Labor will introduce private member's bill on marriage equality – as it happened

Rightio. I have to chuff off now because I have to string whole sentences together for The Drum very shortly.

• What happened here today? The 45th parliament was opened by the governor general, Peter Cosgrove. He outlined – in a speech traditionally prepared by the prime minister’s office – the Turnbull government agenda for the next three years. It was a policy list from the last election.
  
• Labor has confirmed it will introduce a marriage equality bill, which may come to parliament in the next few days or may not – depending on strategic reasons.
  
• The omnibus bill was the subject of chest-beating by both sides. Labor has yet to give a final decision on whether to support the $6.1bn in savings as it was only handed over in the last 24 hours and it is 650 pages.
  
• Labor has asked Turnbull to join with them and reaffirm the parliament’s commitment to non-discrimination in immigration and Indigenous affairs. With an eye to Cory Bernardi’s push to change 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act and Pauline Hanson’s policies on Islam, Labor is trying to draw Turnbull out on equality. John Howard and Kim Beazley agreed on this motion in 1996.
  
• As to the Cory motion, Bernardi has given notice of it but it probably won’t come up for debate until next year. It seeks to remove “offend” and “insult’ from section 18c.
  

Thanks for your company and thanks to the brains trust of Katharine Murphy, Paul Karp and Gareth Hutchens. Mike Bowers, take a bow.

Welcome to the new parliament and see you on the morrow.

Obviously regarding that last post on marriage equality, Labor is not going to telegraph their strategy.

OK, so Labor is giving notice of a marriage equality bill. It could come on through a suspension of standing orders in the next two days or it could be delivered in an orderly fashion – during private member’s time.

There it is.

We are seeking clarification of this news from Bill Shorten’s office. We were expecting this news but were not sure on the timing. This would have to be a private bill.

Herewith, the Xenophones – the new Senate band getting back together.

Nats cosy up to Pauline Hanson.

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Consider the parliament open.

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Now Malcolm Turnbull, Bill Shorten and Barnaby Joyce are giving their shadow lists of whips etc to the house.

So that’s it for Peter Cosgrove. We have had a 19-gun salute and the MPs are wandering back into the lower house chamber.

After the 2016 proroguing of parliament, Cosgrove got a bit of stick for not shaking Tanya Plibersek’s hand. He focused on the leaders and, even though she was standing next to him, he seems to not see her.

This time he stood square in front Plibersek this time and she went the full hug. Hopefully we will have pictures for you shortly.

(This post has been corrected. In my head the so-called snub was the last opening. But it was actually at the proroguing just before the election. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Thanks for the heads up. You know who you are.)