Live news and politics: Anthony Albanese pushes Liberals on gambling ad restrictions

The Prime Minister has followed his communications minister in complaining about their opponents pushing a short bill strengthening the eSafety Commissioner’s powers and fines for social media companies off to a two-month inquiry.

“We’ve always said there needs to be adjustment to the legislation, that we wouldn’t allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good,” Anthony Albanese said this morning.

“And it is outrageous the delay because what the eSafety Commissioner has said very clearly is that that will allow the platforms to go and just delete a whole lot of material.

“Whereas if it was passed yesterday, that would have been the date from which these demands could be made by the Commissioner. So then fines can be issued.”

Anthony Albanese insists the Liberals will come around to his view on the Government’s planned crackdown on gambling advertising despite backbenchers including Cook MP Simon Kennedy pushing for further action.

The Prime Minister said he hoped the legislation that was put to Parliament yesterday will pass by the end of the year.

That’s despite the Government not yet having support in the Senate, with both the Greens and elements of the Coalition pushing for tougher rules.

“Well, the Member for Cook has a particular view. It’s not necessarily the view of the Liberal Party,” Mr Albanese told ABC radio.

“I think we have gone far enough. I think we’ve got the balance right.

“Between, for example, some people have called for an absolute ban across the board... And 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.”

Labor frontbencher Pat Conroy has doubled down on his claim that conservative wartime Prime Minister Robert Menzies was a “Nazi appeaser” - rejecting opposition calls to apologise by insisting it was a “historical fact”.

At the National Press Club on Thursday, the Defence industry minister sparked with the comments, leading to the coalition launching a failed censure motion in parliament.

“In the end, you can’t argue with history ...There’s a letter from Menzies ten days after Hitler invaded Poland, saying it does not want a first class war, saying nobody gives a damn about Poland, arguing that we have no right to dictate what sort of government Germany has and arguing for a peace deal,” Conroy told Channel 9.

“It’s the Liberals who are desperate for a distraction from the fact that Angus Taylor is hopeless.

“They’ve spent more time defending Menzies than they have their own leader.

“That is how ridiculous they are and irrelevant they are at the moment.”

Infighting has engulfed a state Liberal party after an MP who made an unfounded assault allegation against a colleague launched legal action against the party.

Moira Deeming has lodged a legal action against Victorian Liberal Party state president Brian Loughnane, which is listed to be heard in the Victorian Supreme Court on Friday morning.

AAP

​​Read the full story here.​​

An ex-Olympian has been indicted over what US President Donald Trump called “disgraceful vandalism” to Washington’s Reflection Pool.

David ‘Davey’ Hearn, 67, was indicted on a single count of property destruction causing more than $1000 damage in a Washington DC court.

Read the full story here.

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