Good afternoon. The parliamentary inquiry into Labor’s gambling legislation heard extraordinary testimony yesterday from anti-gambling campaigners Tim Costello and Luke Bateman, who alleged that problem gamblers had been supplied with cocaine, alcohol and sex workers. Giving evidence today, betting giants Sportsbet and Tabcorp said there is no evidence to substantiate the allegations.
Later in the hearing, the independent senator David Pocock asked the industry’s lobby group, Responsible Wagering Australia, about one betting platform’s promotion which featured children. Pocock claimed the gambling industry always blamed others for children’s exposure to gambling ads, and said: “This is exactly why Australians are sick and tired of the BS you try and tell us.”
The acting prime minister, Richard Marles, said evidence from the inquiry so far had been “quite shocking”.
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In pictures
An estimated 50,000 people attempted the journey to Ceuta in chaotic and dangerous scenes that resulted in dozens of deaths. Across Europe, the right has been quick to exploit the migration crisis, and Ruben Andersson, from the University of Oxford, wrote that the EU’s panic and the lack of solidarity emboldens both people smugglers and the far right.
But why is the Spanish territory a migration flashpoint and how were so many people able to cross from Morocco?
What they said …
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“Our present is not good. Nor is our future assured.” – Noel Pearson
The Cape York Partnership and Good to Great Schools Australia director Noel Pearson told the Garma festival on Saturday that the inability to deliver the changes Indigenous Australians need is no longer a moral failure but a civilisational one.
The festival runs all week, and you can find more of our coverage here.
Podcast
Nigel Farage and the £5m question that won’t go away
Reform UK’s finances have come under scrutiny like never before. What do we know about the party’s funding – and why do so many awkward questions remain for Nigel Farage? Anna Isaac explains.
Before bed read
It was 1998, the year after James Cameron’s Titanic had made a splash with cinematic audiences worldwide, and Tristan Lutze took a job in one of humankind’s most venerated performance venues: the theatre restaurant.
In the latest instalment of the series “A job that changed me”, Lutze writes that “pretending not to know an iceberg was coming night after night turned out to be decent training for adult life”.
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: FUN. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
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