As it happened: ASX suspends The Star after failure to post financial results; house price growth slumps

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham says Australia should be more supportive of Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles on Russian military targets.

Ukraine is not allowed to use longer-range missiles donated by the US to hit targets unless they are under active fire, according to AP.

Russia pounded Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv with missiles early on Monday, while falling debris from the downed weapons injured at least two people, sparking fires and damaging homes and infrastructure, officials said.

Speaking to ABC News from London, Birmingham said Australia needed to be forthright in “arming and equipping [Ukraine] for victory”.

“Ukraine should be able to use the resources provided to them to win this war. And to win this war and to defend themselves, there is obvious logic in them being able to attack and strike at sites from which Russia launches attacks on Ukraine,” he said.

“Ukraine is continuously being attacked by rockets and drones being launched by Russia out of Russian military sites, and if Ukraine can disable those Ukrainian military sites, then those attacks will be limited.

“Those restrictions put in place by the relevant donor countries for those particular pieces of equipment – those missiles and military hardware that Ukraine is being provided – they’re not Australian restrictions ... But I think Australia should be clear in our messaging and support, as the European Union president is.”

Steve McCann, a one-time world-ranked poker maestro and chief executive-elect of the financially flailing Star Entertainment, is engaged in a do-or-die-stakes corporate poker tournament. Around the table, he sits with the company’s lenders, investors, regulators and two state governments.

Putting his poker face to good use, McCann met these stakeholders over the weekend. In what could only be described as a confounding move, he laid his cards on the table.

Unsurprisingly, it was a shocking hand.

This pitch will certainly put paid to the adage that casinos are a licence to make money.

Over the past 18 months, shareholders have bailed out this company – not once but twice – by pumping in about $1.6 billion in equity. They would be justified in asking how Star is again facing an existential crisis.

It’s difficult to accurately apportion blame. Cost and time overruns on its Queen’s Wharf project in Brisbane is a biggie, the expense of reforming the culture and exorcising the misconduct of old is another, while one would need to lay some blame at the feet of the previous board and management.

The company is experiencing a liquidity crisis and is in the midst of an earnings crisis.

Read the full opinion piece here.

Kviv: Russia pounded Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv with missiles early on Monday, while falling debris from the downed weapons injured at least two people, sparking fires and damaging homes and infrastructure, officials said.

Ukraine’s air defence units destroyed more than 10 cruise missiles and nearly 10 ballistic missiles, the city’s military administration said on the Telegram messaging app.

Air raid alerts went out across Ukraine for nearly two hours before the air force declared the skies clear. Neighbouring NATO member Poland activated Polish and allied aircraft to keep its airspace safe during the attacks.

A boiler house at a Kyiv water plant was partially damaged as was the entrance to a metro station doubling as a bomb shelter in the Svyatoshynksyi district, Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram, though the station still operates.

The district is home to a cluster of universities and schools.

The attack injured at least two people, Klitschko said. Cars were set ablaze across the city as well as a non-residential building in the Shevchenkivskyi district, he added.

Reuters

A new public garden the size of the MCG, running from Hamer Hall to Southbank Boulevard, will make better use of Melbourne’s famous wave sculpture Forward Surge.

Plans for the park linking Melbourne’s new Arts Precinct were released today. They offer a look at how the gardens will surround the soon-to-be-constructed Fox Contemporary and feature artworks, including Really Good (2016) by David Shrigley and a pumpkin work by Yayoi Kusama.

Featuring a colourful, almost wild landscape connecting iconic spaces, including the Arts Centre and the NGV, the garden is intended to act as a public hub around the clock, housing not only plants but artworks and a water feature.

The garden will give a new framing of modernist Inge King’s often overlooked and yet iconic work Forward Surge which at present sits on a lonely lawn with a few haphazard pathways leading roughly around it. In the newly released renders, the large dark waves of Forward Surge become a more prominent part of the landscape, surrounded by colourful plants and winding walkways.

The garden will be named Laak Boorndap, meaning “heaven’s beauty”. Speaking today, Aunty Gail Smith, language elder from Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung Cultural Heritage Corporation, explained that the name came to her following a conversation with her eldest granddaughter, and that the garden would feature “plants that will have meaning to Wurundjeri and other families and people of the Kulin nation”.

She also made a point of saying, “And if you’re worried about not saying Laak Boorndap properly – don’t be. We all have accents … just say it with pride.”

The NSW SES provided an update this afternoon on the state’s weather situation, as strong winds grounded flights and fanned the flames of a number of bushfires.

You can watch the full press conference below:

Queensland Premier Steven Miles has left the door open to provide additional tax breaks to the embattled Star Entertainment Group, just days after it opened its $3.6 billion Queen’s Wharf casino and entertainment precinct in Brisbane.

Star requested a trading halt on the Australian Stock Exchange on Friday and, this morning, the ASX suspended the entertainment group from trading.

Speaking in Hervey Bay today, Miles said his government was in “ongoing discussions” with Star about its tax arrangements, but it was too soon to speculate on outcomes.

“We’ve been working with Star to ensure that Queen’s Wharf Brisbane could open last week, and to ensure that they continue to remain viable – that’s really important,” he said.

“There’s 1400 Queenslanders who will work at Queen’s Wharf Brisbane and we want them to have jobs and be able to provide for their families.

“It’s too soon to say what arrangements we might make with Star, but we will ensure, of course, that they make the contribution to Queensland that they committed to when we signed that contract.

“That includes delivering Queen’s Wharf Brisbane, delivering the surrounding public realm, including the [Neville Bonner] bridge, and delivering those 1400 jobs as well as a revenue return to the state.”

A Gold Coast tiger handler was mauled while she was walking the animal at Dreamworld this morning, suffering “serious lacerations and puncture wounds”, emergency services have revealed.

The Queensland Ambulance Service was called to Dreamworld shortly after 9am “following an incident involving a tiger”. There, paramedics treated a 47-year-old woman before taking her to Gold Coast University Hospital.

QAS acting district director Justin Payne said the handler was in a stable condition, with “serious lacerations and puncture wounds” to her arm.

Payne said the handler had been walking the tiger along with another handler, as they worked in pairs, and it had been taken back to a holding cell by the time the advanced care paramedic crew was at the scene.

“She was quite pale and feeling unwell, but generally well and was able to be transported to hospital,” he said.

A Dreamworld spokesperson confirmed the victim was trained in handling tigers.

“This was an isolated and rare incident, and we will conduct a thorough review accordingly.”

Read the full article here.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has pushed back against reports he has shifted blame for slowing economic growth onto Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock, saying comments he made yesterday were not new.

Chalmers said during a press conference this afternoon that he had “a lot respect and regard” for Bullock and that they compared notes and communicated frequently.

The treasurer said yesterday the RBA was “smashing the economy” with its rate hikes, as anticipated GDP figures to be released on Wednesday are set to show limited growth.

“We have the same objectives when it comes to fighting inflation, but we’ve got different responsibilities,” Chalmers said of the RBA today.

[My comments were] not taking a shot at anyone, that’s just recognising the facts of our economy right now.

I don’t second guess decisions taken by the independent Reserve Bank. I don’t preempt future decisions that they might make.”

He said slower economic growth was an “inevitable consequence” of higher interest rates and global economic uncertainty.

“We know that conditions in the economy are pretty weak nationally,” he said. “We already know that retail is soft, household savings have come off, and the unemployment rate has ticked up.”