Zoe Daniel and Sally Sitou call for climate action in first speeches to parliament – as it happened

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Former prime minister Morrison absent in first week of new parliament

Scott Morrison is of course, absent.

The former prime minister is on his way to Tokyo for a conservative conference featuring former conservative prime ministers. The opposition has not asked for a pair for Morrison this week. We don’t know if he is getting paid as part of this event (it is his second since his election loss) and probably won’t know until he updates his register of interests (if he remains in the parliament, that is – there is a lot of talk he is looking for his way out and the Cook branch is preparing for it).

There have been a lot of questions about whether there are any ramifications for someone who misses parliament for something like this. I’ll do up a proper question and answer for it in just a bit, but the short answer is: no.

If you meet the constitutional requirements, then you can sit in the parliament and no one can do anything about it. Political parties have the power to kick MPs out of the party, but not the parliament. Only the people can do that.

There was one case, I believe (this is from memory) very early on in the Australian parliament, where someone was elected and never showed up.

Updated at 20.58 EDT

Now because the House of Representatives and the Senate are supposed to be seperate, and this whole procedure is based on British Westminster tradition, there is a whole thing about keeping the Queen out of the lower house.

Which is why it all happens in the Senate.

It is one of the only times House of Representatives members are allowed in the Senate, but they don’t sit on the benches – there are special chairs on the outside of the Senate benches where the MPs sit.

The chief justice, as the deputy of the governor general, will then open the parliament.

The governor general, David Hurley, will turn up this afternoon and finish the opening, which concludes with a 19-gun salute (21-gun salutes are reserved for royalty and heads of state).

Updated at 20.43 EDT

The Usher of the Black Rod (quick explanation here) is walking across to the House of Representatives to invite the members over to the Senate for the official parliament opening.

The deputy governor general (the High Court chief justice, Susan Kiefel) will open the parliament. But first the House of Reps MPs have to file over to the Senate.

Updated at 20.41 EDT

Here is some of how Mike Bowers and Blake Sharp-Wiggins have seen the morning:

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the Great Hall. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian Welcome to Country and smoking ceremony on the forecourt of Parliament House. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian Peter Dutton during the smoking ceremony with Paul House. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian Welcome to country and smoking ceremony ahead of the 47th parliament’s opening. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Updated at 20.33 EDT

Consumer confidence rises before CPI figures release

Ahead of tomorrow’s release of consumer price inflation figures for the June quarter, the ANZ/Roy Morgan weekly survey of consumer confidence has registered another modest increase.

Sentiment nudged up 0.7%, following the previous week’s 0.2% gain.

Among the mainland states, confidence improved in NSW, Victoria, SA and WA, while it dropped in Queensland.

The sentiment sub indices were also mixed.

Increases in the expected “financial situation compared to a year ago” and whether it is a “good time to buy a major household item” were the main drivers of sentiment, ANZ’s head of Australian economics, David Plank, said.

“Confidence, however, remained very weak and at levels last seen during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

One other interesting result was the uptick in household inflation expectations by 0.2 percentage points to 6%.

The rise in consumer sentiment, though, could be temporary, with more “downward pressure” likely if the June CPI figures reveal another surge of inflation, Plank said.

Market economists are tipping the “headline” CPI numbers will come in at about 6.2%, up from the annual rate of 5.1% reported for the March quarter.

While on the high side, that number is well short of the bold 8% prediction by one political commentator in the “national broadsheet” this morning. Shoppers everywhere will hope that he’s well off the mark.

Updated at 20.26 EDT

Supporters of tax whistleblower Richard Boyle rally in Adelaide

In Adelaide, a protest has been held in support of tax office whistleblower Richard Boyle.

Boyle, a former tax office official, blew the whistle on what he alleged was the misuse of extraordinary powers by the Australian Taxation Office to claw back debts owed by families and small businesses. His disclosures, made well after he first raised concerns internally, formed the basis of an ABC Four Corners investigation.

He was then hit with a series of criminal charges and is now facing potential imprisonment, if found guilty at trial.

Boyle was due to face the district court this morning for what is a hugely important pre-trial hearing. He is attempting to use whistleblower protections to have criminal charges against him thrown out.

It is the first major test of Australia’s Public Interest Disclosure Act, the laws that are designed to shield whistleblowers from reprisals. The hearing was delayed until next week due to Covid. But a group of protesters has shown their solidarity with Boyle regardless, turning up outside the court in support.

The Alliance Against Political Prosecutions, the Human Rights Law Centre, and the former senator Rex Patrick were all in attendance.

Updated at 20.22 EDT

Australian airport ground crews threatening strikes over unfair enterprise agreement

Dipping away from politics for a moment:

Travellers at Australian airports could see big delays as ground crews are threatening to go on strike. Baggage handlers from the Emirates-owned group dnata (the Dubai National Air Travel Agency) are today applying to the Fair Work Commission for strike action over a new enterprise agreement they say is unfair. The airport services provider supplies handling for up to 20 airlines including Qantas and Emirates.

Andrew David, the CEO of Qantas Domestic and International appeared on the Today Show earlier this morning and said that it will impact the national carrier’s international flights but not domestic services.

If the union is going to take the action it will impact those airlines and will impact everybody in our international airports. It won’t affect our domestic business. We don’t use dnata in our domestic airports.

David denied the situation was reflective of the broader problem of airlines outsourcing activities like bag handling to other businesses.

It’s ludicrous to suggest that corners are being cut and the union’s got to take action. They are trying to link Qantas to virtually everything. Yesterday we had fog in Sydney and Virgin had a problem with its IT systems. Somehow the trade workers union connected that with Qantas outsourcing.

David is asked about a leaked memo from dnata, in which staff have been warned to politely but firmly dismiss any pressure from airlines to work faster which has previously resulted in “quite a few incidents in the space of a fortnight.”

David denies that the staff shortage is “dangerous” and says he has read the memo and “thought it was good”.

It was a reminder to everybody in dnata, in the same way we want our ground handlers to remember, safety always comes first. I didn’t see anything with that message. Unfortunately some people choose to take phrases in that and in other contexts out of context and then spread misinformation. So, certainly it is not dangerous in the industry. We always take safety as our first priority.

The potential strike comes as Sydney Airport has been named among the world’s worst airports for flight cancellations and delays in the past two months:

Updated at 20.23 EDT

Murph has covered climate politics for more than two decades – there is almost no one in the building who knows as much as her about where we have been, where we are going, and what needs to happen. We are lucky to have her.

Updated at 20.07 EDT

Bowen: Ratchet mechanism ‘explicit in the legislation’, no further changes from Labor likely

Katharine Murphy asks:

You said obviously you’ve made the Paris process more explicit in this bill so that targets can only go in one direction. Is that as far as you intent to go on the so-called ratchet mechanism that the Greens and others have been looking for?

Also you said a minute ago you’re not budging from Labor’s electoral mandate. Labor made no comments or promises ahead of the last federal election in relation to a climate trigger [or] another environmental laws. That’s something that David Pocock thinks should happen. It’s something the Greens think should happen and it might go some way to bridging some … gaps between the Labor Party and the Greens on a moratorium on oil and gas. What’s your position in relation to that?

Chris Bowen:

Thank you. In relation to the first question, you’re right. The Paris mechanism is very clear. The term ratchet mechanism gets used and that’s as good a term as any, that all future targets must be better than previous targets so the UNFCCC [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change] wouldn’t accept a target which is backsliding.

We’ve made that explicit in the legislation. I think that is very clear. Certainly I don’t envisage the need to change that any further.

In relation to the other question you raised, of course that’s a matter which the minister has addressed in relation to the Saville review and that’s our position and I believe that position continues.

Updated at 20.15 EDT

Chris Bowen says the Paris mechanism will be part of the bill, and the Opposition is making itself irrelevant:

There are things that we’ve made more explicit in the bill, that we’ll be introducing into the Parliament, including how the Paris mechanism works to require future targets to or higher than previous targets.

That’s appropriate. That’s what a sensible government of grown-ups does.

As I said, we have been and will continue to talk to people of goodwill. People who aren’t constructive, like the opposition, have made themselves irrelevant to the process.

The Liberal Party – at least the leader of the Liberal Party – seems to have not received the memo from the Australian people on May 21 that it’s time to end the climate wars.

They think they know more about business than the Business Council of Australia. They think they know more about the industry, Australian industry, than the Australian Industry Group, who have all called for our targets and for them to be legislated.

Mr Dutton is unfortunately making a decision to continue the climate wars. That a matter for him but he’ll be held accountable for it.

He’s making his party irrelevant and many of his members and even frontbenchers know it and you know that he’s made a captain’s call to stand aside from constructive engagement with the government.

The government will get on with the job, regardless of whether this legislation passes. We’ll get on with the job, regardless of the approach of the opposition of the day.

But the Australian people sent the parliament a message, elected in a government with a mandate, and we’re getting on with it in a way consistent with that mandate and I call on people across the Parliament regardless of their party, regardless of their historical position, to recognise the sea change in the views of the Australian people and support this legislation.

Updated at 20.18 EDT