Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm on the record as an opponent of gambling in all its forms, both in my own community and in this place. My opposition began as a young man when I was re-roofing a TAB as a carpenter, many years ago. However, an extensive and powerful body of academic evidence exists which shows what a blight on our society gambling is, and for that reason I wholeheartedly support the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Lottery Betting) Bill 2018.

In relation to problem gambling, in 2017 alone, Australians lost—if you're ready for this, Mr Deputy Speaker—almost $24 billion to gambling, according to the Australian gambling statistics collated by the Queensland government. As Dr Charles Livingstone of Monash University says, gambling is a public health problem. In terms of disability-adjusted life years, the impact of gambling is approximately the same as excessive alcohol consumption. Between 80,000 and 160,000 Australian adults suffer with severe problems from gambling. This equates to somewhere between 0.5 and one per cent of adults. A further 230,000 to 350,000 Australians, or 1.5 to 2.1 per cent of adults, experience moderate risks that may make them vulnerable to problem gambling. Although small in absolute terms, this means that as many as 30 per cent of regular gamblers are problem gamblers.

Not all people who gamble have a gambling problem—I readily accept that—but, according to a 1999 Productivity Commission report, expenditures on gambling by problem gamblers constitute as much as 40 per cent of all money spent on gambling. In the case of electronic gambling machines—pokies—42 per cent of revenue comes from high-risk gamblers, with another 20 per cent from moderate-risk gamblers. This problem is highly regressive, with those on lower incomes and in disadvantaged populations much more likely to experience problem gambling and to spend a larger proportion of their income on gambling. Problem gambling works to entrench economic disadvantage and can contribute to its transmission between generations.

In 2010 and 2012, in the Northern Territory and in New South Wales, separate studies demonstrated gambling impacts on Indigenous communities and identified greater negative impacts than on the non-Indigenous population, specifically with respect to poker machines. Studies focused on individual-level harms to the gambler have found that gambling is linked with financial problems, bankruptcy, increased likelihood of divorce, substance abuse, anxiety, depression and even suicide. There are far too many studies to list, but they include Black, Shaw, McCormick and Allen's 'Marital status, childhood maltreatment, and family dysfunction: a controlled study of pathological gambling'; another study entitled 'Young adults' gambling and its association with mental health and substance use problems', published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health; and Kerber et al's 'The impact of disordered gambling among older adults', in the Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services.

Problem gambling causes harms to the individuals themselves, but it also causes harm to those around them and, importantly, to the wider community. Each high-risk gambler impacts, on average, six other people. These can include spouses, children, family, friends and employers. Each moderate-risk gambler affects three others, and even low-risk gamblers affect an average of one other person. A 2013 Swedish study by Svensson, Romild and Shepherdson published in BMC Public Health revealed that, in total, 18.2 per cent, nearly one in five, of the Swedish population reported having someone close to them who currently had or had previously experienced gambling-related problems. In that study, significant others experienced similar negative consequences and were significantly more likely, compared with the general population, to experience poor mental health, risky alcohol consumption, economic hardships and arguments with those closest to them. A 2016 Victorian study identified that postcodes with no poker machines were associated with 30 per cent fewer incidents of domestic violence-related assaults per 10,000 head of population.

Beyond those individuals immediately linked to the problem gambler, gambling has huge impacts on our community at large. These include higher levels of crime, higher unemployment levels, lower incomes, lower expenditure in non-gambling local businesses and the diversion of resources away from more productive uses. A significant number of studies reveal that a large percentage of problem gamblers admit to having committed a gambling-related illegal offence—most commonly, theft, fraud, robbery, assault and breach of apprehended violence orders. These studies include 'The influence of gaming expenditure on crime rates in South Australia', which shows the contrast between areas with more and less gambling. A 2010 Victorian study examined the relationship between poker machine expenditure and various types of crimes. It found that there was a consistent, positive and significant relationship between gaming and crime rates, especially income-generating crime. Income-generating crime includes theft, fraud, breaking and entering, forgery, larceny and robbery. A further 2008 South Australian study concluded that electronic gambling machine expenditure was found to influence positively and significantly income-generating crime rates in local areas in South Australia. These studies identify that the greater the amount of money spent on gambling in a particular area, the higher that area's income-generating crime happened to be.

This is not a static problem. We know that, as the amount of gambling in a particular community increases, the amount of harm that is done to individuals and our society increases. A 2014 Australian study found that an increase in mean per capita monthly poker machine expenditure from $10 to $150 was associated with a doubling in the prevalence of gambling-related harm from nine per cent to 18 per cent in the adult population in the Northern Territory. US and Canadian studies in 1989, 2001, 2004 and 2006 found that the opening of casinos there led to a significant increase in crime, growing considerably over time.

These issues have become particularly important and widely discussed in my own community on the Sunshine Coast just in the past six months. This is because the Sunshine Coast Council, led by the mayor, along with the Labor state government, has been in active discussions with an international gambling corporation, NagaCorp, about the possibility of establishing a casino in the new SunCentral Maroochydore CBD development. I have campaigned strongly against this development, and I recently held a community meeting to discuss the plans for this casino. More than 300 people attended this event. When we took a vote at the end of the community forum, the room was unanimous in its opposition to a casino. At that casino forum, we were addressed by Dr Charles Livingstone, whom I've quoted earlier, from Monash University. We were also addressed by a previous superintendent of Queensland Police, Mr Chris Sang. Both of them gave us an understanding of the societal impacts caused by gambling, and Mr Chris Sang particularly addressed the criminal aspects that flow when a casino moves into an area.

I recently submitted a right-to-information request to both the Sunshine Coast Council and the Queensland state government to learn more about the behind-the-scenes discussions, which have been ongoing, about this dramatic expansion of gambling in my own community. I'm awaiting the outcome of these requests; however, I've already heard from the state government, telling me that the request, as it stands, is too onerous, because there are 4,600 relevant documents. I'll have more to say about that later.

In relation to this bill, both in my own community, in the electorate of Fisher, and nationwide—I am not naive enough to believe that we can wholly outlaw gambling. However, what I am seeking to do in Fisher, with respect to the casino in particular, is to prevent a huge and unwarranted expansion of the available avenues for gambling. As I've described, repeated studies show that, when you increase the amount of gambling in a community, you increase the amount of harm. That is what I want to stop by preventing a casino being built on the Sunshine Coast, and it is what this bill is seeking to stop nationally by prohibiting the new phenomenon of synthetic lotteries.

The law allows lotteries in this country, but it strictly regulates them and limits their number and frequency. There are a small number of draws in Australia, and the total jackpots available are modest by world standards. These synthetic lottery products, less than two years in existence, are a huge increase in the scale and availability of gambling opportunities for those who want to take part in lotteries. Betting on the outcomes of lotteries worldwide allows individuals to take part in 25 separate draws every week, with jackpots in the hundreds of millions of dollars. In fact, in just one US Powerball draw in 2016, synthetic lottery products in Australia gave Australians the opportunity, otherwise not available, to take part in a draw for $2.3 billion. These products allow people to purchase the equivalent of tickets for these draws from home and on their mobile phones, as opposed to being required to go to a newsagent, for example. In 2017, Lottoland admitted that its business was generating more than $1 million a week in sales.

As we've seen, as awareness of these products grows, this hugely increased opportunity to gamble and the increased size of available prizes will inextricably link to more gambling harm. This bill is an important step, and I hope that the government will go further, in particular around gambling advertising in this country. This government should be commended for its actions last year to get gambling adverts out of live sports at times when they would be likely to be seen by children. That was a really positive outcome, and the government should be commended on it. But, as one of my constituents, Charles Hodgson, asked me on Facebook just a couple of days ago, 'What is the point of moving the betting ads from sports when they've just moved them elsewhere?' We've all seen the proliferation of gambling ads, particularly around our news times. I hope that this year we'll see action to prohibit sports gambling advertising on television entirely. We did it for smoking. I don't see why we can't do it for live sports betting.

In conclusion, in my electorate of Fisher, I will fight to stop the construction of a casino, because I know that, when you increase the amount and scale of the opportunities to gamble in a community, you increase the harm caused. I support this bill, and I commend it to the House.

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