Politics Live: September 24, 2014

Tony Abbott will shortly be landing in New York to begin meetings, greetings and fleetings.*

We will check in on his progress in the morning

It's now time we headed out to see what a Wednesday evening in Canberra has to offer.

(Free wine at the Parliament gift shop is a definite maybe.)

Before that, what did we learn today?

• People are being stabbed and shot dead. But now is the time to remain calm;
• If you're going to make a speech in the Senate, turn your mobile off first;
• Albo has policy ideas and he's not afraid to share them (scooters!);
• Instead of complaining about the cost of their degrees, uni students should give their uneducated neighbours a bunch of flowers; and
• Julia Gillard might have My Story. But Kevin Rudd is certainly not going to let it be the only story.

 

Andrew Meares, Alex "Big Apple" Ellinghausen and I will see you tomorrow.

Until then!

 

*The sort of sight-seeing you do when you travel for work.

 

New York City on Tuesday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

The Senate is tabling reports.

The House is debating the Unexplained Wealth Bill.

This responds to a Parliamentary Committee that made 18 recommendations "aimed at improving the investigation and litigation of ... unexplained wealth matters" in 2012.

 

The briefing also heard that people who work at Parliament House should remove their passes when they leave the building.

And to think about varying their routes to work each day.

 

What would Romaldo Giurgola say about all these new restrictions? 

The designer of Parliament House was not pleased when barriers were put up restricting access to the grass roof top of the building at the start of the Iraq War in 2003.

"The building was mostly designed to be a public place," he told The Age at the time.

Bronwyn Bishop and Stephen Parry have taken a break from their respective chambers to hold a security briefing for people who work at Parliament House.

This comes after they restricted access to the Ministerial entrance earlier this week and stopped the issuing of unaccompanied passes.

"One of the problems with this building is of cousre it it was designed for people to come in easily," Bishop said.

She also told people not to be complacent and shrug things off.

"We are responding to real threats."

 

Kevin Rudd has popped his noggin above the parapet by way of a statement to News Corp.

His spokeswoman has said:

"Consistent with the past, Mr Rudd has no substantive comment to make on Ms Gillard's latest contribution to Australian fiction.

"The Australian people have long reached their own conclusions about Ms Gillard's relationship with the truth — from the coup to the carbon tax.

"They have also reached their own conclusions on Ms Gillard's continuing efforts to reconstruct a justification after the event for her actions in June 2010, by trying to dress up personal political ambition as some higher purpose for the party and the government."

What a spoonful of wasabi that is.

 

Get out.

 

An update on the national security/ ASIO powers bill that the Senate was debating earlier today.

It is still in the committee (i.e. asking questions about the bill) stage and does not look likely to pass today. 

Brandis had earlier accused the Greens - via Scott Ludlam - of filibustering.

Ludlam said he was asking questions and not getting clear answers.

 

As Sarah Whyte and Lindsay Murdoch report, the Interior Minister of Cambodia has confirmed that a deal to resettle refugees in Cambodia will be signed by Scott Morrison on Friday.

A spokeswoman for Morrison has now also confirmed:

"The government can confirm the Minister will be travelling to Cambodia on Friday.

"Please refer to the Minister's statements about Cambodia delivered at the National Press Club earlier this month."

At the Press Club, Morrison hinted that the deal was close to being signed.

"We are world renowned for what we do on refugee resettlement so, who better is placed than Australia to work with a country such as Cambodia to help them develop that capability to do the job as well," he said.

"If we say they're not supposed to be involved in refugee resettlement, then I'm not quite sure who is."

In the Senate, Attorney-General George Brandis has introduced the foreign fighters bill.

There is not any debate now.

It has been referred to the intelligence committee. We hear the committee will report back on October 17 and that this will allow Parliamentary debate to start in earnest on October 27.