Attorney general plunges into climate controversy during debate on CSIRO funding, as Malcolm Turnbull confirms election is all but certain to be on 2 July. All the developments from Canberra

The glorious Uncle Rupe network is everywhere. Some of its branches are running at a loss. Such losses in any independent press outfits would lead to catastrophic bankruptcy. The Australian for example has not made a profit as I know of since its inception in 1964. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

In 1899, the Boer War was started. Though it was the second Boer War, it is still referred to as the Boer War. Aussie troops were invited to participate in the name of the glorious Empire. The British Empire. You can find sky-pointing war monuments in most Aussie "towns", even those bush-holes with less than half a pub and two horses, with inscriptions dedicated to the remembrance of the men who sacrificed their glorious life to this war. The Boer War.