Live: Wilkie accuses Labor of being ‘scared stiff’ of gambling industry

Indigenous activists and communities are asking questions about our progress towards treaty and truth-telling processes.

After the defeat of the Voice referendum in 2023, the federal government has remained largely silent, but some of the state governments took truth-telling into their own hands in 2024.

And some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are coming up with solutions themselves.

Pat Turner, the CEO of the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organizations and chair of the Coalition of Peaks, the representative body of more than 80 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island community-controlled peak organisations, tells ABC’s Speaking Out that the group had been left in the dark.

“Very sadly, the referendum to establish the constitutionally enshrined Voice was defeated and the Coalition of Peaks is not its replacement,” Ms. Turner says.

“Especially when there was nothing to follow from the government, apart from their commitment to continue working with us.”

More on that here:

At a social housing construction site in Melbourne, Minister for Housing and Homelessness Clare O’Neill is at the site of 272 homes being built with funding from the Housing Australia Future Fund. 

She says it’s part of a commitment to build 55,000 social and affordable houses for Australians over a five year period.

“Its not just social and affordable housing. We have a goal with the states and terroritories to build 1.2 million homes around the country,” she says.

As the federal election looms, she took the opportunity to promote Labor’s plans for housing.

“There is a hell of a lot more work to do and Australians are going to have a real choice when it comes to the election on how they move forward with housing.”

“We need more housing options of all kinds for Australians no matter what their siutation and what we’re seeing at the moment is that people are struggling.”

The minister said Opposition Leader Peter Dutton didn’t have a housing plan.

In October, Mr Dutton said that if elected, the Coalition would set up a $5 billion fund to speed up infrastructure development, with the aim of building 500,000 new homes.

A former chief of the Australian Army says it might be time for the government to consider conscription, as the Australian Defence Force (ADF) struggles to boost recruitment.

This year, the ADF has begun accepting applications from citizens of the United Kingdom, the US, and Canada, as it seeks to address a shortfall in personnel.

Former Chief of Army Lieutenant General Peter Leahy concedes conscription would not be popular, but says if people aren’t joining the ADF, there may eventually be little choice.

“I don’t like the idea of conscription but to the point that we might have to do it if we don’t get the volunteers,” he told the ABC.

“I think it is time to put it on the table.”

Federal Labor senator for the Northern Territory Malarndirri McCarthy has defended federal funding for Welcome to Country ceremonies, saying Indigenous cultural practices are integral to tourism.

Shadow Minister for Government Efficiency and Indigenous Affairs Jacinta Nampijinpa Price has pledged to cut the funding if the Coalition is elected, saying the money could be better spent.

“I don’t believe that we should be spending $450,000 a term on Welcome to Country, when that isn’t improving the life of a marginalised Indigenous Australian,” she said.

“I will certainly be putting the NIAA [National Indigenous Australians Agency] under the microscope.”

However, Senator McCarthy has defended the practice, accusing the opposition of fueling culture wars and not having a plan for Indigenous Australians.

“We know that the opposition leader walked out on the apology, he won’t stand in front of the Indigenous flag, and now he doesn’t want elders doing Welcome to Country, and yet if you look at tourism in this country, a large percentage of tourists come to Australia, especially here in central Australia for Indigenous culture, so what is it?” she said.

More on that here:

Greens senator David Shoebridge is demanding action to address the issue of AI generated deepfakes of politicians ahead of the federal election.

The ABC has created a deepfake video of the senator, with his permission, to understand how believable the videos can be.

Senator Shoebridge says it looks and sounds somewhat like him, and he’s worried about the potential impact on unsuspecting voters. 

You can read more about that here:

A mother from Sydney’s eastern suburbs says the local Jewish community is feeling a degree of “terror” after her son’s school was sprayed with antisemitic graffiti.

Earlier, we brought you the news of the school year beginning this morning for students at Mount Sinai College in Maroubra.

Police were on hand with armed guards as pupils were dropped off by their parents.

The mother told the ABC a sense of hatred towards Jewish people has built up in recent months, and it had festered, so the response from authorities must be much stronger. 

Jack Pincewski who attends The Great Synagogue in Sydney’s CBD says the ongoing threats have had a real impact on his life.

“I’m conscious of the fact that I live in a very Jewish area I find myself spending more time concerned about where I’m spending time if there’s an event that is marked as being a Jewish event, you concern yourself, ‘does this have the potential to be a potential violent event?'”

Here is the video from this morning’s doorstop.

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Mr Albanese is asked what he would say to Jewish communities in Australia who still feel unsafe despite increased security measures and police patrols.

“I say that my heart goes out to you, and we are doing all that we can,” he says.

“I just had a previous question about increased security being offered but I say this as well and that’s why I won’t undermine investigations and play politics with it.

“I want perpetrators of antisemitism to be hunted down and to be locked up, that’s what I want.”

Mr Albanese will not confirm when he was briefed about the caravan found in Dural stuffed with explosives and a list of synagogues after reports emerged he was not briefed at the time they were found.

“What’s correct protocol is making sure that we don’t speak about operational matters,” he said.

“I addressed this yesterday, I have no intention of undermining an ongoing investigation by going into the details.”

Mr Albanese said he would instead continue to prioritise “keeping Australians safe and providing support to the police and intelligence agencies for them to do their job.”

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said Mr Albanese and the national cabinet should have been briefed.

“This should not be the source of political debate and I note that the coalition have said as well that they wouldn’t change the protocols that have been in place for a long period of time,” Mr Albanese said.

At the TAFE campus in Croydon, Victoria, Anthony Albanese is spruiking his first major election year cash splash aiming to support tradies and fix the housing crisis.

It was announced last week.

Apprentices who work in residential construction will get a $10,000 cash bonus, in a bid to relieve cost-of-living pressures for tradies, and deliver a workforce boost to the construction sector.

Minister Andrew Giles is also up speaking about wanting to make free TAFE permanent.

The PM is now taking questions.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is speaking to the media at Croydon Tafe in Victoria.

Stick with us, we’ll bring you all the details.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has rubbished claims by Moscow that the federal government is encouraging Australians to join the war effort in Ukraine.

In a statement provided to the ABC, a DFAT spokeswoman says the government has repeatedly warned Australians not to travel to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

It follows a rare public statement from Moscow’s embassy in Canberra on Friday that accused the Albanese government of effectively encouraging citizens to participate in the war.

The government denies the claim.

“We continue to advise Australians not to travel to Ukraine and Russia. The travel advice is clear,” DFAT says.

It comes days after Foreign Minister Penny Wong confirmed 32-year-old Australian man Oscar Jenkins was being held as a Russian prisoner of war, and had not been killed, as originally suspected.

The DFAT spokeswoman repeated calls for Russia to provide Mr Jenkins with humanitarian protections.

Reporting by Olivia Caisley 

Children who attend Jewish schools in Sydney have returned to class this morning with police and security guards patrolling the grounds following a spate of antisemitic attacks.

At Mount Sinai College in Maroubra, which was vandalised by graffiti, security will remain on campus as questions are being raised about what changes could be made to ensure children and staff are safe.

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Greens leader Adam Bandt has announced a plan for 50c public transport fares across the country.

In Queensland, this popular cost-of-living measure was put in place by previous premier Steven Miles and made permanent by the new LNP government led by David Crisafulli at the end of last year.

Mr Bandt wrote on X that the policy would be funded by “making big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share of tax”.

The federal government’s Special Envoy for Social Cohesion Peter Khalil has called for politicians to ‘bring down the temperature’ and not use the spate of antisemitic incidents to fuel social discord in Australia.

Authorities are investigating a potential terror plot targeting Jewish Australians after a caravan laden with explosives was found abandoned in Sydney’s north-west.

Mr Khalil says the discovery is “deeply concerning” but politicians should not be using the rise of antisemitism for political gain.

“So this is something that we are all combating and I think it’s important … to bring the temperature down and not use these issues to politicise these issues for short-term political gain, to whip up anger and division and further discord, but to show a degree of unity.”

Reporting by Federal Political Reporter Pablo Vinales

This morning Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton spoke with the Today Show about yesterday’s news about the alleged antisemitic terror plot.

Mr Marles was asked if he believed the issue of rising antisemitism in Australia has been politicised.

“What underlies this is bigotry, prejudice, hatred,” Mr Marles said.

“It has no place in Australia today and together we need to be standing against this which this government is and governments around Australia are.

“I mean, it’s obviously not a matter for party partisan politics.”

Mr Dutton repeated comments made yesterday about community frustration over the rise of antisemitism over time.

“It’s predictable in the sense that people don’t know red lines, and they’ve continued to escalate and people have warned of Australians losing their lives had this taken place, as I understand from the police advice, it would have been a 40 metre blast zone, which would have been the most catastrophic terrorist attack in our country’s history.

“And so we have to take it incredibly seriously. And you can understand why the Jewish community is really living on edge.”

Despite the delay in a response, both parties have expressed a desire to reduce the amount of gambling advertisements shown to Australians.

The prime minister has previously claimed he has done more reforms when it comes to gambling than any other in Australian history.

“To be fair to the prime minister, his government has introduced BetStop which is an online self-exclusion arrangement. That’s OK as far as it goes,” Independent MP Andrew Wilkie told RN Breakfast.

“He has also legisalted to ban credit cards for the use of online gambling. Now they are positive reforms and I do give the government credit for it but in some ways they are putting band aids on a bigger problem.”

Meanwhile, the Opposition Leader Peter Dutton announced under a Coalition government, gambling ads for live sport would be banned one hour before, during and one hour after the broadcast.

Shadow Communications Minister Mellissa McIntosh put out a statement today accusing the Albanese government of making a “broken promise on tackling gambling advertising”.

“Over the last two years since the opposition leader’s announcement, the prime minister has been unable to make a stand on gambling advertising, despite a Labor-led report calling for it, pressure from his own backbench, the teals, and advocacy groups,” she said.

 “This isn’t the first issue the prime minister has been either slow to act on, or not acted on at all. He now has two sitting weeks to show some courage and conviction, and take a stand on gambling harm.”

The wait continues for the federal government to release its response to a 2023 inquiry which called for a total ban on gambling ads and time is running out before the election.

Independent MP Andrew Wilkie has been campaigning on gambling reform and told RN Breakfast he thinks it is unlikely Labor will legislate anything on gambling advertisements before the election.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported this morning that the party will put gambling ad reform on ice until after the election.

More than a decade ago, the Julia Gillard-led minority Government backed out of a deal on gambling reform with Mr Wilkie who says he has fears “history could repeat itself.”

“The Labor party has a desire within its DNA to protect the gambling industry mind you to be fair to the Labor party, the opposition is not proposing a blanket ban of gambling advertising either,” he said.

The high-profile inquiry by late Labor MP Peta Murphy,  called for a phase-out of ads on all platforms.

Last year Communicaitons Minister Michelle Rowland pledged the government would respond by the election but Mr Wilkie believes they’ve run out of time.

“They might say something but they’ve run out of run way to actually legislate anything, we’ve got two weeks of parliament coming up, we might come back for budget but it seems very very unlikely they would legislate anything.”

Good morning everyone.

Welcome to our politics live blog.

Georgie Hewson here from the ABC’s National Digital team to help guide you through the day.

Let’s dive straight in.