7.35am BST

I'll deal with national security while the asset recycling debate continues. There have been various develpments throughout the day.

I pointed you to a remark earlier this morning from the prime minister about the undesirability of news outlets publishing security disclosures.

Here that is again, Abbott:



News that endangers the security of our country frankly shouldn't be fit to print and I'd ask for a sense of responsibility, a sense of national interest as well as simply of commercial interest, a sense of the long-term best interests of the country as well as the short-term best interests of creating sensation to be present right across our country including in the media.

I want to work this remark through a little bit. Media outlets do act responsibly when it comes to intelligence material. It's a convention the industry takes very seriously. The Guardian has been criticised, as have other outlets, for publishing the Snowden disclosures – but as one of the reporters involved in writing one of the Australian-related disclosures I can assure readers that an enormous amount of care is taken: we went through proper protocols, discusssing material with security officials prior to publication, and taking steps to ensure some material did not enter the public domain. The alternative to journalism applying checks and balances to sensitive material is just to have highly sensitive material released without any filter at all. That's the reality of the age we live in.



In terms of Abbott's general point about responsibility and national interest – it's one thing for journalists to act responsibly and it's another thing for journalists to act as an arm of the state. Governments must serve the national interest. We rely on them to do that. Journalism must serve the public interest, and that means periodically disclosing information that governments don't want written. Serving the public interest is an imperative journalism must continue to uphold, otherwise we simply aren't worth feeding. If we are mouthpieces of what the government of the day determines is the "national interest" then we are the Pyongyang Times.

This debate has come about essentially because the government's new Asio bill creates a new offence, punishable by five years in jail, for “any person” who disclosed information relating to “special intelligence operations”. Lawyers think those "any persons" could include journalists.



The attorney-general has said today that's not the intention of the new provision. But in the event of any ambiguity, the shadow attorney general Mark Dreyfus is saying the opposition won't support jailing journalists.

Dreyfus:



There are suggestions that the attorney general’s amendments to national security legislation could criminalise some reporting by journalists. Senator Brandis has indicated that criminalising reporting of leaked national security information is not his intention. If Senator Brandis's amendments would criminalise reporting by journalists who receive intelligence information, the government will need to make changes to remove that consequence.

If you want to review the sweep of the day, you can read Daniel Hurst and Paul Farrell's story here.

