Embattled casino operator Star offered $650m lifeline – as it happened​on February 17, 2025 at 6:58 am

With that, we will wrap the blog for the day. We’ll be back first thing tomorrow, with all eyes on interest rates.

For now, here were today’s major developments:

• The latest Newspoll published in The Australian newspaper shows the Coalition has a 51-49 lead over Labor in the two-party preferred stakes.

• Embattled casino operator Star Entertainment Group has been offered a five-year financial lifeline worth $650m after a series of bruising battles with regulators over scandals at its venues.

• Victoria is set to recruit a new police boss after the embattled chief resigned days after a majority of his workforce declared no confidence in his leadership. Shane Patton has advised he would step away from the role “effective immediately”.

• More people are falling behind on their personal loan repayments, while mortgage arrears have steadied, according to Westpac’s quarterly update released today.

• Chaos is continuing throughout the Sydney train network amid the rail unions’ ongoing standoff with the New South Wales government.

• And the name of Australia’s next tropical cyclone has been preemptively changed from “Anthony” to “Alfred”, because the name is also held by the prime minister.

Continued from previous post.

It has been alleged pegs not compliant with national standards were used at only four of the castle’s eight anchor points despite the manufacturer’s instructions recommending eight.

The castle’s Chinese manufacturer, East Inflatables, didn’t provide instructions to Gamble upon purchase and only supplied four pegs, Dockraytold the court.

She instead downloaded a two-page manual from the company’s website, he said, which resulted in an interpretation that four pegs were sufficient.

Dockray said Gamble had been “failed” by a safety system predicated on the manufacturer providing instructions.

She was left out, hung and dry, from the moment that jumping castle arrived.

East Inflatables lied to Gamble about the castle complying with Australian standards and provided false documents to workplace regulators, Dockrayalleged.

The operator of a jumping castle that became airborne and killed six children was hung out to dry by the inflatable device’s “bunch-of-crooks” manufacturer, a court has been told.

Students Chace Harrison, Jalailah Jayne-Maree Jones, Zane Mellor, Addison Stewart, Jye Sheehan and Peter Dodt died after the incident in Tasmania in December 2021.

Three other children were seriously injured when a wind gust lifted the castle and inflatable balls into the air during end-of-year celebrations on the oval of Hillcrest Primary School.

Rosemary Gamble, the operator of Taz-Zorb which supplied and set up the equipment, has pleaded not guilty to failing to comply with a health and safety duty.

In closing submissions in Devonport magistrates court on Monday, Gamble’s lawyer Chris Dockray said his client had previously used the castle more than 100 times without incident.

Continued in next post.

Protected coin worth at least $525,000 returned to Poland

In coin-related-diplomacy news, the Australian federal police has helped return a stolen 1813 Holey Dollar to Poland that was last sold at auction for $525,000.

The AFP says it’s the first time Australian law enforcement has arranged the return of a cultural object to the European nation.

The coin, which was stolen from a museum collection in Toruń, Poland, between 2011 and 2018, had been tracked globally by Polish authorities after it was reported missing.

They identified it as being exported into Germany sometime between 2011 and 2018, where it was offered for sale in two auctions. From there, the coin made its way to Melbourne, where it was sold at auction to a collector in Perth for $525,000.

In August last year, the AFP seized the coin in Perth after the owner was identified through its most recent seller, and it was surrendered willingly. It is not expected any Australian-based individuals will face criminal charges, as all transactions were made in good faith.

The coin is a protected object of the Republic of Poland, significant for “historical, cultural, and monetary reasons”.

The coin was struck from a Spanish Silver Dollar minted at the Mexico Mint in 1777 during the reign of King Charles III of Spain.

Watt was also asked about a story being reported in Nine media outlets that former Nationals leader, Barnaby Joyce, will be denied a ministry if the Coalition wins this year’s federal election.

There’s reporting in that story that I have not yet independently verified, that he was speaking to One Nation … are you surprised by that development?

Watt said he saw that report breaking, which has not been independently verified by Guardian Australia, either, before he came on air.

I guess none of us should be surprised about the latest edition of the Barnaby Joyce soap opera. It’s been going the entire time he’s been there. The most important story is that David Littleproud is out there saying who will be in the ministry and who will be in the cabinet when they win the election.

These guys are so cocky, they think they have this in the bag … to think they have won the election, without releasing any policies at all, and they can start dishing out portfolios and measuring the curtains.

Industrial relations and employment minister, Murray Watt, appeared on ABC Afternoon Briefing earlier ahead of an interest rate decision on Tuesday.

Asked if he expected a cut would be on the cards, Watt said the government approach regardless of the outcome would be the same.

We’ll be relentlessly focusing on bringing down cost-of-living pressures for Australians.

I know most households around Australia will be paying close attention tomorrow. I suspect that broadcast when the Reserve Bank makes the decision will out-rate anything in Australia this year, whether it’s grand finals or anything else. But I guess what I’m saying is just as today, yesterday, last year, our focus has been assisting Australians with their cost-of-living pressures, that will be remain the case tomorrow, the day after that, and for the remainder of this term.

PNG workers scheme gets under way to fill much-needed roles

Childcare workers from Papua New Guinea are helping to fill demand in the Northern Territory under a pilot scheme beginning this week, AAP reports.

PNG educators, who have earned accreditation to work in Australia’s early childhood sector, are headed to Alice Springs and Katherine to take up much-needed roles.

The program is part of the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (Palm) scheme, which sees workers from the Pacific and Timor Leste find jobs with Australian employers that are desperate for workers.

While the Palm scheme has been typically involved with the agriculture and meat processing industries, in recent years it has branched out into aged care, hospitality and tourism, and now early childhood.

The Pacific minister, Pat Conroy, said he was excited for the new cohort to begin.

Palm scheme workers enrich the culture and society of communities across rural and regional Australia.

The pilot begins with 14 childcare workers taking up their roles across two childcare businesses.

The Palm scheme oversees 27,260 workers currently engaged in work in every Australian state and territory.

While some workers in the Palm scheme have suffered mistreatment, most derive great financial reward from their participation.

School curriculum ‘infused with ideology’ Coalition says

The Coalition has come out against the Australian curriculum, accusing it of being so “infused with ideology” it is “impossible to teach” because of priorities to integrate First Nations knowledge and history into courses.

Shadow minister for education, Sarah Henderson, said her party’s analysis found nearly 2,500 ways for teachers to weave into lessons the three mandatory cross-curriculum priorities: sustainability, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures and Australia’s engagement with Asia.

While learning Indigenous history and culture is vital to every child’s education, the requirement to embed cross-curriculum priorities in every subject flies in the face of world-leading curricula which is focused on the core knowledge students need to excel at school.

The Coalition is determined to get back to basics by focusing on explicit instruction and other evidence-based teaching methods which prioritise reading, writing, maths and science.

Since 2010, the curriculum has included an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures cross-curriculum priority across all learning areas.

Reconciliation Australia has found including Indigenous content in classroom teaching contributes to the closing of the gap and allows students to “develop respect for diversity and understanding of cultural difference”.

Some NSW teachers and staff decry ‘McCarthyist backlash’ against Palestinian rights

Teachers and School Staff for Palestine will hold a rally tomorrow afternoon outside the NSW education department, critiquing what they describe as anti-Palestinian discrimination in the state’s schools.

It follows a Palestinian-Australian teacher being banned from wearing the keffiyeh at work. Students from the teacher’s school have penned an open letter with more than 350 signatures, rejecting that the keffiyeh created concern within the student body.

Spokesperson for the body, Chris Breen, said a “McCarthyist backlash” was taking place against Palestinian human rights.

Public expression of Palestinian identity is being suppressed as part of this backlash.

The Minns Labor government ultimately sets the policy that lies behind the attempts to silence voices for Palestine, and expressions of Palestinian identity in NSW schools. Palestinians, supporters of Palestinian human rights, and anti-racists will not be silenced.

Majority want government to grant asylum seekers work and study rights, survey finds

Political leaders are being urged to embrace refugee policies “grounded in humanity, not cruelty” as new research has found a majority of Australians polled believe the federal government has a responsibility to accept people seeking asylum.

The polling, commissioned by the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre and conducted by Redbridge, shows more than half of those polled support granting asylum seekers work and study rights while they await the outcome of their protection visa applications.

Read the story here:

Many thanks for joining me on the blog this Monday, Caitlin Cassidy will be here to take you through the rest of our rolling coverage. Take care!