Politics Live: November 24, 2015

Okay, end of the day for me. What happened?

• Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull made a statement to Parliament on national security;
• it was more noteworthy for the language used than the news it contained;
• Labor announced it would hike the tobacco excise if returned to office at the next election;
• it also endured another bad opinion poll with leader Bill Shorten hitting new lows in his personal stocks;
• the government announced its response to the Harper review of competition policy; and
• there has been some movement at the station in terms of the heads of public service departments.

My thanks to Andrew Meares and Alex Ellinghausen for their work and to you for reading and commenting.

You can follow me on Facebook.

Andrew, Alex and I will be back in the morning and hope to see you then.

Good night.

"On the list of real dangers to the wellbeing of ordinary Australians, the prospect of harm from terrorism ranks a long way down," Ms Parke said. "Harm from tobacco, harm from alcohol, harm from domestic violence, harm from suicide - these are much greater sources of harm than terrorism by some considerable margin."

"In the end, and I suspect from the beginning, the purpose of this bill is simply to act tough, to emphasise the issue of security, to inflate the threat posed to Australia and to Australians, and to reap the cynical political benefits of so doing."

You can read Ms Parke's speech here.

Parliament continues to debate the government's changes to citizenship which would see someone with dual citizenship stripped of their Australian citizenship if they engage in terrorism related activities.

Although the opposition supports the legislation not everyone is happy about it.

Melissa Parke told Parliament yesterday afternoon that the legislation is just wrong.

Some of you would be aware that former Fairfax reporter Adele Horin died at the weekend. Adele was a fine reporter who I was fortunate enough to work with for some years. I always admired her commitment to covering the stories of the not so lucky people in this lucky country.

You might be interested to read Adele's obituary written by another fine Fairfax alumni Debra Jopson.

You might have picked up on the difference in language used by Mr Turnbull in his national security statement and that used by Mr Abbott when he made similar statements.

So did political reporter Judith Ireland who has this to say about it.

So this is interesting.

Political correspondent James Massola reports on MPs longing for the days of the Abbott prime ministership who have been lunching of late.

Mr Abbott has even brought them cake (although I bet he doesn't eat it).

There is a lot of chatter about that Dr Martin Parkinson, the former head of Treasury, will lead the Prime Minister's department.

But there is no announcement on that at this present time.

Dr Martin ParkinsonCredit: Louie Douvis

A bit more news from mandarin land.

A statement from Mr Turnbull confirms that Michael Thawley is leaving the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet in late January next year.

It also confirms the departure from Peter Varghese at DFAT in the middle of next year to become the Chancellor of the University of Queensland.

And, in a key appointment, Mr Turnbull's chief of staff will be Drew Clarke, the man who was previously the head of the Department of Communications when Mr Turnbull was minister.

And that's it for question time.

Leader of the House Christopher Pyne and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during question time on Tuesday.Credit: Andrew Meares

The opposition's attorney-general spokesman Mark Dreyfus wants to know why Mr Brough will not be as forthcoming on the matter of former speaker Peter Slipper's diary as he was to 60 Minutes last year.

Mr Brough says he cannot say anything else because of the continuing investigation into the matter.

(FYI Mr Brough told the television program in 2014 that he directed Mr Slipper's then adviser, James Ashby, to procure copies of Mr Slipper's diaries in 2012.)