Australia news LIVE: Anthony Albanese in Europe; Paul Keating criticises NATO; WeChat ban recommendation mulled over

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Scott Morrison’s political future is attracting heightened scrutiny from Liberal Party colleagues after the robo-debt royal commission’s damning findings, with outspoken MP Bridget Archer warning the former prime minister’s continued presence in parliament is hampering the party’s attempt to enter a new era.

Some Liberal MPs believe Morrison, who had been expected to resign as early as this month, is now likely to dig in and remain in parliament to maximise his post-parliamentary career opportunities and avoid the perception he was being forced out by scandal.

It comes as Morrison’s beloved rugby league team, the Cronulla Sharks, considers revoking his No. 1 ticket holder status if he is found guilty of negligence or wrongdoing over the robo-debt program.

Archer, the only Liberal MP who last year voted to censure Morrison over the secret ministries saga, said she was disappointed by his vehement denial of the royal commission’s findings and urged him to reflect on his responsibility for creating the illegal scheme.

The Albanese government announced the starting date for a voluntary register that will allow gamblers to block themselves from online betting.

BetStop is the new register and will launch on August 21, allowing Australians to register to exclude themselves from betting services for a minimum of three months.

But people can choose to be on the register for their lifetime, according to the government.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said once people sign up to the opt-in scheme, they would be unable to open an account or place a bet and will not receive marketing material.

“This means that Australians experiencing online gambling harms will have this opportunity to self-exclude, similar to how they can self-exclude themselves from licensed venues,” she told ABC News Breakfast.

She said it was an important component to tackling gambling harm.

“We know there’s no silver bullet to this, it requires a multifaceted approach,” Rowland said.

“It means that people can exclude themselves from three months up to a lifetime, from being able to opt in to online wagering ... It’s pleasing to see we’ve got co-operation right across the community and right across the sector for this.”

The register is free and will cover all 150 Australian licensed service providers.

Earlier, Government Services Minister Bill Shorten was also asked if former prime minister Scott Morrison should leave parliament.

He told ABC ’s AM program that what Morrison did was an issue for him and the Liberal Party, but added that the former prime minister was the social services minister when robo-debt was rolled out.

“Any self-respecting politician having the sort of detailed, forensic examination and assessment made by this royal commission would be embarrassed, humiliated,” Shorten said.

“It’s up to Mr Morrison, he must live in a separate world to the rest of us. If he wants to stay and protest his innocence, that’s up to him.”

He also responded after Opposition Leader Peter Dutton called him a “political animal” who sought to politicise the issue.

“Mr Dutton didn’t support the class action, didn’t want the royal commission, and now he’s trying to shoot the messenger,” he said.

Staying with the opposition’s home affairs spokesman James Paterson, who was questioned whether former prime minister Scott Morrison showed adequate contrition over robo-debt.

Liberal senator James Paterson responded that he would not say anything about his colleagues’ comments.

“I will say that the royal commission report was very sobering for the government, which I was a member [of], and the entire political class and the bureaucracy, and we have to very carefully study the report and its recommendations,” he told RN Breakfast this morning.

But he was pushed again on whether Morrison showed contrition by issuing a strong rejection of the findings against him.

“What he does and says is a matter for him ... we have apologised for what has happened to the victims of robo-debt, we’re very determined it doesn’t happen again,” Paterson said.

“Neither me, nor any of my other colleagues are in a position to direct Scott Morrison how he responds to this report.”

Paterson was asked if it was difficult for the Liberal Party to move on and make those apologies, with Morrison’s current stance on the findings.

“No ... I don’t think so, because the Liberal Party is now led by Peter Dutton. He’s been very clear from the get-go that we’re taking this matter seriously.”

It comes after Liberal MP Bridget Archer said she was disappointed by Morrison’s vehement denial of the royal commission’s findings and urged him to reflect on his responsibility for creating the illegal scheme.

“I, personally, think it’s always difficult for a former prime minister to stay on in parliament,” Archer said.

“This, alongside other things, do make it difficult for the party to draw a line under the past and move forward,” she added in reference to the royal commission report.

The opposition’s home affairs and cybersecurity spokesman James Paterson has spoken about the prime minister’s trip to Europe and Paul Keating’s NATO comments.

It comes after Paul Keating branded the NATO boss a “supreme fool” for trying to deepen the alliance’s ties with Asia.

Paterson said Keating’s comments were “quite abusive” and that Anthony Albanese should deliver a “substantive response” to Keating.

“I think – even by his recent very low standards – it’s a particularly unhinged spray, and I think it merits a substantive response,” he said.

“This was a calculated broadside while the prime minister was on his plane.”

The Liberal senator said it was in Australia’s national interest to engage with the alliance, and he said he welcomed its increased interest in the Pacific.

“If we want stability in the Indo-Pacific, if we want to prevent what is happening in Ukraine, from happening in our region, in the interest of other powers in the world is very welcome.”

He said the alliance didn’t want any unilateral changes to the status quo in the region.

“Europe is united with Australia and our other partners, which is that they want to see peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.”

Chinese-owned messaging app WeChat has been accused of showing contempt for federal parliament by defying repeated requests to appear before a parliamentary inquiry that is weighing whether to recommend banning the app from use in Australia due to foreign interference concerns.

Executives from social media giants TikTok, Google, Twitter and LinkedIn have all agreed to appear at the final public hearings of the Senate select committee on foreign interference through social media in Parliament House tomorrow.

Representatives from Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, will also appear at the hearings, leaving WeChat as the only company refusing multiple invitations to give evidence.

Around 1 million people in Australia – including almost half the Chinese diaspora – are believed to use WeChat, which has been described as “China’s app for everything”.

Global Public Policy Institute director Thorsten Benner has spoken about Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s trip to Germany, and the NATO summit.

Benner welcomed the attendance of the Australian, New Zealand and Japanese prime ministers at the NATO summit in Lithuania, despite the countries not being part of the alliance.

“They’re all travelling to the NATO summit to coordinate policies and see where we can join forces, work together because these are indeed interlinked problems,” the think tank boss told RN Breakfast this morning.

He said there wasn’t a need for NATO to have formal coordination in the Indo-Pacific region, but there was a case for policy coordination.

“I don’t think there’s ... a need to kind of have ... too much formal coordination or too much of a formal role [for] NATO in the Indo-Pacific right now, but there’s a big case for policy coordination.”

His comments come after former prime minister Paul Keating branded NATO boss Jens Stoltenberg a “supreme fool” for seeking to deepen the alliance’s ties with Asia.

Turning now to Berlin, where Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has landed ahead of the announcement of a major defence deal with Germany alongside Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Albanese, who will also attend a NATO summit on tomorrow in Lithuania, will meet Scholz on Monday (local time) to discuss “deepening cooperation between Australia and Germany” in “trade and investment, the clean energy transition, and defence”.

Speaking to reporters on the tarmac after a long-haul flight from Perth, Albanese confirmed an agreement for Australia to sell 100 Queensland-made Boxer heavy weapons carriers to Germany in a $1 billion deal, believed to be one of the nation’s biggest defence export contracts.

“This will be one of our largest ever exports,” Albanese said.

“This will boost our sovereignty. This will increase our defence capability and boost our economy. This is a great outcome. And it’s the first outcome of quite a few that we have ready to announce tomorrow with our friends here in Germany.”

At the NATO summit in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on Tuesday and Wednesday, Australia will advocate for “our region’s strategic priorities and advance Australia’s security, economic and trade agenda”.

Australia is not a member of NATO but has a decades-long relationship with the Western alliance and attended last year’s summit in Madrid as a non-member participant.

The foreign ministers of Russia and Turkey spoke by telephone, a day after Ankara angered Moscow by sending five Ukrainian commanders home with President Volodymyr Zelensky in what Russia called a violation of a prisoner exchange agreement.

The captured Azov commanders, lionised as heroes in Ukraine and vilified in Russia, were released in a prisoner swap in September, under terms that required them to stay in Turkey until the war ends.

Russia captured the city last year after laying it to waste, killing thousands of civilians in a three-month siege. The Azov unit led the city’s defence, holding out in the steelworks for weeks until they were ordered by Kyiv to surrender.

Zelensky brought them home on Saturday after a visit to Turkey.

Good morning, and thanks for your company.

I’m Caroline Schelle, and I’ll be anchoring our live coverage for the first half of today. It’s Monday, July 10.

• Former prime minister Paul Keating has branded NATO boss Jens Stoltenberg a “supreme fool” for seeking to deepen the alliance’s ties with Asia.
• Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has arrived in Europe, where he will meet with the German chancellor before heading to Lithuania for the NATO summit.
• Trade Minister Don Farrell also rushed to Brussels in a bid to break a deadlock over a free trade deal with the European Union.
• The Mormon Church is significantly reducing its use of a controversial shell company after an investigation revealed it had engaged in alleged serious tax evasion in Australia.

• Outspoken Liberal MP Bridget Archer warns former prime minister Scott Morrison’s continued presence in parliament is hampering the party’s attempt to enter a new era.
• A parliamentary inquiry is weighing up whether to recommend banning popular Chinese-owned app WeChat because of foreign interference concerns.
• New research reveals that greenhouse gases from the plastics Australians consume each year is equivalent to pollution from 5.7 million cars and urgent action is needed.
• And in other international news, the BBC suspended a male staff member after an allegation one of its star presenters paid a teenager to pose for sexually explicit photos.