Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) | Hansard source

I'd make the point that I have a right to be heard, and this constant heckling is not adding to the quality of this debate.

We've all met with these people. Surely, we all understand we have to do whatever we can to put an end to this, or to at least reduce it and we were given that blueprint in the Murphy report. Surely, we should have said, 'Hurrah, this is great. This is the blueprint. This is what we'll implement. The government and the opposition and the crossbench, we will all stare down the gambling companies. We will stare down the media companies. We'll stare down the major sporting codes who profit from gambling.' This was the opportunity for this parliament, all of us, to show real integrity. But at the last minute we've baulked and that's really, really sad.

Probably because I'm quite outspoken about gambling reform, I've become quite a lightning rod for people to tell me their stories, like the family where mum had been gambling, losing all of the housekeeping money and keeping it secret from dad. She was keeping secret even the fact that time and time again she was put on repayment plans by Aurora Energy for the power bill, and eventually Aurora had to cut the power off. There was a family—mum, dad and a couple of really young kids—living in a house in Hobart with no electricity, no lights, no heating, no hot water. I don't know what became of that family but that's not an unusual story. That's the human side of this. Gavin Fineff, a former financial adviser, is in prison in New South Wales for stealing millions of dollars from his clients. Now, I don't in any way justify that theft. That was a serious crime. Gavin, to his credit, acknowledges it's a serious crime and he has to do his time. But think of the effect on Gavin. He had an addiction. He couldn't help himself. Think of the effect on all of his clients who lost millions of dollars. I mean, again, this is the human face of this.

I will not support this bill. Now, I know there's a line of thinking that some reform is better than no reform, and, to a degree, that's right. To a degree, I would agree that sometimes you just have to suck it up, accept that that's the best you're going to get and not support it. I notice a number of government speakers said 'this is just the start'. I don't believe them. I think what's going to happen now is the government's going to say 'the job's done', the opposition's going to say 'the job's done' and this will be the end of any sort of meaningful reform—or any reform—for years and years and years, because they will keep saying 'the job's done', and that's going to mean that all of the main parts of the job will not be addressed. We won't get this ban on these pesky ads. We won't get this national regulator to do a much better job than this nonsense regulator in the Northern Territory that we've got at the moment. We're still going to have inducements. I'll be delighted if I'm proven wrong. I'll be thrilled if I'm proven wrong and in the rest of this parliament or maybe the next parliament there is strong and effective reform. But I just don't think it's going to happen.

I'm not going to support these bills, and I'm going to keep agitating as loudly as I can. The government and the opposition are yet to get the job done; that's the fact of the matter. I just hope that, over the coming years, the leadership of both sides understand the human imperative of this and the financial imperative. And, heavens, the political benefit to them—this was a chance for the government or the opposition to stare down these powerful interests and show real character. They would have benefited at the next election, I reckon—but not now. The only reason both sides will get away with it is they're in cahoots. They're in lockstep, and they agree that very limited reform is all that the community is going to get.

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