Parliament Live: Senate estimates gets underway. All the day's events, as it happened.

Over in Environment and Communications estimates, Pauline Hanson has decided to make a menace of herself, grandstanding over why minister Murray Watt was on his phone (it is normal for ministers to be in touch with others outside the room during estimates hearings and the questions were not being directed to him, but senior public servants)

Liberal senator Dean Smith is trying to work out why an entire section of an incoming government brief – the senate has ordered the production of those documents three times, and have been denied. A FOI request has also been denied (it was completely held back, not even redacted).

Watt has taken on notice, the request to have the document released to the committee.

Sussan Ley has released a statement after news stories reporting a billboard in Melbourne had ‘glory to Hamas’ spraypainted on it:

The hateful graffiti sprayed in Fitzroy this morning is deeply disturbing.

Hamas is a listed terrorist organisation in Australia. Supporting them is not free speech, it is a crime. Those responsible must face the full force of the law.

Victorians deserve to feel safe in their own community. The AFP and ASIO should support Victorian Police to track down those behind this disgraceful act and bring them to justice.

Hate has no place on our streets.

The Australian Conservation Foundation has reported “concerned NAB shareholders will today file Australia’s first bank shareholder resolution on deforestation”

The resolution calls on the bank, which is Australia’s biggest agribusiness lender, to:

• Disclose how much it lends to customers involved in deforestation, and set a strategy to stop financing deforestation, in line with global standards.

The shareholder resolution will go to the annual meeting on 12 December and has been led by the Australian Conservation Foundation and co-filed by SIX Invest, Australian Ethical, Melior Investment Management and more than 100 shareholders.

“Our investigations show NAB has the highest exposure to deforestation among Australian banks,” said ACF’s acting CEO Paul Sinclair.
“More than half of Australia’s agricultural land is already degraded, which comes at a $260bn annual cost to the economy, yet Australia remains a global deforestation front, with economy-wide risks banks can no longer ignore.”

ACF’s analysis of 100 land titles of properties where deforestation has occurred shows NAB financed twice as many of these properties as any other bank.

Patrick Gorman is having the best of times this morning:

…We now see a report saying that the Coalition is inching towards a deal to keep the party together on climate change. Well, I think we will wait to see how that plays out, but we know how this story has gone in the past.

And then when it gets to all of the instability at the top rank of the Liberal Party and the National Party, what we are seeing is the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party say, quote, ‘it’s a bit messy.’ That’s Ted O’Brien. Now, when Ted O’Brien, who was the architect of the $600 billion nuclear plan, says that something is, quote, ‘a bit messy,’ you know, you are in serious trouble. We then have an extraordinary revelation from the most secure parts of the Liberal Party headquarters in their campaign review, we have this revelation that Peter Dutton, the former leader, said of Andrew Hastie, the former Shadow Minister for Home Affairs, that Mr. Hastie had, quote, ‘gone on strike.’ Now I am all for Andrew Hastie’s right to disconnect, but what we are seeing here is a report that Mr. Dutton said that Mr. Hastie was absent, scared to do media, or lazy. This is the person who thinks that maybe he would be a better leader of the Liberal Party.

So the revelations about this relationship and relationships in Liberal Party keep coming thick and fast at the moment. We have got Niki Savva writing in The Age today telling us quote, ‘Andrew Hastie’s relationship with Peter Dutton had been on life support for more than 18 months.’ And again, there’s that word ‘lazy.’ Dutton thought he was lazy.

But it does not stop there. In the great newspaper, The West Australian, which I read every morning, we have got a report that Hastie won’t rule out a tilt at the leadership. Andrew Hastie will not rule out a tilt at the leadership, giving great comfort, I am sure, to all of his former shadow frontbench colleagues. Katina Curtis writes in The West Australian quote, ‘Hastie has effectively set himself up as the shadow Opposition Leader.’ Again, great comfort, I am sure, to all in the Liberal Party that this is definitely not over.

But I thought actually, I have got to give the National Party credit for this one. That to have David Littleproud out there saying, quote, ‘needs to do better.’ Now you don’t have to have been in this building particularly long to remember that it was David Littleproud who was trying to blow up the Coalition just a few months ago. To have David Littleproud out saying that the Liberal Party needs to do better tells you everything about how low the standards are in the Coalition right now, what an absolute mess it is behind the scenes, how divided and dysfunctional they are, and how much better the Australian people deserve from this absolute rabble.

If you want to know what the Albanese government wants to concentrate on, on any given day – just take a look at the subject line on Patrick Gorman’s transcripts.

Here is today’s:

The Albanese Government is back in Parliament to deliver for the Australian people; the Prime Minister’s international engagements support Australian jobs; 5% deposits for first home buyers; cuts to student debt; Final Budget Outcome; Sussan Ley has lost two frontbenchers in a month; net zero; Andrew Hastie; Coalition division and dysfunction; the historic defence agreement between Australia and Papua New Guinea.

AAP has an update on the court challenge to the Palestine Action Group protest planned for Sunday:

Jewish leaders want to join a police fight to prevent an anti-Israel protest at an Australian landmark.

The Palestine Action Group is set for a court battle with NSW Police on Tuesday, after applying to hold a rally on Sunday that would start in Sydney’s CBD and finish at the Sydney Opera House forecourt.

The march would come five days after the second anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, mirroring a controversial pro-Palestine rally held at the iconic building just days after the terrorist incident in 2023.

Organisers have said the march is being held to protest Israel’s offensive in Gaza and will mark “two years of genocide”.

The NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) will ask the Supreme Court to be heard in the case after submitting a brief of evidence challenging the location of the rally.

It is party room meeting day, as well as the start of estimates, which means a whole lot of nothing and then a flurry of nothing.

Grab yourself another coffee and let’s jump in together

You really have to question why the government continues to do this

:

The Greens have also released a statement on the second anniversary of October 7:

On October 7 the Australian Greens mourn those killed on this day two years ago and the hundreds of thousands of people who have been killed since. The Greens continue to call for peace and to end the cycle of violence that both predates and has intensified since October 7. 

The Greens acknowledge the trauma, pain and grief that the whole community has been feeling over the past two years. On this day in particular, we extend our solidarity to the Jewish community impacted by the attacks. 

The attacks on October 7, the killing of civilians and the taking of hostages were condemned by the Greens at the time and continue to be condemned today. After two years, hostages are still held by Hamas. There must be an urgent release of the hostages. These calls cannot be separated from the calls to end the ongoing genocide and occupation in Palestine. 

Peace, non-violence and justice are core values for the Greens, and these values require both a condemnation of the attacks by Hamas and doing all we can to end the genocide in Palestine by the State of Israel – a genocide that is fuelled through a global collusion of countries that supply it with weapons.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed by the Israeli military in Gaza over the past two years. Unlike the brutal attacks by Hamas, the Australian Government is implicated in this genocide through its ties to the Netanyahu Government. That must end. Sanctions on the Israeli leadership and ending the two-way arms trade must happen now. 

The UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the International Criminal Court’s interim ruling, the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion and numerous statements, resolutions and findings from leading human rights authorities make clear that the Australian Government must act to end the violence. 

The Netanyahu Government has inflicted unjustifiable and disproportionate violence over the past two years on the people of Palestine and the surrounding countries. This must not be forgotten today.

The State of Israel’s occupation of Palestine, the apartheid system in the West Bank, genocide in Gaza and attacks on neighbours are antithetical to peace. So too is hostage taking and violence against civilians.

The Australian Greens were founded on four key pillars, one of which is peace and non-violence. The Greens will apply this pillar universally as all violence is interrelated, all lives are precious and it is the only way to share this one small planet with justice.

A little earlier this morning, Anthony Albanese released a statement commemorating the October 7 attacks: