MARK DREYFUS MP

Today I will appear in front of a bench of three judges in the Full Court of the Federal Court in Sydney, to once again argue the case for Senator Brandis to commit to basic transparency and release small parts of his diary under the Freedom of Information Act.

Malcolm Turnbull is facing yet another test of his leadership today with news the hard right-wing of the Liberal Party is in conversation with the Senate cross-bench about repealing Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Labor welcomes indications today that the new Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg will abandon the ridiculous vendetta of the Abbott Government against those who bring actions to uphold Australian laws designed to protect our natural environment and national heritage

All Australians would be sickened by video footage of shocking abuse of children in the Northern Territory juvenile detention system, revealed on the ABCs Four Corners program last night.

News reports today that the Nationals are considering including Pauline Hanson's policies on family courts in their secret coalition deal with Malcolm Turnbull are deeply disturbing.

Last night, a Tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague issued a unanimous ruling in the arbitration instituted by the Philippines in relation to the South China Sea.

Two days to go until the federal election, and the Liberals have not released an arts policy. That's right, the Abbott-Turnbull Government places such low value on the arts that it has not said a single thing about it for a whole 53 days.

Prime Minister Turnbull has finally come clean on one of the most shocking elements of his plan for a wasteful plebiscite on marriage equality - that taxpayer funds will be given to the no campaign to spread hate and mistruths in their attempt to stop same-sex couples getting married.

Four days to go before the election, and the Abbott-Turnbull Government is already splitting in two over its empty pledges on marriage equality.

Mr Turnbull's marriage equality plebiscite was always going to be wasteful, hurtful and divisive now we know that it will also be pointless, and set up to fail.