OK, I am out. Dan Tehan was just announced as the MP guest on Afternoon Briefing and there must be LIMITS to what we are forced to endure this early in the week.

But don’t worry – we will be back tomorrow for more punishment, I mean, parliament and will bring you all the day’s events and more. It is party room meeting time tomorrow, so brace yourself.

Thank you to everyone who followed along today – I am constantly humbled by how many of you decide to spend your day here. It means the world.

Until tomorrow – take care of you. Ax

OK, well there is some life left in this day, but not in me, so let’s track down what Mike Bowers has been doing for The New Daily today.

Looks like he went to the senate. Condolences.

Seems like the theme today was: Senators do things with their hands.

Wave them around

FINALLY.

The chamber moves on, but the MPs are mostly excited for 6pm when Pat Cummins and some other sports stars will hold an event in the parliament, as they call for funding to help future proof community sport clubs and grounds from climate change.

Ahhh Ok, Jason Clare is now up on the child care safety changes following last week’s meeting with the state and territory education ministers, which I imagine is the reason for the prolonged question time.

Again, it is nothing new, but hopefully it means we will all be free from this very soon.

LNP MP Andrew Wilcox (the member for Dawson for those playing at home) asks Pat Conroy:

Can the minister confirm that Whyalla, Mount Isa and Tasmania are all either under administration, in crisis talks or are seeking government bailouts and the cost of energy is the reason for this.

Conroy says:

I thank them member to his question which is about the future of manufacturing in his country and the future of smelters. As we’ve said in this place many times, the sustainability of our domestic minerals and minerals processing capability is vital to our national interest and that is why we are backing jobs, backing manufacturing and backing heavy industry. Now, the member also talked about energy. Obviously energy is a critical part of the mix and that is why we are investing records amounts in renewing our energy grid, backing renewable energy which is the cheapest form of new energy as well as improving reliability. I stood with the Prime Minister and other ministers when we backed Aussie industry with new investment in energy. The truth is, Mr Speaker, the Coalition had a chance to fix these issues but they left us with a graveyard of discarded energy policies, by my last count, 23. We are getting on with fixing the job by taking a considered approach and ministers as in the other place is working very hard in at this. We’ve put aside funding for smelters, we’ve put aside hunting for the Green Iron Fund, we have put aside $300 million for aluminium to help with their energy transition. There is more to do, Mr Speaker, but the truth is, we’re not going to cop attacks from the other side who sat on their hands for nine long years and did nothing about it.

NO! We are back with another one.

WHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

This dixer on the child care safety reforms (nothing new here so we will leave it) has the smell of the end of question time to it.

I would expect Anthony Albanese to stand up and end this before Michelle Rowland sits back down

Zali Steggall is up next with a non-government question. It is on her bill (although doesn’t name it)

Every $1 spent on disaster preparation saves up to $11 and disaster recovery costs yet less than 30 per cent of the National Emergency Management Agency’s budget is spent on preparation and resilience. Disasters are now costing 38 billion per year to Australians. Will you take this opportunity to re-evaluate funding priorities and ensure greater investment in resilience?

Anthony Albanese says he will ask the minister to add to his answer, but first says:

…We are certainly very conscious about the cost of climate change. It is real for. It is real, and in recent months I have cause have been to regional South Australia visiting drought communities. I have been to the Mid North Coast where there have been floods I have been to South Australia as well, Kangaroo Island just last week. Seeing the impact of climate change.

There is no question that while you can’t say every single weather event in Australia is because of climate change, what you can say is the science told us that there would be more events and they would be more intense and that is what we are seeing playing out.

Now with a range of funds including the announcement that I made last week was about changes to the RIC program being made available so that the issue of resilience and investment can be made to that program for issues which are unprecedented of course. In South Australia at the moment what you have is a combination of events.

You have the flood waters flowing down through the Murray Darling Basin, impacting and washed out and nutrients into the water there, but the thing that is really having impact is the water is about 2 degrees higher than it normally would be at this time of the year.

That is having an impact on the environment which is having an impact therefore on our economy, so I think the member is quite right to point towards investing upfront. That is something my government is looking at in a range of areas as well, as well as providing for local infrastructure programs that the minister might want to talk about as well.

Kristy McBain does want to talk about this:

It is because of this Prime Minister that there is actually investment in disaster response and readiness. We’ve created a disaster response fund, a $1 billion fund over five years with projects already being rolled out in rounds one, two and three just announced. Projects like levies as well as small projects like lifting up the capability of culverts to two lane concrete bridges. But not only is it important to invest in hard infrastructure, the soft infrastructure is incredibly important. Investing in preparedness programs in local communities across the country just like communities in Lismore that I visited last week or south-west Queensland which I visited the week before. Working with those local councils on priority projects in disaster readiness.

Anthony Albanese is cranky (a different cranky to his normal cranky – this is disappointed cranky):

I support the Palestinian bid for statehood, in part because it will give heart to the ordinary people of the West bank and Gaza.

We in the international community must stand in solidarity with those seeking the non-violent path to a secure Israel and an independent Palestine.

After two generations of war, are we going to admit to our children their parents could not even find a path to peace or, worse still, that we did not even try.

They’re not my words. They’re the words of your leader.

And the fact that we take international policy seriously. And the fact that the Manager of Opposition Business asked such a flippant question about the relationship between Australia and the US or about Middle East peace.

It shows how unworthy they are those opposite.

We continue to engage with the US constructively and indeed the Deputy Prime Minister is in the US as we speak, meeting with counterparts as we announced.

We continue to engage constructively. I’ve had three constructive discussions with President Trump. We’ll continue to engage in international politics in a way that protects our sovereignty, in a way that stands up for our national interest, in a way in which Australia plays a positive role in the world as we have historically.

One of the other things that’s defined Australia’s international engagement is the overwhelmingly it has been bipartisan.

If you compare the response and the childish nature of that question, with what the Labor Opposition, with how the Labor Opposition responded to the announcement by Prime Minister Morrison, to the AUKUS arrangements, I think that is all clear to see.

We on this side of the House responded in a constructive, positive way. We always stood up for Australia’s interests and I note and wanted to thank the member for Canning for his remarks where he said recently, just last week in an interview, that when the Australian Prime Minister is up against any criticism, which can be seen to be criticism of Australia, he will stand up for Australia. That is something that we consistently have done and we’ll continue to stand up to the national interest and they’ll continue and they’ll continue to show just how irrelevant they are.

As we come to the end of this question time we get a question from Alex Hawke and…sigh.

This morning the Prime Minister snapped at a journalist saying he had given, “5,324 answers as to why he has failed to secure a meeting with the President of the US. Can the Prime Minister table these 5,324 answers and could the Prime Minister explain to the Australian public whether his decision to recognise the State of Palestine means he is more likely to get a meeting with President Trump or less likely to get a meeting with President Trump?

Why is the Coalition so desperate to get a meeting with Donald Trump? What do they think it would even achieve? What is with this obsession with kowtowing to the United States at all times? That Australia be in lockstep with the United States, even when it is wrong? Does anyone every question what is the point of that sort of diplomacy does for Australia and its people?