Live news and politics: Tensions rise as Tony Burke quizzed on Labor government’s weak border protection

Independent Sophie Scamps has asked about the proposed gambling reforms put forth today, which have been widely criticised for failing to go far enough.

MP Scamps asked why the Albanese government had opted to “protect the profits of gambling, media and sports companies” rather than implementing all recommendations from the 2023 inquiry.

The Prime Minister said his government has done more than any other to combat harm from gambling, and he insists the reforms will make an “enormous” difference.

“We’ve worked constructively with the anti-gambling sector, and with commercial broadcasters and sporting organisations,” he said.

“This is good reform, this is a major step forward, and the Parliament should vote for it.

“We have taken the strongest possible action that the government has taken in history.”

Question Time has heated up, with the Shadow Foreign Minister Ted O’Brien demanding to know why the Albanese government is so weak in protecting Australian borders.

On Thursday morning the government said an operation involving twelve people who arrived in North Queensland by boat had closed and all individuals without visas had been removed from the nation.

Mr O’Brien demanded to know how the group “managed to have a frothy at the pub before authorities detained them”.

The line of questioning had Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke incensed.

“It has been more than a decade since there has been a successful people smuggling operation, more than a decade . . . but this character, this leader of the opposition, the guy who wants to bring all three right wing parties together,” he began, but was cut off by Dan Tehan.

Tehan, the manager of opposition business, asked the Minister to refer to Angus Taylor by his correct title.

Burke snarked back: “Mr Speaker, at 2.30pm on 2 July, he’s the Leader of the Opposition and I refer to him as Leader of the Opposition.”

Tehan then queried why Burke hadn’t addressed the officers who had a “frothy” before the arrests.

Burke was fired up and began shouting in response.

“Instead of standing with those Australian officials, you want to mock them,” he said.

The Minister for Defence Industry, Pat Conroy, has denied any split between the Labor rank-and-file and the federal party over AUKUS.

During a speech at the National Press Club on Thursday, Mr Conroy was asked about the divide the trilateral security partnership has caused in the Labor party.

The MP rejected the premise that the debate hasn’t settled across the Labor movement.

“At the national conference it got well over an 80% vote. For any contentious issue that’s an overwhelming majority and I’m confident that the support is strong,” he told reporters.

When asked if vocal AUKUS critics like Peter Garrett could be convinced to support the deal, Mr Conroy said it was “frankly ridiculous” that Garrett would change his position after spending four decades campaigning against nuclear.

“We need to be reasonable about this,” he said at the National Press Club on Thursday.

“The debate in this country sometimes . . . I just think there’s a hyperbole here that is just ridiculous.

“We’re hitting every milestone.”

The Opposition has called for the government to back legislation that passed through the Senate this morning, which would return human oversight to Labor’s aged care assessment tool.

The Coalition passed a bill calling for human override to be reinstated in all aged care assessments, but it will need to pass through the lower house to be enacted into law.

Aged Care Minister Sam Rae said the Labor government did support the Bill’s intent, but were concerned it would lead to ‘subjective and inconsistent decisions’.

“This morning, I announced the government will itself, through legislation, establish a new legislative escalation option so outcomes of the aged care integrated assessment tool can be changed in extenuating circumstances,” she said.

“This means that in the small number of cases where a person’s complex circumstances are not fully captured by the tool.

“Under this new pathway, their assessment can be escalated to the Secretary of the Department, and adjusted if necessary, so they get appropriate care.”

Prime Minister Albanese denied that the system lacked human oversight, with the Labor leader saying the Coalition was in no position to criticise after the Robodebt scandal.

“There is human oversight over all of these processes … For the party of Robodebt to actually have the hide to come in here and talk about these issues shows extraordinary gumption,” the Prime Minister said.

Liberal MP Simon Kennedy has been kicked out of today’s Question Time over unparliamentary behaviour after calling out Prime Minister Albanese on gambling reforms.

Just hours after the NSW MP said Albanese had “a gambling problem” with the reforms, the Liberal took aim at the Prime Minister during a dixer.

“Don’t you care about the suicide victims of gambling?” he shouted at Albanese.

The interjection got the MP booted out of the Parliament hearing, with Speaker Milton Dick offering a stern warning to the rest of the room afterwards.

“We’re not going to have that behaviour, with people just yelling out non-stop during an answer . . . I ask all members to just reflect on their behaviour today.”

The Federal Government says it is “confident” a deal will be struck to save the struggling Tomago Aluminium smelter as unions ramp up pressure to protect more than 1000 jobs.

Industry and Innovation Minister Tim Ayres said the Government was working closely with NSW on a multibillion-dollar rescue package after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pledged in 2025 to secure the Hunter Valley facility’s future.

While the NSW Budget set aside funding last week, it reportedly fell short of the Commonwealth’s proposed 50-50 funding split, which would use Snowy Hydro to help underwrite renewable energy projects to power the smelter.

The proposed Tomago package is expected to cost taxpayers at least $300 million a year over the next decade.

Under the Boyne Island deal, the Commonwealth and Queensland governments each committed $1 billion, while owner Rio Tinto agreed to underwrite $7.5 billion in new renewable energy and storage projects. Rio Tinto also holds a majority stake in Tomago Aluminium.

Tomago’s future has been thrown into doubt by soaring electricity prices, with Rio Tinto warning the smelter could shut by 2028 if it cannot secure an affordable long-term power supply.

The Coalition has blamed Labor’s renewable energy policies for driving up power costs.

The Australian Workers Union, which represents most of the smelter’s workforce, says it will push Labor to finalise a deal at this week’s NSW Labor State Conference in Sydney.

Along with employing more than 1000 workers directly, the smelter supports at least 5000 indirect jobs across the Hunter region.

with agencies

The Liberal Party’s most senior Jewish MP, Julian Leeser, has said antisemitism has signficantly worsened since the Bondi terror attack, with the MP calling on social media platforms to do more to halt anti-Jewish hate.

The Shadow Minister for Education revealed his office has been forced to block 650 accounts over the last couple of years due to the rising hate.

“I’m a public figure. To some extent, you expect criticism, but the level of antisemitism is off the charts. And the tragedy is it’s not just for me, it’s for ordinary Jewish people in this country who live quiet lives, not in the public eye,” Mr Leeser said.

“I just think the social media companies need to step up and do more here. It’s clear to me that people get away on social media with the sort of things that you’d never be able to say to a person face to face, and I think that’s wrong in principle.”

Australia’s housing downturn might need to continue for a generation if home ownership is to become affordable again.

Home prices fell 0.4 per cent nationwide in June after a 0.3 per cent decline in May, according to data house Cotality.

But the downswing in Australia in recent months had barely eroded the affordability gap that has built up over years of house prices outpacing wages growth, housing expert Peter Tulip said.

“We would need decades more of this,” the Centre for Independent Studies chief economist told AAP

“We would need this to continue for a generation or two before people start thinking that the housing crisis is over.”

Buyer sentiment has taken a dive following three Reserve Bank rate cuts, rising affordability constraints and the federal government’s changes to investor tax breaks, with clearance rates hanging below 50 per cent in consecutive weeks.

- with AAP

One-time Liberal leadership contender Andrew Hastie has also addressed his plans for the Liberal Party after a prominent political commentator wrote that he was on the verge of walking away from the party over leader Angus Taylor’s refusal to strongly combat One Nation.

After revealing to 2GB radio host Luke Grant that he is “here to stay” the WA MP explained what he believed the Liberal Party needed to do to gain support.

“We need to deliver a centre-right government for the Australian people. We need to focus on the Australian people’s challenges and problems, and we need to come up with solutions that improve our prosperity, improve our security, and give Australians more hope for the future,” he said.

Last week, Mr Hastie told colleagues in Canberra that he “would rather get taken out in a box than bend the knee to One Nation” while revealing police advice that he increase security around his home and office.

One of his colleagues described to this masthead the suggestion Mr Hastie would leave the Liberals as complete nonsense.

Nationals leader Matt Canavan says the country has rejected Anthony Albanese’s proposed national guns buyback scheme after the Labor government missed the July 1 deadline to get state support.

Following the Bondi Beach terrorist attack, the Albanese government announced in December its plan to establish the largest national gun buyback since the Howard Government.

“This buyback scheme will help get guns off our streets and keep Australians safe,” the Prime Minister said at the time of the announcement.

Standing with members of Australia’s gun lobby on Thursday, Nationals leader Matt Canavan said state and territory rejection of the buyback was a “win for common sense”.

“Labor’s proposed national buyback scheme and unworkable laws failed badly, because attacking lawful firearm owners was never the answer to the Bondi terror attack,” the Senator said.

“This was confirmed by the interim report of the Antisemitism Royal Commission, whih said that no state or federal agency reported that the laws as they stood at the time were insufficient to prevent an attack.

“Labor’s laws targeted the wrong people, punished regional communities and did nothing to deal with the real threats from criminals and extremists.”

Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, and the Northern Territory have so far rejected, declined or refused participation in the scheme.