Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the really important Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 in this place today with a great deal of passion. It's clear that today is a day where reasonable minds will differ about how we should best go about changing the scourge that is gambling and its impacts on our local communities across this country. Before I go into the bill, I want to tell you, my colleagues here and those in the chamber, as well as anybody who might be watching or listening to this, a little story about why I have become so passionate about gambling or rather antigambling.

I was in my early 20s. I was a carpenter by trade. I was on a building site. It was morning smoko, and a new block layer turned up to the site. We were sitting around at smoko. For those of you who don't know, laying blocks is incredibly hard yakka. It's not laying bricks; it's laying blocks. A block probably weighs four or five times the weight of a brick. It's hard, physically demanding work. This gentleman would have been in his late 60s or early 70s—most definitely the oldest block layer I've ever seen in my working life.

At smoko, I got talking with this gentleman. I said: 'Mate, do you mind if I ask why you're here? What are you doing laying blocks at your age?' And he said: 'I'll tell you. My wife has a gambling problem, and we lost our house. We lost all our savings. I was retired, and I had to go back to work.' Here's old mate in, I estimate, his late 60s or early 70s busting his guts laying blocks. That had a profound impact on me as a young man about the scourge that is gambling in this country.

Around $36 billion is lost by Australian gamblers in this country. To put that into perspective, that's $36,000 million each and every year—not gambled, lost. We are the world's worst gamblers in every respect. To put it another way, that same $36,000 million would build six tertiary hospitals in this country each and every single year—blown, gone, never to be seen again, paid to some foreign gambling company who does not give a damn about Australians or Australian families. Madam Deputy Speaker, just think what that money could do for your communities if that money was invested in rural Indigenous health, for example—$36 billion.

I was only a young fella. I went home that night, and I hope mum won't mind me saying this. But mum had shares in a publicly listed gambling company, and I said: 'Mum, you've got to sell these shares. This is terrible. Lives are being impacted by this stuff, by these companies that just don't care.' I'm pleased to say I was successful in my advocacy. She did.

I'm not standing here today to advocate for a total ban on gambling. If adults want to gamble, I guess that's a matter for them. But what I would say to them is: 'Next time you go to have a punt—can you afford to lose this money? Are your kids well fed? Are they appropriately clothed? Are their medical needs met? What else could you be spending the money that you're about to blow on? You will blow it because the house always wins. What else could you be spending your money on?' I'm not here to tell you how to spend your money. It's a matter for you if you're an adult. But what does concern me is that this becomes a societal problem when we know without a shadow of a doubt that there are links between problem gamblers and domestic violence. Marriage breakdowns—that's when a person's individual problem becomes our collective problem; substance abuse—the list goes on.

I want to acknowledge the great work that our shadow minister, Sarah Henderson, who has put in the really hard yards. I want to acknowledge my colleague Simon Kennedy—I can't remember his seat; someone help me out.

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