Politics Live: February 9, 2016

End of the day. What happened?

• the opposition continued to pursue Human Services Minister Stuart Robert over a 2014 trip to China;
• Mr Robert has not explained the circumstances of his trip despite being given many opportunities in question time to do so;
• the government has not ruled out the possibility that it is looking at privatising some Medicare payments;
• a meeting of state and territory leaders on tax has been cancelled because of the government's crab walk from an increase in the GST;
• which leaves the government looking at measures around things like superannuation and negative gearing.

My thanks, as always, to Alex Ellinghausen and Andrew Meares 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 we hope to see you then. Until then, good night.

Before I start to think about wrapping up, defence correspondent David Wroe has this story about what is happening with the new fleet of submarines.

Apparently the government wants to build more of them.

Mr Dodson launched a report on the state of reconciliation.

The report, which you can read in full here, found 86 per cent of all Australians thought the relationship between Aboriginal and non Aboriginal people was important.

However it also found that:

• 35 per cent of people believe Australia is a racist country;
• 33 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people had experienced verbal racist abuse in the past six months; and
• only 30 per cent of the general population socialises with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

"We're basically just changing the tablecloth on a table without really realising that the white ants are eating the legs out of the table, and we have to restructure the whole nature of our relationship," Mr Dodson said.

Mr Dodson accused Mr Turnbull of showing scant interest in the area: "I think it's a problem if the leader of the country is not paying attention to these significant issues that are affecting Indigenous peoples in this country."

Opposition leader Bill Shorten greets Professor Tom Calma at the State of Reconciliation report launch in Canberra on Tuesday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Tomorrow Mr Turnbull will deliver the annual update to Parliament on indigenous policy. It's referred to as the 'Closing the gap' address because it is a progress report on various indicators such as life expectancy, high school retention, infant mortality and health.

Earlier this morning Yawuru leader Patrick Dodson questioned whether there was any point continuing with the policy.

"There's a lot of aspiration and maybe good intention, but unless you get participation from Indigenous entities at a local level and community level, it's not going to work," Mr Dodson said.

Time for a quick zip through the stories that were happening while we were in question time.

Outgoing ABC managing director Mark Scott has questioned whether the SBS should be merged with the ABC, a move that would see the multicultural network lose its special status as a standalone public broadcaster.

For the latest on where the tax debate is up to you could read this story.

And criticism of the CSIRO's cuts to climate change research have gone global.

ABC managing director Mark Scott during an estimates hearing at Parliament House in Canberra on Tuesday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

There are a lot of similarities between the situation of Mr Brough and Mr Robert in terms of how the opposition is playing this in question time.

What is different is the defence of Mr Robert. Whereas the government's defence of Mr Brough was, at best, half hearted, it is more forthcoming on behalf of Mr Robert. Mr Pyne has been frequently asking for the opposition's questions to be ruled out of order and there has been a bit of a show of ministers walking into question time with Mr Robert.

Optics people, optics.

Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Innovation Minister Christopher Pyne during question time on Tuesday.Credit: Andrew Meares

And that's it for question time.

Human Services Minister Stuart Robert leaves the chamber after question time on Tuesday.Credit: Andrew Meares

And again Mr Shorten has a go at Mr Turnbull.

Mr Turnbull, again, fires up and says the government "will not be lectured on integrity and accountability by that opposition".

Shades of Julia Gillard.

Human Services Minister Stuart Robert during question time on Tuesday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Mr Shorten says Mr Robert has clearly breached ministerial standards and asks Mr Turnbull why Mr Robert is still on the front bench.

Mr Turnbull is having none of it.

He says he acted swiftly to refer to matter to the appropriate person for investigation and says he is "not going to deviate from the proper course of action let alone be lectured by someone who sold some of the lowest paid workers in Australia down the river".