Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

But, mercifully, I will not speak for 10 minutes, because I would like to leave at least five minutes for the member for Curtin to make a contribution to this debate. As members would be well aware, the member for Curtin has done as much—or more—as anyone in this House when it comes to gambling reform.

I make the point again—and I'm pleased to make the point again—that there is an urgent need for this parliament to decide on whether or not to allow individual members to exercise their personal judgement, informed by their communities, on the matter of whether or not there be a phase-out of gambling advertising in this country. The reason we need to go to a free vote is that this place is currently absolutely paralysed on this issue, which beggars belief because there is clearly a strong majority of members in the House of Representatives who want to see a phased ban on gambling advertising. How we could have a clear majority of members want a ban yet the place paralysed—honestly, it beggars belief.

We have to crack this open. We have to end this impasse. That's what the community wants. That's what the community is calling out for because the community is sick to death of the endless ads. The community is sick to death of the way the endless ads are normalising gambling. The community is sick to death of the way the endless ads are grooming children to become gamblers as soon as they can.

It's no wonder the Australia Institute found that last year almost one million people aged between 12 and 19 gambled. It's not because it's in their DNA or because they just had a bright idea one day—'I'm going to start gambling'. It's because every time they look at their phone, their iPad, their laptop, the TV and, I would add, the newspapers, even if they're not looking at an ad directly—they're looking at, say, the cricket ground during the first Ashes test, the ball is racing towards the boundary, and there are bet365 ads on the rope. You can't escape it. Just going through the day, people in the community encounter literally hundreds of ads for gambling.

And let's not forget that this isn't some esoteric debate we're having in here. This is a very real matter affecting people every day. Remember that, as we encourage gambling, more and more people will become addicted to gambling. With addiction to gambling, we see countless people going broke, losing more money than they can afford. It destroys relationships. It affects mental health. It leads to homelessness. It leads to violence in the home. It leads to an elevated rate of suicide in the community.

I make the point again that this isn't some academic argument we're having here. This is about whether or not we in this place do what the community want, and whether or not the government does what the majority of members want, and implement the very well researched flagship recommendation of the Murphy report to ban gambling advertising—and not straightaway. The Murphy committee recommended three years to phase it out, giving more than enough time to change the landscape and to allow the gambling companies, the media companies and the major sporting codes to transition.

And, yes, that might take a little bit of government financial help, but when you consider the billions of dollars that are at stake here, with money lost and the countless cost to the community of gambling addiction, a little bit of government assistance is more than justified, particularly to wean the media companies and the sporting codes off—I'll say it clearly—this blood money, this money that is harvested from people who are often the most disadvantaged and most vulnerable people in the community. They should be weaned off that blood money, and the government has the means not just to pass the legislation to do so in this place; it has the financial resources to make that transition workable for all of the people involved.

I'll end it there because I am keen for the member for Curtin to have her say. I just say to the government and the opposition: do the right thing by the backbenchers, who are just having to suck this up. They get confronted every day with constituents who say, 'Why won't you ban the advertising?' I feel for the backbenchers. You've been handed a sour lemon to suck on. I don't think it's fair on them.

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