On that cheery note, we are going to close the blog down, but we will be back with you early tomorrow morning.

The ICJ will hand down its decision on whether states have binding obligations to act to prevent climate harm and protect present and future generations. Australia is arguing that we don’t beyond international agreements, like Paris.

So that is going to be a bit of a day.
There is also another question time.

So enjoy your evening. Thank you so much for joining us today – we do not take it for granted. Thank you for all your comments as well! It means the world.

Until then, take care of you Ax

Bridget McKenzie is next up on the ABC and she was asked about the One Nation protest yesterday, when they turned their backs en masse to the Welcome to Country.

Does McKenzie think that protest is disrespectful and should be punished by the senate?

McKenzie:

I think we all have to be be respectful in the chamber and on a day like yesterday it is not a day for politics, we have our representative, our sovereign, our head of state to the Governor-General who was rightfully above politics setting out her agenda for her government in this parliament.

That is our constitutional requirement, and irrespective of whether you won or lost the election, whether you like or hate the ceremony that goes around it, because that is for the Government to decide, how the ceremony is conducted, it is about respecting our democracy.

I chose to face the chair in the chamber and, on a significant day like that, respectfully listen to the Welcome to Country. One Nation chose to turn their back.

Other senators that have issues with things in the chambers like prayers every morning.

So should all disrespect be treated equally?

McKenzie:

Disrespect is one thing and politicisation of the sovereign is another and I think on a whole number of levels, Senator Faruqi breached standing orders by bringing a prop and abusing the Prime Minister on his way out and so on a lot of levels it was appalling behaviour and I’m glad she won’t be going on delegations, I would have liked to have seen her kicked out of the Senate for the week.

On the Greens call to sanction Israel, Ed Husic says:

I have said previously it was an important step and these are all step towards trying… (Q: Would you like to see more?)

I will answer your question in a clear-cut way. We are trying to encourage the Netanyahu government, a number of countries are saying clearly and if you look at the statement itself the other big thing about it is a lot of allies of Israel signed up to that statement, so pretty significant. If they fail to respond it will be up to the international community to take further steps and certainly the Australian government as part of a broader coalition should be prepared to take further steps.

There have only been two sanctions, some settlers sanctions in times past under what the government has done.

I previously said and I believe the decision makers responsible for the conduct of the operations that have seen nearly 60,000 people killed, innocent civilians, those people should be held to account and I also said being completely direct it should not be something applied across the populace of Israel, just like I do not want to see the broad populace of Palestinians affected by actions. They should be targeted towards decision-makers.

Labor MP Ed Husic is using his time on the backbench to speak on whatever he pleases.

He tells the ABC he spoke at the Voices for Gaza vigil because he felt it was important:

I don’t think it was a particularly heretical act of participate in making sure those killed in Gaza are not forgotten and it was hard I have to say reading those names.

They were either teenagers, young children and in some cases babies and reading out the names and even harder on a day where we have heard 15 people have died of starvation, including one six week old baby. I met today with an Australian medical practitioner who has worked in the Nassar Hospital, recounted her experiences, how difficult it was to treat people.

The fact doctors and nurses are giving up their meals so others can have food, even though it is important they be sustained to do the crucial work they are doing, so it is hard and I think it is a human thing to do to make sure those people are not forgotten and there are a number of parliamentarians that took place in coming back to the question you put, I would not have been surprised if it was difficult to take part in it.

Oh look, the Australian government has quietly handed over another $800 million to the Trump administration as part of the Aukus deal. 

The money – now $1.6 billion, after the Deputy PM handed over the first $800 mil in February – is for the US shipbuilding industry, to which we’ve promised $3 billion total by the end of the year. It’s supposed to help them up their production so they can meet their own targets, before the start handing over a few second-hand submarines to Australia. Except that would require a fourfold increase in production rates. Which is, to put it mildly, pretty unlikely. And even if that did eventuate, the president (whoever that happens to be) might decide not to sell them to Australia anyway, just cos. And if he (let’s be real, it will be a he) doesn’t, then too bad. That money comes with no strings attached. We don’t get it back if the subs don’t materialise.

But we can trust Trump to stick to a deal, right? Right?

Oh I missed one!

Grogs wanted you to know:

Question on women,

Yes things are better on the gender pay gap score, but the gender pay gap is done by looking at average earnings across all occupations. When we look at each occupation individually however, it is clear that the gender pay gap remains very much an issue

To close out the day, here is some of what Mike Bowers saw today:

And from question time – when you are just thrilled the parliament is back:

With the UK announcing it’ll lower the voting age to 16 and Monique Ryan pledging to introduce a new Private Members Bill doing the same here, voting rights for yooths is a hot topic. But what would that look like? 

Does anywhere else do this? 

There are precedents for what lowering the voting age would look like. Eight countries: Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, East Timor, Greece, Indonesia, Scotland and Wales have all already done so, with other countries planning to follow suit.  

How many people are we talking? 

There are 581,000 people aged 16-17 in Australia, meaning that lowering the voting age could expand the 18-million strong electoral roll by 3.2% at most. That’s less than the 700,000 people enfranchised when Australia’s voting age dropped to 18 in 1973.  

Those youngins aren’t spread evenly – Jim Chalmers’ seat of Rankin would see its enrolment grow the most if the voting age were lowered, adding another 5,000 constituents.   

What would it do to the political landscape? 

In short: very little. Just as lowering the voting age to 18 in 1973 didn’t stop the Whitlam government being voted out in a landslide two years later, lowering it to 16 wouldn’t shift election results. 

The Tories have accused British Labour of attempting to rig the next election by expanding the franchise. It’s a curious line of attack considering polls that show the addition of 16 and 17-year-olds would boost Labour’s vote by just 0.2%. 

Time to dust off your phrenology textbook? 

If you were wondering how the prefrontal cortex factors into this conversation, never fear! Nick Cater is on the case.  

In his editorial in The Australian, Cater noted that “Clinical evidence shows the prefrontal cortex … is not fully developed in the average human until around the age of 25”, and yearned for debate over “whether voting should be confined to citizens capable of managing impulses, weighing trade-offs and engaging with complex decisions”. 

Now, unless you want to break out some phrenology callipers and measure voters’ skulls before they head into vote, there isn’t really a way to judge the minds of all 18 million people on the electoral roll – and that doesn’t change for 16-year-olds. But to address his main point: 

Are 16 and 17-year-olds ready for the task? 

As far as any group can be, yes.  

We already trust Aussies aged 16 and 17 to get a job, pay taxes, join the army, and drive a car, among other things. There’s an old saying, “no taxation without representation”, which seems to apply. 

International research also shows lowering the voting age results in higher youth political engagement.  

At the end of the day, voting is a right in this country. And if we don’t trust our 16-year-olds to cast a ballot maybe we should be questioning our education system, not their pre-frontal cortexes. 

Returning to question time for a moment, let’s just look at what we have learned:

The Coalition thinks that people with more than $3 million in super are the people most in need. They asked more question on this issue than any other.

After an election where the Coalition were largely wiped out and punished for not focusing on issues that Australians were concerned with, it is surprising that this is the issue they want to focus on.

They could have focused on:

• People with mortgages.
• Renters.
• Families with kids in childcare.

Instead, they want to focus on the government wanting to reduce (but not get rid of completely) the tax concession going to wealthy people with massive super balances. This is the issue that the Coalition wants to highlight.

It’s hard to see them fighting their way back to relevance with this strategy.

Two enormous issues were largely (though not completely) ignored.

The biggest issue during the election campaign was housing but it didn’t get much of a look in. And when it did, the Minister for Housing largely said that it was about building more houses, which is a state issue.

Childcare is the other big issue and is causing a lot of anxiety among parents. It got one question, and it was good to see that this looks like an issue that will have the full support of the whole parliament. But wouldn’t it have been great if question time was used to tease out what the government was going to do on this and how they thought it was going to fix the problem.

50 Ayes and 11 noes for holding up a sign.

This is not a technical censure, but a chastising. But HONESTLY