Australia politics live: Speaker to review ‘standards and behaviour’ after Allegra Spender calls out question time conduct

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I am going to hand you over to Natasha May while I complete another task.

We’ll be back with politics live from early tomorrow morning –which will be the last day of this sitting. Huzzah.

Hope you have a lovely evening – and please, take care of you.

Asked about the complaints some of the teal independents have raised about standards in the house during debates and question time (which has been backed by the speaker Milton Dick who said in the house last week he noticed an increase in noise from the Coalition benches when one of them stood up to make a contribution) Sussan Ley says:

The teals need to understand that standards apply to them, that they cannot just say, whatever they want and that if they’re talking about behaviour in the chamber, the need to consider their own behaviour.

Recently, [Zali Steggall], made some personal and particularly nasty attacks on our leader Peter Dutton, there were unprofessional, they were not responsible and they were repeated inside and outside the chamber.

Imagine if somebody walked into the ABC studio and said to you, or David Speers, you’re a racist and then repeated over and over again, would that be acceptable? Would that be professional? So, I’m waiting to see what the independent teals are going to do to address their fellow member because no-one called her out on that.

Sussan Ley is speaking to the ABC about the government independent parliamentary standards commission legislation and says while the Coalition will work with Labor, it won’t be rushed by Labor’s “timeline”:

We will take that through our shadow and a party room processes and our backbench committees and we will consult.

Full Story podcast – Why Dutton wants to close the door to Gazan refugees

The Coalition might be running out of steam in their attack lines over Palestinian visas if today’s QT was anything to go by, but it doesn’t seem like it will drop it anytime soon.

That is partly because the clock is ticking on the first visitor visas running out – they only last for a year. The government has to come up with a fix, as people cannot return to Gaza.

Karen Middleton and Mostafa Rachwani talk through some of the issue in the latest Guardian Full Story podcast:

Transport data shows 30.9% of all flights in Australia cancelled or delayed in July

The s senator Bridget McKenzie, who has the shadow portfolio looking after aviation, has some cheery news about flight delays and cancellations based on the latest data (from the month of July):

30.9% of all flights were cancelled or delayed in July (compared to 25.2% in June).

Total cancelled and delayed flights increased by 34.6% since June (15,323 flights in July, compared to 11,384 in June).

For flights between Melbourne and Sydney, 8.8% of all flights were cancelled in July.

10.7% of Qantas flights were cancelled.

8.1% of Virgin Flights were cancelled.

7.6% of Jetstar flights were cancelled.

In the month that Rex Airlines entered voluntary administration, Australia’s airlines delivered their worst on-time performance since March as 30% of flights across the country were cancelled or delayed, according to data released by the Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics.

That exchange over visa approvals continued:

James Paterson: Sure, and this is no fault of the people applying for the visas, but most people who apply for visas are not applying from war zones, and they’re not applying from jurisdictions that are controlled by terrorist organisations. You would think that that would necessitate greater scrutiny.

Michael Willard:

I’m very confident that, if someone wasn’t meeting all of the criteria for the grant of a visa, then the visa would not be granted.

Paterson: How can you know, if you’re taking only an hour or less to consider it?

Willard:

Because it’s the application of all of the information we hold to the individual’s particular circumstances, which might be such that we already know this person or we hold overwhelming information that makes us confident that the person meets the criteria.

Paterson: Just finally on this matter, was anything about the process expedited or modified in any way to facilitate applications?

Willard:

No. The assessment of the individual applications against the criteria was complete and was a standard assessment. What we have been doing is taking a similar approach to what we’ve taken in previous situations where there’s been unrest or war zones – and this goes back to Afghanistan, but also Ukraine and Sudan. It is that we do apply priority processing to people who have strong Australian connections who are seeking to travel.

Paterson: What about any flexibility about identity verification or documents that they have provided?

Willard:

No flexibility – if we’re not satisfied of identity, we won’t be granting the visa.

What’s the source of the Coalition’s ‘one hour’ visa turnaround claim?

We have reported on this a few times, but for the people up the back, this is the exchange the Coalition appear to be relying on for much of their attack lines on this issue.

It is from February. Not a big deal was made then, but for *reasons* the Coalition is now speaking about this six months later – and almost four months after the last Palestinian from Gaza was able to enter Australia before Israel shut the Rafah border.

Paterson asked:

There’s been some controversy about this in the media, and the minister for foreign affairs, among others, has reassured the public that no processes were expedited, no corners were cut – all the usual processes were followed.

But there was also a media report by the ABC on 9 December, entitled “Australians turn to WhatsApp group for help to get family members out of Gaza”, in which some individuals claimed their visitor visas for relatives were approved within one hour.

Does that sound right to you? Is it possible that a visitor visa was approved in a single hour?

Michael Willard, a deputy director in the immigration department answered:

It is possible. I’d make this point in terms of the way we assess a visitor visa: we draw on a vast range of information that we hold, and we apply that information to the circumstances presented in a visitor visa application. There could be circumstances where someone, for example, has a strong travel record, is well known to us and has a routine that we’re familiar with, where the visitor visa could be granted in that time frame.

Paterson:

Sure. But how could you possibly do all the necessary security and other checks in just an hour for an applicant? That’s lightning-speed approval.

Willard:

When we apply that vast range of information to consideration of visitor visas, if you look globally, a very large number of our visitor visas would be done inside an hour. The assessment is essentially looking at all the information we hold and applying it in a number of ways to the application in front of us.

What did we learn from question time?

It appears the Coalition is running out of steam on the issue it’s created around security for Palestinian visas, but it remains determined to continue pushing it.

Peter Dutton did not ask a question today. The opposition leader was largely silent. It has been some time since Dutton did not ask any questions.

The Coalition is also trying to present its theories and attack lines as fact. There is no evidence for the claim that Palestinian visas were approved “in an average of 24 hours” and in some cases “an hour”.

That original claim appears to come from a story about a group chat where these claims were made. James Paterson asked about them in Senate estimates in February and an immigration official answered in the broad – not in the specific context of visas for Palestinians.

Anthony Albanese and Labor now seem just as determined to turn the attack back on the opposition and Peter Dutton specifically, seeking to define him as ‘divisive’. Labor is attempting to set up a contest between what it is focusing on – cost of living – compared to what the Coalition is focused on – an issue around visas it has created itself.

NIB and St Vincent’s private hospital network reach new funding agreement

St Vincent’s private hospital network has reached a new funding agreement with NIB, meaning the private health fund customers no longer face the threat of higher out-of-pocket healthcare costs which have loomed since negotiations between the parties broke down.

In July, Australia’s largest not-for-profit health and aged care services provider St Vincent’s gave notice to NIB that it intended to end its funding agreement after a notice period which ended on 3 October.

St Vincent’s, which operates 10 private hospitals in NSW, Victoria and Queensland, said NIB had failed to put a fair offer on the table that recognised the rising costs of providing private hospital care.

While it was the first time in St Vincent’s 167-year history it had given notice to a private health fund that it intended to end an agreement, Ben Harris, the director of policy and research at Private Healthcare Australia predicted that a resolution would be reached, just as similar scenarios between other private providers and insurers had played out in the past, because it’s in both parties’ best interests to do so.

St Vincent’s CEO, Chris Blake, said he welcomed the new funding deal which appropriately recognises the rising costs of providing private hospital care.

While the details of the new agreement are commercial-in-confidence, Blake said the deal would allow St Vincent’s to cover its costs when providing care to NIB members in its private hospitals.

Times have never been harder for private hospital providers in Australia. As a not-for-profit social enterprise, St Vincent’s needs to be able to cover its costs.”

I’m very glad both parties have been able to use the notice period to dig a little deeper and reach a fair and mutually satisfactory agreement.”

For private health care to operate effectively, health funds and hospitals need to work together, for the benefit of members and patients”.

Health service contracting group Honeysuckle Health, acting on behalf of NIB, confirmed St Vincent’s remains in contract with NIB, ensuring NIB members can continue to limit their out-of-pocket costs for treatment at St Vincent’s facilities.

Milton Dick agrees to review standards and behaviour as question time ends

Anthony Albanese ends question time (a little earlier than usual) and Allegra Spender asks Milton Dick to make a statement on the standard of conduct in the house.

In this parliament we have a behaviour code soon to be legislated, that requires parliamentarians to, and I quote, ‘treat all those with whom they come into contact in the course of their parliamentary duties and activities with dignity, courtesy, fairness and respect’.

The conduct that is demonstrated in this chamber, particularly during question time, is unlike any workplace I’ve ever been in, and I think we would have a hard time convincing the public, including those perhaps in the gallery today, that we comply with this code.

I would like to ask the speaker to review the behaviour, language and standards in recent weeks and make any necessary statements relating to them.

Dick says he will.

I agree with her. We must find ways to better engage in debate that maintains respectful behaviour and in particular, upholding the standing orders. I shall reflect on standards and behaviour in recent times and report back to the member.

And we are all set free. Until tomorrow.

Communications minister says 3G switchover to be delayed to 28 October

There is about to be a mass advertising campaign reminding people to check if their tech is on 3G.

Michelle Rowland said:

There’s a subset of handsets which use 4G for voice and data, but are configured by the manufacturer to use 3G for calls to triple zero. Now, this category of handset is of concern, because it won’t be apparent to end users that they can’t call 000, and they’d only discover this during an emergency when they’re actually trying to make the call.

So following interrogation by my department earlier this year, industry figures showed that up to 740,000 devices in this category may be impacted.

On receiving the advice as to the scale, I immediately stood up. An industry working group overseen by my department that enabled fortnightly updates on device numbers and progress on community and customer outreach efforts.

The cooperation by the working group enables me now, Mr Speaker, to advise the House that the number of devices in this high risk category has reduced from 740,000 to around 73,000. Now, that’s a significant reduction, but both government and industry believe there is more to be done.

To that end, the government welcomes the announcement by Telstra and Optus that they will delay their respective 3G network switchovers until 28 October.

‘We will respect every one of you’: PM to western Sydney electorates

Anthony Albanese continues:

Well, I say this to those opposite. You can continue to sledge people in western Sydney.

What I’ll continue to do as prime minister is represent the entire nation here, including the good people of Western Sydney.

They know that we take the same advice from the same security agencies as the previous government did.

We’ve rejected more than 7000 visa applications.

The member for Groom might not know because he just asked the question he was given, so I don’t blame him, that the Rafah border crossing is controlled by the Israeli and Egyptian authorities, and it has been closed since May.

… I say this to the good, good people of Watson, Blaxland and McMahon that we will respect every one of you, regardless of who you are, regardless of your faith, regardless of your ethnicity.

Anthony Albanese:

There were more people [who] came from Syria under visitor visas from when they were in government, when Isis was in charge of large amounts of Syria, than the 1,300 people who have come from the occupied Palestinian territories.

And can I note this as well? There have been 5,491 visitor visas granted from Israel as well. And let me say this. Those people are welcome here. They are welcome here.

But we see what is going on here. It is so obvious. And the member … is certainly very conscious of it, which is why, you know, it’s a shocker when no one on the frontbench will ask it.

That’s right, that’s right. Goes up the back, goes up the back in order to sledge a whole group of people who live in western Sydney.

That’s right, that’s right!

In one of the earlier questions in parliament this afternoon, Dan Tehan alleged that the government was “cutting corners on security assessments to bring in 1,300 people from the terrorist-controlled Gaza war zone”.

In light of this claim, it might be worth re-upping this exchange with Asio chief Mike Burgess in a podcast interview with Guardian Australia in March:

Guardian Australia:

I’m raising the following question, only because it’s been raised by a major political party in Australia, not because I want to cast aspersions on an entire community. The Coalition has raised security concerns about the approval of visas for hundreds of Palestinians fleeing the conflict. And the Liberal senator James Paterson said in November that he’s “not reflecting on Asio … but I really hope pressure hasn’t been put on them or the Department of Home Affairs to cut corners, or do this more quickly than they already would”. What role does Asio have in the security checks for those visas? And can you give that reassurance?

Burgess:

There’s many elements to that question, so let me break that down for you. Asio has a role in the visa process. I won’t explain that fully because we don’t want people to game that process, but I can assure you Asio is involved. Home Affairs has the lead and Home Affairs knows what it’s doing when it comes to these processes. If there was pressure put on my organisation, I have an obligation under Australian law to protect my organisation from politicisation or anything that’s inappropriate, and I would take action if that happened. I haven’t needed to do that. I’m confident we’re doing our job well and where we see problems we deal with them effectively. Of course, we’re not all seeing and all knowing and information available to everyone including Home Affairs is not 100%, but I’m confident the process is where it needs to be. But we keep an open mind to that. And we remain vigilant.

Guardian Australia:

So if there was any doubt, you wouldn’t sign off on a particular individual?

Burgess:

Well, our role – obviously, if we have grounds to say that we are going to impact that individual, we have to have the evidence and that’s subject to a rigorous assessment. It can’t just be I feel there’s it’s a bit of doubt, so we’ll do it. We don’t work that way.

Coalition MP labels Palestinian visas a ‘visa for votes’ scheme targeted at western Sydney

LNP MP Garth Hamilton has been handed a question from the tactics team which he appears to be reading for the first time, given how he delivers it.

Prime minister, why is Australia handing out tourist visas to Gazans from the terrorist-controlled war zone in an average of 24 hours, and in some cases, as quickly as one hour, while bypassing all the usual checks, including those the former Coalition government used in Syria?

Will the prime minister admit that the government’s visa for votes scheme was only done to shore up votes in the seats of Watson, McMahon and Blaxton?

There is no proven suggestion of an “average” of 24 hours for approvals. The “one hour” reference appears to have come from reports on a group chat, which were raised in Senate estimates in February. It was not confirmed, but the immigration official said it was “feasible” a visitor visa could be approved so quickly, if someone had an established relationship with Australia (for example was a regular visitor, meaning that authorities already had a lot of your information).

The head of Asio, Mike Burgess, said security checks were done – not just with his agency, but through the usual processes, set up under Home Affairs. Visas are also constantly crosschecked, which is how some ended up cancelled after they were granted (it is not a set and forget process).

No one has been able to leave Gaza (except in the rare cases of medical evacuation) since Israel officially seized the Rafah border in May. As for “shoring up votes”, the Labor MPs are under extreme pressure because what communities have seen as a lack of action.

Greens senator questions Labor on funding to end gendered violence

In the Senate, the Greens senator Larissa Waters asks when the government will commit more funding to services for women facing violence, saying they need $1bn extra each year to meet the demand and noting that at least 45 women have been murdered this year by current or former partners. Her question follows the lunchtime address to the Press Club from the domestic, family and sexual violence commissioner Micaela Cronin, in which she warned the services needed more support.

Representing the social services minister, Senator Jenny McAllister says “too many women are killed by their current or former intimate partner” and that the statistics confirm it is a crisis.

It’s a pretty stark reminder of the human cost of this violence.

McAllister outlines what the government has done under the national plan to end gender-based violence.

We have been focused on supporting economic security so women don’t have to choose between property and violence. We’ve been investing in housing, so women know they have a place to go. We have been strengthening the legal system’s response to gendered violence.

She says the government is also sharpening the focus on prevention.

So we can end gendered violence in a generation.

Waters urges the government to develop an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander violence prevention framework for men and boys, given the prevalence of violence perpetrated against Indigenous women.

McAllister says the government is committed to collaborating with Indigenous women to improve the situation.

Paul Fletcher raises a point of order at the end of that answer about the imputation and asks that the prime minister withdraws it.

There are a lot of heckles from both sides of the chamber.

“Someone call the wam-bulance” can be heard coming from the Labor frontbench. Along with “it’s the truth”.

Milton Dick rules that no one was named, so no one was maligned.

Coalition ‘maligning a whole group of people’ who are ‘suffering enormously’: PM

Anthony Albanese continues:

Because, there was a time when the Liberal party would have seen that people, whether they were fleeing Ukraine, Israel, Syria, Vietnam, Gaza at the moment, would have had some understanding, some understanding that this was the worst time, the worst time to try to just malign a whole group of people who are suffering enormously.

Something that we see on our TV screens every night. You know, this morning, you turn on the radio, the latest hit was a school in Gaza with real people devastated and losing their life.

We have faith in our security processes, we have faith in our intelligence agencies.

They work, our security and law enforcement agencies do their job on an ongoing basis.

We have faith in them.

The opposition apparently don’t, even though they’re the same security agencies and indeed, the same personnel [as when they were in power].

We talk about character. When it comes to targeting groups, whether it is Lebanese, people in the south Pacific, Chinese, the entire continent of Africa – they’re all fair game.

If you’re an au pair from Europe and someone can pick up the phone – no problem, you’re in.

Albanese: Liberal party founder Menzies ‘wouldn’t recognise this mob today’

Anthony Albanese answers the Tehan question by quoting the founder of the modern Liberal party:

Let me begin by quoting a character, Robert Menzies. This is what he had to say;

‘It is a good thing that Australia should have earned a reputation for a sensitive understanding for the problems of people in other lands. We should not come to be regarded as a people detached from the miseries of the world. I know that we will not come to be so regarded for, for I believe that there are no people anywhere with warmer hearts and more generous impulses.’

That was the founder of the Liberal party. He wouldn’t recognise this mob today.