capacity of about 4,500.
The NSW upper house Labor MP Stephen Lawrence who attended the rally, told the ABC this morning he thought about 20,000 to 30,000 people had been present, a number echoed at a press conference by the Palestine Action Group and the NSW Greens a short while ago.
Police have confirmed there have been charges laid among the 27 protesters arrested yesterday, but are yet to identify the alleged offences.
People gathering at Sydney’s Town Hall yesterday to protest the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The GuardianShare
Updated at 20.31 EST
Tom McIlroy
Albanese thanks Labor MPs for discipline and ‘dignity’ in party room meeting
Anthony Albanese has thanked Labor MPs for their discipline and “dignity” in recent weeks, using remarks to a caucus meeting in Canberra to highlight ongoing instability in Coalition ranks.
The prime minister told the closed door meeting on Tuesday that Labor must continue to be “the adults in government” as the opposition leader, Sussan Ley, looks set to be challenged within days.
Albanese said the Coalition was a circus but government MPs should talk up their record on economic matters, on schools funding and a new agreement with the states and territories to fund hospital services and the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
Albanese also mentioned his successful visit to Indonesia alongside the foreign minister, Penny Wong, last week.
Ahead of the May budget, Albanese said Labor would work to strengthen the government’s fiscal position and provide assistance to households with the high cost-of-living, and reminded Labor MPs of the week’s closing the gap report on Indigenous disadvantage.
He said the annual Closing the Gap statement would be delivered in the wake of an alleged terror attack against Invasion Day protesters in Perth on 26 January. Albanese restated his view that it was time to “turn the temperature down” in Australia.
Updated at 20.52 EST