10:45am: Senator Parry is having none of it: "This is the last bastion of standing orders that we must defend."

Senator Conroy moves away from anything of a regal or vice-regal nature and confines himself to the government's motives (with space for a swipe at the Greens).

"Democracy" said satirist H. L. Mencken "is the art and science of running the circus cage".

So, to prepare myself for Monday's special sitting of Parliament, I went to the circus over the weekend. (Actually, friends with a wry sense of humour bought me a ticket.)

The great Moscow circus no less, in – appropriately - Canberra.

The multi-trick ponies, camels, alpacas, a buffalo and a Macaw did their routines on cue with a precision and timing that the whips of the major parties could only dream of.

Here we could be fooled. The picture in this Sydney "gloryfiorama" is an illustration, not a photograph. Some of the elements could be from photographs, apart from the left-hand corner stunning rendering of the Sydney Opera House, far from being finished when this glorification was rendered. I'd like to draw your particular attention to The Rocks. This is 1963. One would be at a loss to explain this "vision" of tall buildings, next to Circular Quay. 

A major bank will help foot the bill for a glitzy pre-election political fundraiser to be fronted by Treasurer Scott Morrison and his deputy Kelly O'Dwyer at the same time as they are resisting calls for a royal commission into the scandal-plagued banking sector.

The $1200 to $2500-a-table breakfast, scheduled for 10 days after Mr Morrison delivers his first budget, will be held under the banner of co-sponsor National Australia Bank.

NAB is one of two corporate sponsors for the May 13 event organised by the Higgins 200 Club, a fundraising body that supports Ms O'Dwyer, the federal member for Higgins.

Financial meltdown, environmental disaster and even the rise of Donald Trump – neoliberalism has played its part in them all. Why has the left failed to come up with an alternative?

Stan Grant appointed to Referendum Council

Stan Grant has been appointed to advise the government on constitutional recognition, a step he says is important in completing Australia as a nation.

A report issued Thursday by the British charity Oxfam found that the 50 largest US corporations are hiding $1.4 trillion in profits in overseas accounts to avoid US income taxes, much of it in tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has returned home after a whirlwind 36-hour visit to China in which he tried to prevent rising tensions over China's military build-up from overshadowing business ties.

Imagine if a royal commission was held into a matter of national shame and, after tens of millions of dollars was spent and a five-volume report produced, the headline indicators of that shame actually went backwards.

Consider the public reaction if, 25 years on, one of the commissioners who produced the report lamented that the situation was now worse than when the report was published, and the federal minister responsible issued a statement applauding progress.

Debates over the call for a royal commission into the banking industry have brought to the fore the real battle in Australian politics – and it’s not about partisan rivalry.

GUSNEWS — GULF OF MEXICO:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned his country would have been within its rights to shoot down US warplanes during what it described as a simulated attack on a Russian destroyer in the Gulf of Mexico.

"We condemn this kind of behaviour. It is reckless. It is provocative. It is dangerous," Mr Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with CNN Espanol and the Miami Herald.