Albanese defends gambling reforms, says he’s ‘not against someone having a punt’

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, defended the gambling reforms on ABC Radio Sydney this morning, saying they, in some ways, go “further” than those the Peta Murphy report called for.

He said the reforms are part of a “comprehensive approach”, tackling online gambling and overseas gambling among other issues, adding:

This has been worked through in a comprehensive way. It was only introduced yesterday morning. There was never any consideration of it passing yesterday, in a day. That’s not what happens. And there’ll be an inquiry, which is absolutely fine and normal process.

When asked about criticism the reforms don’t go far enough, Albanese had this to say:

I think we have gone far enough. I think we’ve got the balance right between … an absolute ban across the board. …

I’m not against someone having a punt on a Saturday. What I’m against is problem gambling, which overwhelmingly, by the way, overwhelmingly is poker machines, which is of course regulated by the states.

You can read more about pokies revenue here:

Liberals say Labor’s gambling reform bill ‘undercooked’

Sarah Henderson, the shadow communications minister, was also on RN this morning to speak about Labor’s reforms to gambling advertising, which have sparked frustration from the Liberals and Greens for not going far enough.

Henderson said:

We think this bill is undercooked. … We’ve got a lot of work to do to interrogate the bill. I am concerned and have a number of concerns that it’s not strong enough.

Henderson was pressed on how she would want to see the bill changed but the senator said she would dig into those possibilities during an investigation of the bill.

I won’t prejudge where we might land on this bill other than to say we don’t think it’s good enough, we do have concerns, and we are very serious. The Coalition is very serious about combating the terrible harm caused to so many Australian families by gambling addiction.

Butler says government takes extended NDIS inquiry ‘seriously’

Mark Butler, the federal health minister, was asked about the recommendations from the inquiry to improve the NDIS.

He told RN Breakfast this morning the government was considering them very carefully, saying there were “good suggestions”, some of which officials were already working on. He went on:

We’re very keen to work on registration schemes for workers across the care economy, not just in the NDIS but also in the aged care sector as well. … Our priority right now is to register providers. It doesn’t make much sense to have workers registered if they’re employed by providers who are not registered and whom we know nothing about.

We’re moving at a pace really to make sure that the few hundred thousand organisations and companies that are providing services are registered, that they tick a range of boxes around quality and we have a good line of sight of who they are and what their character is.

Butler said he does think there will be more to learn during an extended inquiry into the NDIS changes, negotiated with the Greens last week.

We’ll take this extended inquiry very seriously and treat it with the respect that all of those inquiries deserve.

Greens claims government ‘politicising fraud’ to justify NDIS changes

The Coalition’s report identified the unregistered market of providers as being beyond the regulator’s reach and entry-point screenings that could assess qualifications but not always suitability.

Meanwhile, the Greens’ report said it saw fraud as a serious issue but shared concerns the government was “politicising fraud” to justify significant reductions in NDIS spending.

The minor party’s NDIS spokesperson, Jordon Steele-John, who is on the committee, said:

Disabled people deserve an NDIS that is both protected from fraud and designed around their rights, not one where they are treated with suspicion because governments have failed to crack down on those actually exploiting the system.

Committee recommends national NDIS worker register but others offer muted interest

A new national NDIS worker register would remove unsafe providers and carers and help participants make more informed decisions about their support and case, a parliamentary inquiry into integrity and fraud controls within the NDIS says.

The government-chaired inquiry also said improved information-sharing between government agencies and stronger regulatory powers were needed to address the “systemic” integrity issues.

During the hearings, the National Disability Insurance Agency’s deputy executive, John Dardo, said around 8.3%, or $3.7bn, of the NDIS’s $45bn in payments last financial year were affected by “integrity leakage” – a term which can include suspected fraud as well as mistakes or non-compliance.

But the inquiry’s non-government MPs and senators were critical of the committee marking its own homework, describing the final report as doing “little more than welcome the steps that responsible agencies already have in train”.

“The evidence pointed to an organised and systemic threat; the committee report answers a smaller and more individual one. A response calibrated to the latter will not meet the former,” opposition MPs said in an additional report.