Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Today I introduce the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Credit Card Ban and Acknowledgement of Losses) Bill 2023.

Last week Parliamentary Friends of Gambling Harm Reductionheard from Harry, a 25-year-old carpenter severely impacted by gambling harm during the last seven years.

Harry told us he has lost $400,000 to gambling. With the support of family he is getting his life back on track.

He is incredibly brave but he and his family have experienced firsthand the devastation caused by gambling harm.

Now he can't even watch a game of footy with them due to constant bombardment by gambling advertisements. In Harry's words:

I've borrowed money I haven't paid back, I've stolen money and made upstories of things I need to buy to get funds to feed my addiction after spending every cent I earnt from working. I've withdrawn on my loan numerous times. I've had to borrow money to pay back credit cards that I only got to punt with.

Jason manages an addiction support service. He emailed me and said:

Addiction is such a big problem and gambling companies are just like drug dealers. I work with youth and we also need to bring education and I love to see a Levy or system that gambling companies have to give % for education programs. Our young kids and teens need us more than ever before in history.

Good idea, Jason; I'm working on that next. Patrick said:

Hi Rebekha, I'm not in your electorate and I've never written to a member of parliament before. I want to re-affirm something that you already know.

Reform in gambling is essential and I encourage you to keep pushing for as much as possible. My family has suffered the effects of gambling (Father) and I still witness the effects today (Friends). The cyclical nature of this problem is terrifying.

And a gentleman from New South Wales said to me: 'As a kid in the 1950s Dad would pull up outside the Golden Sheaf Hotel on a Saturday morning. He would come out with a lemonade for me and go back inside. Then we would buy meat pies and go back home and listen to the races on the day, a ubiquitous suburban Saturday sound. Sometimes he would get back in the car and not be seen again until evening. He also bought lottery tickets. In those days it was from barbershops. Then there were tips from business acquaintances, people he would play golf with, for company shares. By the age of eight I knew the horses and jockeys, the odds, the state of the track, as well as the price fluctuations on the stock market. My father died when I was 11. He left a wife and a child in a rented flat with no assets—a life insurance salesman without a policy of his own. I fully support any measures you and your colleagues take to eradicate this pernicious curse from our land.'

Per capita we are the world's biggest losers. Those figures are from 2018-19. We lose $25 billion every year. I think, with online gambling, since that time those figures have increased. We can gamble away our home when we're sitting in our home thanks to online gambling and thanks to credit card use. People suffering gambling are four times more likely to be using credit cards to gamble. That is why my bill will ban the use of credit for regulated interactive wagering services. This was a recommendation of the Labor chaired Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services in the last parliament. After hearing ample evidence that the use of credit for online wagering contributes to increasing gambling harm there is no excuse for us to delay.

My bill will stop people spending money they don't have on interactive wagering, like online and telephone betting. It will also require licensed interactive wagering services to share with any customer the total amount they've lost during the current financial year on that service every time they open up the app, and an acknowledgement of those losses from the customer before they are allowed to proceed and make further bets. If one person pauses to reflect on their gambling behaviour based on this information this bill would be worth it.

Importantly, my bill does exclude lotteries and the like, consistent with the parliamentary joint committee's recommendations. The ban on credit will also bring online interactive gambling in line with long-standing restrictions for licensed premises, racetracks and TAB outlets. This is strongly backed by the Alliance for Gambling Reform, whom I would like to thank for their great work in this space. This is just one of several gambling reforms I will be taking to this parliament and pushing for this government to act on. We need to combat to the predatory practises of many gambling companies.

I would like to acknowledge that the efforts from the member for Clark on reducing gambling harm and of my former Centre Alliance colleague Senator Stirling Griff, who introduced a private members' bill to ban the use of credit for online wagering in the last parliament.

I say now to members in this place: now is the time to act. We have way too many young people being caught in this scourge. I asked the Minister for Communications last week when the government will ban the use of credit cards for online gambling. As I said, we have already heard the recommendations from the previous parliamentary joint committee this topic. Why are we waiting any longer? Every day we wait to act is a day where there is another young person like Harry who falls victim to these predatory practices. How many more Australians must experience the devastating gambling harm before we decisively act and we back them instead of backing the gambling companies?

I would like to give my remaining time to the member for Macarthur, who is seconding this bill.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. I thank the member for Mayo and also her colleague the member for Clark for their advocacy as part of the Parliamentary Friends of Gambling Harm Reduction, of which I am a member. I'm pleased to second this bill, because we live in a world of problematic online gambling that is ruining the financial and social stability of our country. This bill aims to lessen the impact of this harm on individuals, their families, their friends and our communities. In my community of Macarthur I certainly see extreme problems caused by online gambling where people are losing businesses, losing their families and losing their livelihoods because of the access to credit cards and their use in online gambling. We must remember that these companies, such as Ladbrokes, Sportsbet et cetera, are highly sophisticated marketers. They spend millions of dollars on marketing. They are experts in this and they are attacking our young people. It is destroying lives and destroying livelihoods.

It's long past time for action. Indeed, I fully support and commend Ministers Rishworth and Rowland for putting in place actions to reduce the harm caused by online gambling. In particular, Minister Rowland has set up, under the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, an inquiry into online gambling, and we look forward to its report. But, as the member for Mayo has mentioned, it's long past time for action. This is something that has occurred over a number of years, and our young people are being assailed day and night, 24 hours a day, by advertising and manipulative behaviour by these online gambling companies. Things like 'bet with a friend', 'bet with your community' and 'bet with mates' are done for a reason. It's very clever marketing and it leads to the destruction of livelihoods, and we must stop it.

I'm very grateful to the member for Mayo for bringing this bill to parliament, but I know that the Albanese government will be taking action against online gambling in the not-too-distant future. We look forward to the committee's report. I commend this bill to the House, and I look forward to further action by the Albanese government.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allocated for this debate has now expired. The debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.