Live: MPs called back to parliament to cast final vote on key bills

Just like that, parliament has come to a close for another year.

And in the parliamentary spirit, we’re going to close the blog up a little early today.

But here’s what happened today so far:

• The House of Representatives passed 11 bills in 38 minutes, including the social media ban 
• PM Anthony Albanese applauds social media ban, telling Australian parents “we’ve got your back” 

• Social media companies Meta, TikTok and Snap respond to the social media ban 

The Greens are also out smashing the social media ban today, saying there was “no excuse” for rushing the ban.

 “What we’ve witnessed this week is boomers trying to tell young people how the internet should work,” Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says.

“Yet these boomers clearly have no idea how young people engage with the internet.

“This bill might make oldies feel like they’ve done something but in reality it only delivers a false sense of security.

“Young people will be pushed to darker spaces on the web and regional, marginalised and vulnerable kids will be further isolated.”

Hanson-Young adds that the government should have instead supported the Greens’ duty of care amendment.

“The passage of this law is a world-leading failure by the PM and Peter Dutton.”

It’s likely Anthony Albanese will be keeping a close eye on his fellow leader Joe Biden for the next few weeks.

As Biden wraps up his presidency, speculation is mounting over whether the president will pardon WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. 

Assange’s brother Gabriel Shipton says Albanese should leverage his own close relationship with Biden to push for a pardon.

“I think there’s still a feeling in the electorate that this is a wrong committed against an Australian, and this could be a way for the prime minister to use his influence [with] the Biden administration and President Biden to right that wrong,” he adds.

Assange’s supporters visited Canberra this week to meet with federal parliamentarians and highlight their campaign to secure a full pardon.

The prime minister’s office did not respond to questions about whether the PM either supports or would advocate for a pardon.

Read more from Emilie Gramenz in Washington DC below:

Australia’s emissions reduction trajectory is falling dramatically short of what’s needed to meet the federal government’s legislated 2030 target, according to the latest independent scorecard, challenging the energy minister’s claim that Australia is on track.

It came after New South Wales narrowly avoided blackouts on Wednesday with a heatwave putting immense pressure on the strained electricity grid.

The Climate Change Authority’s Annual Progress Report revealed emissions increased in transport in 2023-24 and flatlined in the electricity sector, which accounts for more than a third of the country’s emissions.

Overall, emissions fell by a “modest” three million tonnes last year, about one fifth of the pace required to meet the federal government’s target of a 43 per cent cut by 2030.

Education Minister Jason Clare and Deputy Leader of the Opposition Sussan Ley also appeared on Sunrise this morning, where they both formed a united front over the social media ban.

Clare called social media a “cesspit” as he celebrated the win for mums and dads.

Ley acknowledged the amendments the Coalition placed on digital ID, but agreed that the platforms could be a “cesspit”.

“I’m delighted that the laws are passing the parliament and that both sides in fact, really everyone in the parliament has supported them,” she says.

“It’s just too important not to.”

Asked if the lock-out mechanisms could include facial recognition, Clare says “no, I don’t think it will be”.

He also added that “none of this is going to be perfect”.

“None of this is going to make sure that every child under the age of 16 is not going to end up on TikTok,” he says.

 “In the same way that, you know, young people under the age of 18 that can get access to alcohol as well.

“So there’s going to be cases where young people are still going to be on social media.

“What this is going to do is make sure that most young people aren’t, and it’s going to take some pressure off parents.”

National technology reporter Ange Lavoipierre says there’s still a lack of “nuts and bolts” when it comes to the details of the social media ban.

“We’ll know a little bit more about what it will look like, you know what the mechanism will be, once we’ve heard back from the eSafety commissioner about that trial they’re running,” she says.

Watch the full clip below:

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Once upon a time reporters and their cammos were dispatched to the doors of Parliament House to try their best to get a quote or two ahead (or at the end of) a sitting day.

The tradition went by the wayside after COVID. Instead MPs and ministers prefer to make their way up to the press gallery in parliament to deliver their talking points.

But a couple of intrepid journos and cammos made their way down this morning to grab MPs after they were called back to give the rubber stamp on some of the 31 bills passed by the Senate in its marathon Thursday night sitting.

Nationals MP Keith Pitt questioned what the point of coming to Canberra was if this was how the government was going to play it.

“I’ve got to say, if this is the way the Labor government wants to run the country … why do we come here for 20 plus weeks?” he said.

“They should bundle all of the bills into packs of 50 and we’ll do them all at once and we can spend more time at home.”

Pitt thinks he’ll “absolutely” be back for the February sitting fortnight but there was no way MPs would be back for a budget in March.

Other MPs were asked what they planned to do with their summer vacation. Sounds like a lot of holidays are planned!

As expected, the resounding response from social media companies today is less than glowing.

A TikTok spokesperson says the safety of young users is a “top priority for the platform”:

“We will continue to work hard to enforce our high safety standards,” they add.

“Moving forward, it is important that the government works closely with industry to fix issues created by this rushed process.

“We want to work together to keep teens safe and reduce the unintended consequences of this bill for all Australians.”

A Snap spokesperson says it raised “serious concerns” about the bill, alongside experts and academics:

“While there are many unanswered questions about how this law will be implemented in practice, we will engage closely with the government and the eSafety Commissioner during the 12-month implementation period to help develop an approach that balances privacy, safety and practicality,” they say.

“As always, Snap will comply with any applicable laws and regulations in Australia.”

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Independent Senator Tammy Tyrrell, one of the Senators to oppose the social media ban last night, says the bill “isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”.

She says the bill is only a way to win votes in the election next year.

“Labor and the Liberals gave this social media ban policy as much thought as they probably give to what underwear they put on in the morning. Zero,” she says.

“The debate around the social media ban and the misinformation bill show just how important it is for better digital literacy education.

“We should be teaching kids in school how to navigate the online world, rather than taking it away from them altogether.”

The Coalition doesn’t want Labor taking a victory lap on the new social media ban all on its own.

Shadow Communication Minister David Coleman has also been out this morning, hoping to remind people who called for a social media ban first.

“Peter Dutton showed strength, he showed leadership, and he said enough — if we’re elected, we’ll implement this age limit within 100 days of being elected,” he said.

“It was the right thing to do, and we’re pleased that the parliament has now acted on this.”

And he’s not buying arguments this morning from companies like Snap, Meta and TikTok questioning how the ban will actually be implemented.

“These are the most sophisticated companies in the world. Meta’s market value of 2 trillion Australian dollars is almost as much as the entire gross domestic product of Australia,” he said.

“It’s Black Friday today, and the social media companies are going to have very targeted advertising, using their super sophisticated technology to sell advertising to Australians.

“But then they say, when it comes to protecting kids, oh, it’s all too hard.”

Opposition leader in the Senate Simon Birmingham says it was the “right time” to retire from politics, as he urges Australia to hold onto the “old principles” of equality and mutual respect.

He tells ABC Radio National that he hopes he has been able to convey the importance of a united front during his career.

“There are many elements of US campaign style and politics that I wouldn’t want to see creep into the mainstream of Australian campaigning,” he adds.

As for some of his biggest regrets? He says he wishes the Turnbull government had supported the same-sex marriage vote sooner.

Birmingham was one of the first Coalition MPs to back the reform.

“I wish perhaps, in the earlier days, I’d argued more forcefully at different times,” he says.

“It would have been much better going into that 2016 election if we’d found a way to resolve it sooner and faster.”

In amongst the madness this week, the federal government has managed to pass its legislation to set up a national student ombudsman.

The new body, established by Education Minister Jason Clare, has been set up to give students an avenue to escalate complaints about their universities and have these issues resolved.

The key reason the ombudsman has been created is to help stop sexual violence at unis, with the current tertiary regulator accused of dropping the ball on the issue.

And that’s before you get to a Senate committee finding the sector’s response to the issue had been woefully inadequate and students saying complaints processes left them further traumatised.

Sarah Bendall has been appointed as the inaugural ombudsman, and she’ll play a key role in enforcing the federal government’s national code of conduct on this issue which will also encompass residences as well as unis.

A flurry of deals to clear the decks and pave the way for an election resulted in 31 bills passing the Senate in a marathon late-night sitting.

During his final Today Show appearance of the year alongside Labor’s Bill Shorten, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton likened it to a “going out of business sale”.

“It was like just everything discounted and whatever it takes to clear the shelves … frankly, the Albanese government’s sort of running on three flat tyres at the moment and they are limping to Christmas,” he said.

Shorten, who will depart from politics in February, said it was more like “making a sausage”.

“You don’t always want to see how it’s done but it’s about the end product isn’t it,” he said.

At the end of the interview, the pair were convinced to hug it out in the spirit of Christmas.

“Come on, hug with gusto,” host Karl Sefanovic said.

Shorten said it was “like a pair of guys who walked into the wrong bar in Oxford Street”.

To which Dutton fired back:

“It’s been a rough night when you’re embracing Bill in the morning, that’s all I’ll say.”

Facebook’s parent company Meta has responded to the passage of the social media ban.

In a statement, Meta says it is concerned about the speed at which the legislation passed.

“Naturally, we respect the laws decided by the Australian Parliament. However, we are concerned about the process which rushed the legislation through while failing to properly consider the evidence, what industry already does to ensure age-appropriate experiences, and the voices of young people.

“Last week, the parliament’s own committee said the ‘causal link with social media appears unclear,’ with respect to the mental health of young Australians, whereas this week the rushed Senate Committee report pronounced that social media caused harm. This demonstrates the lack of evidence underpinning the legislation and suggests this was a predetermined process.

“The task now turns to ensuring there is productive consultation on all rules associated with the bill to ensure a technically feasible outcome that does not place an onerous burden on parents and teens and a commitment that rules will be consistently applied across all social apps used by teens.”

The spokesperson did offer an option for how the age restriction could work.

“One simple option is age verification at the operating system and app store level which reduces the burden and minimises the amount of sensitive information shared,” they said.

It’s not the first time we’ve heard this line this week. Treasury modelled potential changes to scale back negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions.

Adam Bandt says that was a result of the minor party’s pressure. Pressed if he actually got confirmation of that from the department, the Greens leader says the reforms weren’t on the table before that.

“We put them on the table in the negotiations. We know the government was looking at it. And I think now, as we go to the next election, I think the debate has changed, and that’s as a result of the Greens,” he says.

Labor took negative gearing reforms from opposition to the 2016 and 2019 federal elections, which it lost.

Anthony Albanese concludes his press conference by saying his thoughts are with his deputy Richard Marles, who will farewell his mother in Melbourne today.

“Richard Marles is someone who is very well liked across the parliament and loved by his colleagues,” he says.

“He is such a great person, and his mother was clearly an extraordinary Australian as well – trailblazer in education – and our thoughts will be with him today.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers says he will consult in “good faith” as he looks to make appointments to the new Reserve Bank board.

The reforms will split the board in two, one to set interest rates and another to handle the bank’s other functions and its corporate governance.

It was a recommendation of the review into the RBA and was a major sticking point for the Coalition, who accused Chalmers of wanting to establish it so he could “stack” the board with Labor-friendly members.

“We will consult with the opposition in good faith, as we’re obligated to do, to make sure that the people that we appoint to the new governance board and the new monetary policy board are first class and first rate,” he says.

The reforms passed last night with the support of the Greens, who struck a deal to preserve the power for the treasurer to override interest rate decisions (the power has never been used).

Chalmers said the deal wasn’t his first preference.

“But it was made necessary by the irresponsible behavior of the Coalition. And so the mistake that we made for too long was to take Angus Taylor seriously on these matters when his colleagues don’t,” he says.

While the PM was successful in securing a number of deals to clear the legislative backlog, negotiations with the Coalition over reforms to cap political donations and spending crumbled.

After shelving the bills at the eleventh hour, Anthony Albanese says the government will now look “for other paths and roads to success”.

“I’ve indicated to crossbench members that it is not sustainable in a democracy to have individuals contributing tens of millions of dollars,” he says.

Without directly naming Clive Palmer, the PM makes says the several $100 million spent by him at the last couple of elections was “not healthy for our democracy”.

“I’ve already had some discussions this week with the crossbench, and we’ll engage with the crossbench to see if we can progress reforms.”

“If we need to change, some of the legislation that’s currently before the Senate, then we’re prepared to do that constructively.”

The crossbench previously slammed the reforms as a “major party stitch up”, while the Coalition pulled their support over concerns held by small businesses.