Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) | Hansard source

Under standing order 143, I move:

That the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 be referred to the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs for consideration and an advisory report by 11 August 2026.

Three years ago, this parliament received the Murphy report You win some, you lose more, the product of a meticulous, evidence based inquiry into online gambling. I sat on that committee. We heard from people whose lives had been torn apart by an industry that is addictive by design, marketed aggressively and disproportionately harms young people and vulnerable communities. We heard stories like this one from a woman struggling to make her marriage work:

Gambling harm has already completely eroded and killed my relationship with my husband. I started out empathetic and compassionate to help my husband overcome this mental health condition that is gambling addiction, but my help and compassion was preyed upon and made harder by the relentless onslaught of gambling available in Australia. We would get on top of going to pokies in venues, and then online pokies became available, sportsbetting became easier through apps.

There really is no escape from this nightmare now. My husband's pay can go into his account in the middle of the night and by the morning it is all gone from the comfort of his phone. The addiction is flamed harder because it is now so readily available and solitary in nature. It fuels secrecies and betrayal in marriages. There is no avenue for spouses to step in and restrict gambling harm by placing blocks on apps. No avenue to call up customer service at these companies and request this person be denied an account. Our nightmare never ends. There's nowhere to help us.

The only option presented seems to dissolve the marriage and the family. Gambling only brings misery and destruction to the lives of vulnerable people, their families, friends, colleagues and further afield in communities where their contributions can be far more impactful if they didn't have the temptation of gambling. The once long-held dream of mine to find a partner to do life with, buy a house, build a home, have children, go on holidays, build long-term wealth and prosperity, are now replaced with anxiety, financial insecurity, spousal abuse and depression.

We also heard stories like this one:

Many years ago I went to pick up a friend for an outing. She lived in one half of a single house divided into two separate dwellings. She got on well with the quiet single working man next door. This particular morning she was devastated and in shock. The man had hung himself in the shed where she found him, and left a note listing all the people he owed money to including the amounts. She was one of them of course. He stated his reason for suicide was because he just couldn't stop gambling and knew he would never be able to repay all these people.

There were stories like this one:

My town is suffering, the people here are suffering. Gambling addiction means there's no food on the table and no money to pay bills. I see here in Alice Springs, exactly who is hardest hit by the gambling culture and it isn't whitefellas and it isn't anyone who can afford to lose money.

Our report made 31 unanimous recommendations. Its central finding was unambiguous: Australia needs a comprehensive ban on gambling advertising, phased in over time.

It took this government nearly three years to respond. In that time, nothing changed for the roughly 550,000 high-risk gamblers in this country. Sixteen per cent of them have experienced suicidal thoughts. Two-thirds have faced serious financial hardship, including going without meals. Almost one in five people whose partner gambles weekly or more experiences intimate partner violence.

This is a public health crisis. It's been playing out in lounge rooms across Australia, and it's been allowed to fester for years and years while gambling companies spend millions perfecting the art of keeping people hooked. Gambling is Australia's blind spot. So, when the government finally produced a response, Australians had every right to expect it would match the scale of the problem. It does not.

On my count, this bill fully addresses only a handful of the Murphy report's 31 recommendations. There is no national regulator. There is no restriction on inducements. And the flagship measure, the advertising restriction, is not the comprehensive phase-out the report called for. It is three ads an hour on television with no cap at all after 8.30 pm—the time at which the government has apparently decided every Australian child is asleep.

The so-called safeguard for online ads is an opt-out function. We already know how that performs in practice. SBS has run an opt-out model, and, based on publicly available figures, less than 0.1 per cent of subscribers have used it, even though three in four Australians say they wanted gambling ads banned altogether. The government knew this when they designed this measure. An opt-out nobody uses is not a protection. It is a fig leaf.

The evidence on partial bans is already in. When advertising restrictions were tightened in 2017, gambling ads on television increased. Half measures do not reduce harm. They reroute it. This bill, as drafted, repeats that mistake at a moment when we finally have the chance not to.

That's the case for proper scrutiny on the substance. The case is even stronger on process. The government gave stakeholders representing millions of Australians affected by gambling harm a single 45-minute consultation session on the exposure draft, with written submissions due the next day. Emeritus Professor Mike Daube, who took part in that session, described it afterwards as a charade. When he asked what evidence supported allowing unlimited advertising after 8.30 pm, he was told that it was a political decision, not an evidence based one. That's a remarkable admission for a bill that follows the most rigorous evidence-based inquiry this parliament has conducted into gambling harm in a generation.

People with lived experience of gambling harm, researchers and public health experts have had almost no opportunity to be heard on legislation that will shape how this country deals with a predatory industry for years to come. The gambling lobby, by contrast, has had ample access. That imbalance should trouble every member of this House, regardless of which side of politics they sit on.

A short, structured inquiry by this committee after years of inaction could fix that. Five weeks is not a radical ask. It's the minimum required for a public process that actually deserves that name. It would allow submissions from the people the Murphy report was written for—those with lived experience, clinicians, researchers and community organisations who have been locked out of the conversation so far. Let us be honest about what this would actually cost the government in practical terms: nothing.

This House is not scheduled to sit again until 11 August. There is no version of events in which this bill passes both houses in the next five weeks, regardless of what this parliament does today. A referral to a committee does not delay reform by a single sitting day. It simply ensures that, when this bill does come back before the House, it's been tested against evidence rather than against a 45-minute Zoom call and a deadline of the choosing of vested interests.

I understand that a committee may have been established in the other place, and I welcome this news and the work of the opposition, the Greens and Independents to get that done. But I hope, too, that the committee that prepared the original report, the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, can consider this package of reforms. If the government is confident that this bill reflects the Murphy report and the public interest, it should have nothing to fear from a committee process that tests that claim in the open. If it is not confident, that is precisely why this scrutiny is needed. I commend this motion to the House.

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