Dear Diary,

Today I reviewed the Learning Guide to the compulsory first year Torts unit so the unit I am running over Summer School – Advanced Torts and Civil Wrongs – will not duplicate earlier content.

Then I liaised with the first year unit co-ordinator so the advanced unit will be interesting and fit the expectations and interests of the elective class.

After that I worked with the faculty administrator to book the Moot Court for oral presentations from 4 January 2017. This was very time consuming because the university administration and faculty staff are not in agreement as to whether we should return to work on 4 January. As a casual employee, this is of no moment to me: if I am there I am paid, if I am not, there is no income to feed my children. But I can not finalise the assessment requirements for the unit I am running until these details are sorted by those who enjoy holiday pay and sick leave and long service entitlements and what-not.

Of which I can only dream, but whatever. No doubt all the meeting time spent on whether or not 3 January is a paid leave day or something has been an efficient use of education resources. But I was talking about me and what I did today.

Dear Diary

Today I tutored for five hours under the ITAS program (Indigenous Tutorial Assistance Scheme), a job that brings with it the joy of working with a Gamilaraay woman who is going to be a top lawyer one day. This is the program that Tony Abbott promised to abolish as part of his commitment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people under the Indigenous Advancement Strategy (IAS) that saw millions of dollars allocated to white organisations to perpetuate colonial and charity-based models to “help” Aboriginal people. I didn’t really have the time for this job but an auntie asked me and the student is great and now it is not a job but a human relationship and besides here is a Gamilaraay woman future law graduate who is committed and awesome and when my kids come in from school they recognise immediately that we are working and studying and that matters and what if the funding is cut before she graduates?

In the hours before and after ITAS tutoring I marked 10 property law assignments on the scope of Native Title after Akiba v Commonwealth (2013) and I’m happy to say that most of my students seem to have a comprehensive grasp of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ rights and interests in land and sea including for trade and thus commercial purposes under the NTA 1993 (Cth) as amended. Makes ya proud that does.

Like every other day, I am also responsible for three lives – my two teenagers and I – my oldest offspring lives independently – our food, our housing, our moral code, our education and health. Where would we be without endowment and Medicare I hate to think. Today, that meant little more than cooking dinner: my kids are pretty independent these days. It so happened that one teen offspring arrived home with not one but two friends, who simply had to stay mum, and can we have some of that stew? Well, duh. Why would I make a pot of stew if not for people in the house to eat it?

This is my way of saying that for the past 25 years I have done paid and unpaid work, I have paid my rent or mortgage and taxes, done what my employer expected, conformed to what society demanded – singularly, in my case, but that is not ignore two-parent families – taken responsibility for the welfare of human beings I brought into the world….

Imagine then, my joy, when I heard about the second reading amendment today.

That my efforts in the paid work sphere, which net considerable tax receipts for the federal and state governments these days, me not being in a position to off-shore my tax liabilities, and of a disposition that I would not wish to, given that I think universal education and health care are universal goods, so I end up contributing to the half-million-dollars-plus per year, in salary alone, not to mention expenses and costs, to a bloke with over $200 million in assets, who to all intents and purposes appears incapable of organising a piss-up in a brewery.

Imagine my joy, by which I mean imagine my incandescent rage, as a person who nets less than 20% of the Turnbull public purse remuneration, when I hear Christopher Pyne refer to “a series of events that led to this outcome and it is a pity”. That would be the same Christopher Pyne whose judgement is so meritorious that we not only pay him a 6-figure salary but also sign off on his authority to employ, on a $150K pa salary, a senior ‘innovation’ advisor who lacks the insight or judgement on whether or not to strip to his dacks and insult the flag and thus the nation of Malaysia when out and about with his equally expensively remunerated mates.

Have I mentioned? Reward for merit is the most desperate lie of liberalism.

The “series of events” Pyne referred to was a proposed amendment to a second reading speech on a bill in the House of Representatives. The “outcome”, the one which “is a pity” was the vote that saw the government vote for an Opposition amendment to its own bill.

A vote. In the House of Representatives. That would be where the party with a majority forms government. Not to labour the point hur hur but if voting in the House of Representatives on their own Bill is not their day job, why am I sending a third of my income to the ATO to accommodate these people in Canberra and remunerate them to the tune of at least five times my annual income when I can competently perform the tasks entailed by my job yet they can not competently say ‘aye’ or ‘nay’ on cue?

What. Is. The. Point. Of. The. Turnbull. Government?

Today, Malcolm Turnbull lectured us in front of the Singaporeans on the rule of law.

Today, Malcolm Turnbull conceded a position on the NBN Committee to Pauline Hanson – because she asked him to.

Today, a former Solicitor-General – utterly tastelessly – compared the current Solicitor-General to a dog on a leash.

Today, the Attorney-General doubled down on his misrepresentation of advice from the Solicitor General with respect to laws that embody the bigotry of this government: the Australian Citizenship Amendment Act 2016 and the proposed Bill on a marriage equality plebiscite.

Imagine being a good lawyer – an impeccably-credentialed, beyond-reproach, top of executive government lawyer – and see a man like George Brandis misrepresent your legal opinion on what a majority of the High Court would do with regard to a possible future constitutional challenge to a bill as being advice with regard to a different, later version of the bill (a grossly xenophobic and racist bill).

As though Solicitors-General go around giving advice on what the High Court might do in its original jurisdiction lightly. As if such legal opinions are the playthings of the Attorney General. Brandis is abominable.

The Turnbull government made history today because no government in the history of federation – a very short history, a mere 116 years – voted against itself in the house where government is formed.

In the words of the leader of the House… what a pity.