Australian politics as it happened: Gambling ads to be banned in stadiums, on jerseys as PM announces mass reform; fuel prices, Iran war on agenda

Thank you for joining us as we brought you live coverage of the prime minister’s National Press Club speech and other national news today.

This is where we’ll leave you. Here’s a recap of what we covered.

• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stopped short of a total gambling advertising ban when he announced industry reforms in his speech this afternoon, including a ban on betting companies appearing on sporting jerseys and in stadiums. The government will cap the number of TV ads for betting agencies to a maximum of three per hour between 6am and 8.30pm, and ban all gambling ads on radio during school drop-off and pick-up times.
• Independents and the Greens slammed the proposed reforms and called for a gambling advertising ban. The Coalition said it welcomed gambling reform but would scrutinise the laws before offering support.
• Albanese defended his address to the nation last night, which has been criticised for a lack of substance and stirring panic, saying it was an opportunity to reassure Australians in a fragmented media environment.
• After again emphasising the difficult circumstances Australia is facing as the US-Israeli war in Iran continues, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the May budget would be his government’s most important and most ambitious budget yet.
• The prime minister announced businesses hit the hardest by price pressures because of the war in Iran will be able to access interest-free loans in a $1 billion relief package.

Opposition communications spokeswoman Sarah Henderson said gambling reform was long overdue, but the Coalition would interrogate the measures Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced today before offering its support.

The senator said she would need to ensure the right balance was struck between mitigating gambling harm and protecting the income streams of sports and media companies.

“We will be scrutinising the detail of what has been announced today. I certainly have some concerns about the ban on online gambling advertising for children under 18, given that the disaster with the social media ban,” Henderson said.

The government will need to secure support from either the Coalition or the Greens – who have slammed the proposal as not going far enough – to pass the reforms.

Greens communications spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young has slammed the government for failing to pursue a ban on gambling advertising in the reforms announced this afternoon.

The senator accused the prime minister of caving to the gambling lobby and big tech, and said the normalisation of the industry posed a danger to young people.

“Squibbing it on gambling reform because you don’t have the guts to stand up to the gambling lobby just says everything about this prime minster,” Hanson-Young told reporters in Canberra.

“These gambling industries are trying every which way to get into the faces and the minds of Australians, particularly younger people, and it’s insidious, it’s predatory,” she said.

“The only way you stop it is by having a complete ban on online ads, and to do the full suite of recommendations from the Murphy report.”

The government will need to secure the support of either the Greens or the Coalition to pass the reforms through the upper house, where it does not hold the balance of power. Hanson-Young said the Greens would be open to passing tougher restrictions.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has welled up while speaking about the distress that the fuel shock was having on already struggling households.

Allan was announcing a $2.7 million food relief package this morning to organisations like Foodbank, to help them deal with increasing costs and demand. Foodbank’s demand went up 6 per cent in March.

“Let’s remember, behind each one of those statistics is a real family. There’s a single mum going without a meal. There’s a tradie going without a meal. This hurts. This hurts real people,” Allan said.

“And yes, you’ll all no doubt comment that it makes me emotional. It does. It really does. Because I hear every day when I’m out in my community of Bendigo or as premier of Victoria, I hear and see this every day, and people are frustrated and people are angry ... which is why I’m going to channel my energy and emotion into providing real relief and real support.”

Andrew Hirst will quit as federal director of the Liberal Party following May’s Farrer byelection after nearly nine years in the role, marking the end of a tenure that spanned multiple election campaigns and leadership changes.

Hirst, who previously advised several Liberal leaders, including Tony Abbott during his time as prime minister, said he had informed the party’s federal president of his decision to step aside ahead of the next election.

He described the role as “an enormous honour” but added “now is the right time to hand over to new organisational leadership and allow for a seamless transition ahead of the next federal election”.

Hirst also paid tribute to leaders he served under, including Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison, Peter Dutton, Sussan Ley and Angus Taylor, saying history would “judge Scott well” for steering the country through difficult times.

He said despite setbacks, the party had delivered key organisational reforms, including eliminating debt, strengthening fundraising and modernising digital operations, but warned “significant challenges” remained that would require “renewed energy and determination”.

Federal president John Olsen thanked Hirst for his “commitment, loyalty, professionalism and dedicated service”, saying his tenure was marked by “calm, clear thinking” and a strategic approach, as Hirst confirmed he would formally conclude in June after the next federal council meeting.

The prime minister has taken a swipe at the Coalition for calling on him to rule out expanding the size of parliament, while conceding a looming lobby campaign influenced his rejection of the idea.

“In today’s world … I have to respond to the real world as it is, and the sort of campaign that would be run against an expansion of [federal] parliament would, in my view, be not healthy for our democracy,” Anthony Albanese also told the press club.

“The fact that the Coalition used question time of all things to talk about that this week, I found quite bizarre, frankly.”

Albanese said he understood the arguments for growing the number of politicians to better represent Australians, but he had “never been engaged for one minute about an expansion of the size of the House of Representatives”.

The prime minister has defended his address to the nation last night, which has been criticised for a lack of substance, saying it was an opportunity to reassure Australians in a fragmented media environment.

“One of the things that’s occurred in recent weeks during this global crisis is the amount of misinformation that’s out there,” Albanese said.

He said people used to get consistent information from the news, but social media had disrupted that norm.

“Now they’re getting it on their device. It’s telling them all sorts of things that aren’t true,” Albanese said.

“So I took the opportunity to talk directly to the nation. That is more important than ever because the nature of noise that is out there, the conspiracy theories that are out there, which propagate, which we can’t do anything about.”

Anthony Albanese said his government was committed to building Australia’s resiliency.

Asked whether that included increasing domestic fuel capacity and more oil refineries, the prime minister said:

We’re consider all those measures, but in a practical way.

We can’t assume that we’ll get it from somewhere else, because it’s cheaper somewhere else.

We’re in a world where economic relationships are linked to national security.”

Albanese pointed to the government’s bail-outs of ailing manufacturing plants.

We have been prepared to intervene and not just say, oh, well, we’ll just let the market operate and we won’t worry about what happens, because we’ll be right. We’ll get stuff from somewhere else. We’ve been prepared to intervene to make sure that we are more resilient and self reliant.”