As it happened: Labor leaders aim for national plan to boost renters’ rights; Coral bleaching alert for Great Barrier Reef

A new variant of Omicron, named EG.5.1 but nicknamed Eris, is now the most prevalent variant of COVID in the US, and is spreading in Europe and Asia. Eris was first spotted in Australia in April, but experts say it’s unlikely to cause a new wave of infection.

Australia’s COVID infections continue to be dominated by what scientists term a “variant soup” of multiple different variants competing to infect us.

The changes being seen from one variant to the next are now much smaller and only give the virus a slight infectious advantage. Many of the circulating variants are now starting to look extremely similar.

For everything you need to know about the Eris variant, you can read Liam Mannix’s story here.

The introduction of Hard Solo, an alcoholic version of the popular lemon-flavoured soft drink Solo, is facing resistance from teal crossbench MPs.

Independent North Sydney MP Kylea Tink is leading the charge, with industry representatives requesting to meet with the teal MPs following their push for tighter regulation of alcoholic beverages they say are being marketed to underage drinkers.

Tink says she is “dubious” about the industry’s self-regulation scheme after Japanese brewing giant Asahi confirmed it had been given pre-vetting approval by the Alcohol Beverages Advertising Code to market Hard Solo in Australia.

“For a company like Asahi to come out and say there’s no problem with that product, to me, indicates there’s a clear breakdown in between community expectation and corporate expectation.”

Read the full story from Angus Thomson here.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealed he’s so confident in the Matildas that he has a bet going with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Ahead of the knockout match this weekend Albanese revealed to Melbourne commercial station Fox FM that he had a “side hustle” with the French leader.

“It’ll be something like wearing each other’s shirt or something like that will be the go, I think,” Albanese said.

“But I noticed he’s already sent out a message overnight about Les Bleues making the quarter-finals,” Albanese said.

“But the Matildas, I think, are inspiring a whole nation.”

The prime minister also promised he would try to convince the states and territories to bring in a public holiday if the Matildas won the World Cup.

“I’ll be putting to them an argument that, if we win, I think, is when the celebrations will really start.”

If you’re yet to jump on the bandwagon, here’s everything you need to know to get behind the Matildas.

The Coalition will move to block Labor’s 60-day medicine script policy in the Senate and seek to stop it from coming into effect on September 1, on the basis that the government did not properly consult pharmacies on the change.

Opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston said the Coalition supported giving Australians access to cheaper medicines, but the government hadn’t considered the flow-on effects on businesses.

The Labor budget policy will effectively halve the price of 320 common medicines for consumers starting from September 1 by allowing them to buy two months of medicine for the price of one.

Read the full story from our federal politics desk here.

The ABC is discontinuing all but four of its accounts on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, in a bid to increase reach and engagement on its main account, as well as in response to new changes introduced on the platform.

Accounts that will remain include ABC News, ABC Sport, ABC Chinese and ABC Australia.

Managing director David Anderson told staff the decision comes after it shuttered its Insiders, News Breakfast and ABC Politics accounts in February to positive results.

“We also found that closing individual program accounts helps limit the exposure of team members to the toxic interactions that unfortunately are becoming more prevalent on X,” Anderson added.

“Concerningly, X has reduced its trust and safety terms.”

Australia’s Indigenous Affairs agency has refuted a suggestion from Coalition Indigenous affairs spokeswoman Jacinta Price about the nature of an influential reconciliation document.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart was published in 2017. It stemmed from a series of Indigenous meetings around Australia. The document details the Indigenous community’s wishes for a Voice to parliament, a treaty, and an educative truth-telling process. It underpins Labor’s commitment to the Voice advisory body.

On Sky News yesterday, Price said the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) had confirmed to her office that the Uluru Statement was 26 pages – not one page, as Labor often states.

Senior Coalition MPs have this week asked Labor to explain the full extent of the document, and the requests made in it.

“My office today sought clarification from the FOI [freedom of information] team at NIAA to determine whether the Uluru Statement from the Heart is simply one page or the full 26 pages,” Price said.

“My staff got a phone call at 12:54 this afternoon with a verbal clarification that the document is, in fact, the 26 pages and not just, of course, the one page.”

But the Indigenous agency today wrote to Price rebutting her claim.

“The Uluru Statement from the Heart is one page, signed by the delegates at the National Convention in 2017,” the agency said in a letter.

The additional pages provided in an FOI request being drawn on by Price include background documents and experts drawn from regional meetings surrounding the Uluru Statement drafting, the agency said.

“The NIAA did not provide verbal clarification that the [statement] is 26 pages long,” the agency said.

Uluru statement architect Megan Davis said: “The fact that a single No advocate has used her privileged media platform to confuse the mainstream media and our political leaders so dramatically about the Voice, tells you everything you need to know about the way Indigenous issues are treated in this country.”

The treaty questions are back. Liberal MP Jenny Ware asked Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney: “Will the minister rule out financial payments being made by the Commonwealth as part of a treaty process?”

Burney responded: “There is much of that going around the country.”

“A treaty is being progressed in Queensland with bipartisan support. A treaty is being progressed in Victoria, with bipartisan support. Peter Walsh, the leader of the Victoria Nationals, said the Liberals and Nationals are committed to advancing the treaty process in Victoria.”

“And in Tasmania, a Liberal government has established a pathway to truth-telling and treaty with bipartisan support. Jeremy Rockliff, the Liberal premier of Tasmania said, ‘We are committed to progressing truth-telling and treaty in true partnership with Tasmanian Aboriginal people’.”

“Our priority is constitutional recognition through a Voice, a voice that will help drive better results for Indigenous people, and that was what the Australian people, that is what the Australian people will vote for later this year.”

Question time has begun and the federal opposition has changed tack, switching out its questions on the Voice and treaty for one on the Israel-Palestine conflict after Labor sought to harden its rhetoric on the conflict.

The federal government will officially refer to Israel’s settlements in the West Bank as “illegal” and the territories as “occupied”, in language Foreign Minister Penny Wong has said brings Australia into line with the UK, New Zealand and the European Union.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton asked why the government had “taken the decision to unilaterally determine where Israel’s borders lie” and accused him of hanging Israel out to dry.

Albanese denied any unilateral action had been taken by his government.

“My government is a strong supporter of Israel and its right to exist with secure borders,” he said.

“We also support a two-state solution that includes a Palestinian state.”

He said the government regarded a two-state solution as being essential.

“We think it is in the interest of both Israelis and Palestinians there be not actions from either side that undermine the potential of two-state solution,” he said.