As it happened: Matildas lose second World Cup match, Housing stoush could give Albanese double dissolution trigger; Australian cricket team makes gains against England

People with gambling problems will be able to ban themselves from Crown casinos over the internet instead of having to do so in person, as part of a wider overhaul of the group’s approach to harm minimisation.

Crown Resorts’ new safer gambling program also includes the establishment of a dedicated gambling policy team, which will monitor customer playing behaviour and create interventions to better prevent gambling harm from occurring.

Under the changes, customers will be able to block themselves from entering a Crown casino through a new digital self-exclusion portal. Those who wanted to ban themselves from Crown venues were previously required to visit, in person, a designated responsible gambling centre run by the group.

The group has also moved to cashless gaming at Crown Melbourne and Crown Sydney – a condition of its temporary gaming licences in NSW and Victoria– as well as introducing $10 maximum bet limits on poker machines at Crown Perth.

The technological overhaul required to facilitate the changes has so far cost the business $13 million.

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The opposition says Australia’s early access to three Virginia-class submarines from the US is essential for the nation’s shipbuilding capabilities and for the opportunity of the navy to train crew and establish its capability to operate the submarines in the future.

Under the AUKUS deal, Washington was to sell Canberra between three and five of its own nuclear submarines in the 2030s before Australia begins building a new fleet.

The deal is under fire after 23 Republican senators wrote to President Joe Biden on Thursday saying they did not support the proposal to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia unless the US doubled its own domestic production capacity.

Here’s what the opposition’s spokesman for foreign affairs, Simon Birmingham, said on the ABC about the deal this afternoon:

We would expect this legislation to pass through the US Congress based on the support stated to date ... but it is crucial that that is maintained and every effort is made with every individual senator, every individual congressperson, who may express doubt about elements of AUKUS to make sure they are on board for the long haul, because that is crucial to Australian’s interests.”

Acting Greens leader Mehreen Faruqi has fired back at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese after he heaped pressure on the Greens and the Coalition to pass the $10 billion Housing Affordability Future Fund when it returns to parliament next week.

If the bill fails again, the stage is set for a double dissolution election, although Albanese ruled out an early election this year.

Faruqi said the Greens still want to negotiate on $2.5 billion yearly investments in social and affordable housing, and a rent freeze.

Here’s what Faruqi said on the ABC this afternoon:

We want the Labor government and the prime minister to sit down with us, stop talking about these ridiculous ideas of double dissolution because, to be frank, in the midst of a rental crisis, in the midst of an increasing mortgage crisis, in the midst of a profit bonanza going on every month, I think people will not take kindly to the government pushing them and forcing them to an early election rather than addressing and stopping the rental and housing crisis.

A double dissolution, I can tell you, would be a disaster for the government.”

In world news, Ukrainian soldiers have recaptured the south-eastern village of Staromaiorske from Russian forces in Donetsk region, a video published by President Volodymyr Zelensky showed on Thursday.

“The 35th brigade and the ‘Ariy’ territorial defence unit have fulfilled their task and liberated the village of Staromaiorske. Glory to Ukraine!” said a soldier in the video that Reuters was unable to immediately geolocate. Zelensky posted: “Our South! Our Guys! Glory to Ukraine!”

The village lies to the south of a cluster of small settlements that Ukraine recaptured during a counteroffensive it began early in June against Russian forces who hold swathes of southern and eastern Ukraine.

Oleksandr Kovalenko, a Ukrainian military analyst, said Ukrainian troops now needed to reach another village, Staromlynivka, less than five kilometres away.

“It really serves as a stronghold for the Russian occupiers, the peak of the second defensive line in this location,” he said.

Russian troops are heavily entrenched in the strategically important south where they have prepared a sprawling network of trenches, minefields, anti-tank ditches and lines of “dragon’s teeth” barricades.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Ukrainian attacks in the south had intensified.

Reuters

Australian Taxation Office commissioner Chris Jordan will finish up in the top job in six months after leading the tax agency for a decade.

The commissioner has previously flagged his interest in stepping down at the end of his term.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers thanked Jordan for his service and said Treasury would begin the search for his replacement.

Jordan has also served as the chair of the Board of Taxation and held a number of senior roles in government and the private sector.

The commissioner has overseen the organisation though the tumultuous pandemic period and come under scrutiny for the ATO’s role in the PwC tax leak scandal.

Jordan told a parliamentary committee earlier in the year that the tax office acted quickly to stop a handful of multinationals trying to skirt tax laws based on PwC advice.

AAP

In more news from the courtroom, the barrister for former commando Heston Russell has said the ABC went “rogue” and engaged in “shoddy, uncorroborated, reckless” journalism by suggesting Russell was involved in killing an Afghan prisoner, on the first day of a defamation trial against the broadcaster.

Sue Chrysanthou, SC, acting for Russell, told the Federal Court in Sydney today that the ABC’s conduct had been “breathtaking in its audacity”, and its bid to rely on an untested public interest defence was “absolutely doomed”.

Chrysanthou said the case would reveal “how the sausage is made at the ABC, and it’s unpleasant”. She accused the broadcaster of “conduct which is directed not to ensuring proper journalism, but to protecting bad journalism” in the aftermath of the articles at the centre of the lawsuit.

Russell is suing the ABC over two online stories, published in October 2020 and November 2021, that Justice Michael Lee has found conveyed a series of six defamatory meanings, when read together as one article. The articles were connected because the second linked to the first. Russell is also suing over a related television broadcast.

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The Seven Network’s commercial director exchanged more than 8600 emails with Ben Roberts-Smith’s team during the former soldier’s failed defamation case, the Federal Court has heard, as the newspapers sued by the former soldier seek access to the documents as part of a bid to pursue Seven for costs.

Seven West Media chairman Kerry Stokes bankrolled Roberts-Smith’s multimillion-dollar defamation suit against The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Canberra Times via a loan provided by his private company, Australian Capital Equity (ACE).

Roberts-Smith was employed by the Seven Network as general manager of its Queensland operations. He took leave from his position ahead of the defamation trial and resigned on June 2, a day after Federal Court Justice Anthony Besanko dismissed his lawsuit.

Seven Network (Operations) Ltd had originally funded the former soldier’s case, but ACE took over Seven’s loan on June 24, 2020, and Stokes’ company paid out his existing debt.

Nine, owner of The Age and the Herald and former owner of The Canberra Times, is seeking a court order forcing ACE, and potentially also Seven, to pay the costs of the litigation. The combined costs are estimated at $25 million.

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