Big change in Aussie smoking habits + The verdict on Albo’s AI plan

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (0:08)
Hello, happy Friday, and welcome to The Briefing. Sacha Barbour Gatt with you. Anthony Albanese gave a major speech on how his government plans to deal with AI this week. He says it's world leading. But is that true?

**Toby Walsh** (0:20)
Well, it's not the first office of AI. The UK started its office of AI back in 2018
The European Union started its office of AI two years ago now. So we aren't actually technically getting to the first office of AI.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (0:32)
That deep dive into the PM's AI plan, what we know about it and how it can be made better is coming up in the second half of this episode. First, as always, let's get into the headlines with Chris Spyrou. It is Friday, the 17th of July.

**Chris Spyrou** (0:47)
Morning, Sacha, the father of one of the Melbourne teenagers who died from methanol poisoning in Laos wants Anthony Albanese to personally step in after learning the people responsible spent just one year in jail and pay a fine of about $1,600.
Mark Jones lost his 19-year-old daughter Bianca in November 2024 She and her friend Holly Morton Bowles died after drinking alcohol laced with methanol at a backpackers' hostel in the country. Four other tourists also died, two Danish women, an American man and a British woman. Mark says he's furious and disgusted at the idea six lives could be worth less than a year behind bars.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (1:24)
Speaking to the ABC, he says he wants the Prime Minister to pick up the phone to his counterpart in Laos and insist on genuine justice. It's understood the charges currently on the table relate to running a business illegally and selling products that are hazardous to health. DFAT has written to Mark, promising Australia will again tell Laos authorities directly the charges are not good enough. And it's not the first pushback either. Earlier this year, the government called in the Laos ambassador over how the case was being handled.
A really sad one, Chris, and sad that it looks like these two girls won't get the justice that they deserve and the other victims as well.

**Chris Spyrou** (2:02)
Overseas now, and to the Middle East, where Iran has launched fresh attacks on US military bases across the Gulf, hitting targets in Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain overnight. It's now day six of renewed hostilities between Tehran and Washington, and the US isn't easing up either, unleashing a six-hour wave of strikes it says is about protecting ships in the Strait of the Gulf and the Middle East.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (2:23)
It is also enforcing its blockade of Iranian ports, striking an oil tanker heading for Karg Island that had ignored repeated warnings. And just for context, Karg Island is the terminal that handles most of Iran's oil exports. Meanwhile, in central Tehran, a giant new billboard has been put up showing Trump lying in a coffin with the words, We kill Trump across it. It comes days after crowds called for his assassination at the funeral of Iran's supreme leader. So yeah, as you mentioned there, Chris, day six of renewed hostilities.
We can actually expect a bit of an update from the president today. He's going to give a rare primetime address, which will probably happen around mid-morning lunchtime Australian time, depending on where you are and what time he speaks. But yes, apparently he's going to be talking about election fraud from 2020 because he has always made claims that he didn't lose that election, that there was voter fraud, but there's never been any evidence produced. So whether he's got something in his hat for that, but also, I mean, we can expect him to talk about Iran as well.

**Chris Spyrou** (3:30)
Back home now, and authorities have confirmed a second case of bird flu in New South Wales, bringing the national total to 15
A giant petrol found dead on a beach on the mid-north coast has tested positive for the deadly H5 strain. Two weeks after, another petrol with the disease was located at the same spot.

**Sacha Barbour Gatt** (3:47)
So far, there have been eight cases in WA and another five in South Australia on top of these two in New South Wales. In a statement, Australia's chief veterinary officer reassured the public that the threat to humans remains low.
And authorities have also praised this latest detection, saying, it's not a bad thing. It's actually proof that increased surveillance efforts are working, and there's still that understanding that because these are migratory birds, it hasn't infected local flocks at this stage, and that's what we're hoping to avoid.

**Chris Spyrou** (4:16)
Yeah, and that's kind of one of the benefits of being the last continent on earth to fall to this strain, is the fact that we have learnt so much from what's happened across the globe and all the devastation that's happened across the globe, and we're really applying it here. So, yeah, to your point, very like good news there.