Greens replacement senator from Queensland Andrew Bartlett enters the chamber to take the oath of office on Monday.

Mike Bowers has been in the Senate for this morning’s proceedings. Three new senators were sworn in, and the Senate got a new president. Here’s all the colour from the chamber.

Well, it’s been quite a morning here in Canberra. My head’s spinning. I’m sure yours is too. So let’s take a moment to recap:

“I’m not sure how comfortable the Australian public will be with this. What about realtors selling properties to a gay couple, or doctors refusing to treat children with gay parents? Where does it end? ... They won’t sit back while we have a debate for three years about what class of citizen we should make the gay community. It won’t stack up.”

Entsch suggested that the Australian people are right to be cynical that conservative opponents were now showing a “sudden interest” in marriage equality and proposed a bill winding back anti-discrimination law “at a federal state and territory level for a particular cohort”.

“For someone who claims to support same-sex marriage he does seem to have two bob each way. I question his commitment here, that he is seen to be doing the bidding of those opposed to same-sex marriage.”

Entsch told Guardian Australia he was “surprised and disappointed” by the move but conceded Paterson was entitled to put his name to the bill.

He said Jim Nolan would make a great replacement for Nationals senator Fiona Nash if Hollie Hughes – the next on the ticket after Nash at the 2016 election – is ruled ineligible.

He didn’t take the opportunity to criticise Turnbull, saying lots of factors conspire against every prime minister, making it difficult for them to do their job.

On Monday’s Newspoll – the 23rd poll in a row showing the government trailing Labor – Abbott said he still believed the government could win the next election.

Abbott said the agreement was a sign that Turnbull and Shorten realised that the issue was getting out of hand, after Christopher Pyne’s threat at the weekend to start referring Labor MPs to the high court led Labor to threaten to start going nuclear with its own dirt files on at least five more Coalition MPs.

The deal for the upper house means disclosures will happen by 1 December.

On the citizenship saga, Abbott said it was good to hear that Malcolm Turnbull and the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, had come to an agreement for the new citizenship disclosure regime.

“Chris is certainly no uncritical member of the conservative right. She’s on a different side to myself on the same-sex marriage debate. She’s, I think, on the progressive side, if I might use that term, of the Liberal party, as she’s entitled to be.”

“It’s a real tragedy that people have become so incredibly intolerant as to treat someone like Chris, who is herself a bit of a human rights campaigner, to treat her this way is just outrageous,” he said.

His parents, who also attended the event, were badly shaken by the experience.

Abbott said the protesters must have been living under a rock for the past few months because they mustn’t have realised his sister has been one of the strongest advocates for same-sex marriage, and holds many progressive views.

Forster’s jacket was torn violently, she was reportedly spat upon , and she needed police to shield her as protesters made it difficult for her to enter the fundraiser.

The former prime minister spoke at length about the protesters who assaulted his sister, Christine Forster, as she was trying to enter a Liberal party fundraiser on Friday evening in Redfern, Sydney.

Tony Abbott was on 2GB radio within the past hour talking to host Ray Hadley.

New One Nation senator abandons party immediately

Fraser Anning, One Nation’s newly sworn-in senator, is leaving the party. He was sworn in about an hour ago as the replacement for Malcolm Roberts.

Anning will sit as an independent. The One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, has issued a statement saying she spoke to Anning this morning, but the talks broke down when she refused Anning’s staff entry into a party room meeting.

“Mr Anning was advised that David Goodridge, Leon Ashby, Richard Howard and Boston White were not welcome to this morning’s party room meeting because of their disloyalty to their former employer and myself,” Hanson said.

Anning said “I know where this is going” and stood up and walked out of the room.

Hanson asked senators Burston and Georgiou to mediate with Anning to find some common ground, but they were told Anning would stand as an independent only minutes before he was sworn into the Senate.



“Before the citizenship cloud hovered over Malcolm Roberts’ head, I had already approached Fraser Anning to contest the seat of Gladstone in the upcoming Queensland state election,” Hanson said. “I was of the view at the time, Fraser would be a solid candidate for that electorate.



“Mr Anning dismissed the request on the grounds that he and his wife were determined to make a permanent move to the United States to join their two daughters and grandchildren, who own a business venture on the west coast.”



Hanson said she had tried to contact Anning while he was overseas, but “those efforts fell on deaf ears”. She was forced to communicate with him through his brother, Harry Anning.

“I indicated to Harry Anning at the time that given the work Malcolm Roberts had achieved as chair of the banking inquiry and his role in challenging climate change, it would be in the federal party’s and Australia’s best interest for Malcolm Roberts to be returned to the Senate,” she said.

“I was disappointed Mr Anning made no attempt to contact me or any One Nation executive member off the back of multiple requests to discuss his future plans.

“Instead he chose to release scathing media releases demanding I pledge my support to him without even meeting or speaking to him.”



Anning was not flanked by One Nation senators when he first entered the Senate to be sworn in this morning. He was instead accompanied by David Leyonhjelm and Cory Bernardi.



New One Nation senator Fraser Anning, centre, arrives to be sworn in on Monday. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Updated at 15.43 BST