Australia Covid live update: Victoria records 21 new cases; regional NSW locks down as tougher restrictions are flagged – politics live

Penny Wong cedes her additional time to Matt Canavan.

“Giving me my voice,” says Canavan who has been on a mainstream media channel practically every day this week.

Canavan says the motion is designed to silence members who disagree with opinions.

This motion seeks to make sure that we all continue to get paid during the pandemic, we just don’t do our job. We just don’t do our job anymore, because our job is to debate on issues.

Canavan says Australia has been “through tougher times” and then begins talking about World War II.

Pauline Hanson has skyped in to say the motion is a “political stunt”.

She says she “feels a bit insulted” because her name wasn’t on the list with Matt Canavan and Gerard Rennick. She is now complaining about being bleeped out on FM radio.

There is a lot about how she knows how it feels to “be thrown under the bus”.

Now she is defending herself, despite not being named, or this motion being remotely about her, because she is not in the government (despite voting with them more often than not)

Larissa Waters is speaking for the Greens. She says Scott Morrison “doesn’t have the guts” to stand up to the climate and science deniers in his own party.

She criticises Simon Birmingham for trying to delete the reference to Gerard Rennick and Matt Canavan in his amendments:

It’s nothing more than a protection racket.

Simon Birmingham is speaking now, saying the country has to continue to respond “sensitively and practically” to the challenges of Covid.

He says that some of those responses will be challenged. But it is the responsibility of all members to challenge those responses “to do so in a way that is responsible to make sure that it’s consistent messages wherever possible, in relation to respect to the public health orders to the need to get vaccinated”.

Birmingham does not name Matt Canavan or Gerard Rennick:

I note in the desire to singularly focus on certain members of the government, rather than acknowledging that indeed debates occur outside of this place as well.

He says there has been no mention of comments from Labor candidates or the Queensland premier. Birmingham says Annastacia Palaszczuk wasn’t vaccinated until 2 May, while the South Australian premier was vaccinated in February.

He is moving an amendment to the motion that says “all public officials and candidates that all should be held to the same standard”.

Matt Canavan appears to be laughing and shaking his head as Penny Wong says this:

The former chief strategist to President Trump, Steve Bannon, called for Dr Fauci to be beheaded.

Mr Bannon was banned from Twitter as a result, but he still has a podcast and a recent guest on that podcast said: “Coronavirus is doing more damage to our liberties [than to our health]. That guest was Senator Canavan.

Senator Canvan, going on the podcast, hosted by someone who has called for the beheading of one of the world’s leading public health officials.

There should be nothing easier than for Senator Payne to rebuke Senator Canavan and I invite her to do that today.

Labor was prepared for this motion to go through and so Penny Wong has a speech to read (Anthony Albanese suspended standing orders to get the motion through the House, and at first seemed surprised it had gone through, and made a 20-minute speech off the cuff).

Over in the Senate, Penny Wong is moving a motion condemning Matt Canavan and Gerard Rennick for their comments that contradict the health advice and for spreading Covid misinformation.

The government is allowing it (as it did in the House) so the debate will go for 30 minutes.

And the electoral legislation has made it to the House: