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

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

A bit of fun with mates, fleeting enjoyment, inducements, 'free bets', hidden addiction, guilt and shame, financial distress, poor mental and physical health, drug and alcohol abuse, relationship breakdown, mortgage default, homelessness, childhood poverty, family violence, elder abuse, criminal activity, suicide: these are the products of the gambling industry.

This is what they are selling. And many Australians are buying.

The big sporting codes are complicit and dependant on the cut they get from every bet laid, their sponsorships from gambling companies and additional payments linked to the amounts gambled.

The broadcasting and advertising companies are bringing in the cash.

The government accepts political donations, as does the opposition.

And the regulation is patently inadequate to manage the risks.

It's been a year since, on 28 June 2023, the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs handed down its You win some, you lose more report into online gambling and its impacts on those experiencing gambling harm.

The committee, chaired by the courageous MP the late Peta Murphy, recognised the harm being done by online gambling and gambling advertising to our children, to our young people and to those experiencing gambling addiction.

In that report, they said, 'Australians demand an end to saturation advertising of gambling products', and that is absolutely true.

The committee recommended the phasing out of gambling advertisement over three years with a comprehensive ban that 'leaves no room for circumvention' to halt what they call the 'inescapable torrent' of gambling advertising on all media.

I had hoped against hope for a strong and decisive government that would take this report and action the recommendations, so presumably did the seven in 10 Australians who want to see better regulation and support and a ban on gambling advertising. They are rightly concerned the industry is grooming children and young people through partnerships with sport, in particular.

But, in the intervening 12 months, there has been very little conversation and very, very little action.

Consulting the vested interests is like consulting the fox regarding its access to the henhouse.

And we cannot pretend they are at arm's length. Gambling companies have funnelled hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in donations to the major parties at the federal level over the past decades or so of regulatory neglect.

The situation is only growing worse, and that is what deeply concerns me.

Roy Morgan research conducted in the 12 months to March this year, reported by the Alliance for Gambling Reform, shows the number of people betting on sports has more than doubled in the last five years.

Worryingly, almost a million Australians—to be accurate, 881,000—who sports bet are now considered 'problem' or moderate-risk gamblers, and that's according to the Problem Gambling Severity Index.

I do have a problem with the terms 'problem gamblers' and 'problem gambling'. The problem here is the harmful product, not the person, and this is a public health issue.

More than one-third of all spending on sports betting is coming from people experiencing gambling harm, even though so-called 'problem gamblers' represent only 10 per cent of the player base.

For some sports betting companies, people experiencing gambling harm make up almost 20 per cent of their entire customer base.

These companies are literally playing them to extinction.

This is why I am reintroducing my private members bill to ban all advertising of online gambling.

This has gone too far. The situation is dire. Regulations are lax, yet the government are doing very little to police this industry. The government have allowed, during their time in government, this industry to continue to flourish.

The minister's lack of action, I think, is embarrassing.

Work on BetStop commenced under the former government. The ban on the use of credit cards for online wagering was a proposal I first brought into this House as a private member's bill. And we have seen one insipid set of messaging replaced with another.

We are harming our young people by our lack of action in this place.

This is the tobacco advertising equivalent of our generation. Now, a previous generation of members of parliament had the courage and foresight to ban cigarette advertising, and we must and should do the same with gambling advertising. We just need a spine and we need to stand up to the big money.

The time for action on gambling advertising is now. It is today. And I urge members in this House to bring this to a debate. Let us take the moral high ground for once in this place.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. Australians spend more than anyone else in the world on legal forms of gambling. Almost half of Australian adults who do gamble are at risk of or are already experiencing gambling harm, according to research conducted by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare—in other words, financial hardship and psychological distress, relationship breakdown and sometimes resorting to crime and even suicide. That we allow gambling companies to actively encourage gambling addiction is, quite simply, unconscionable.

The link between gambling advertising and risky gambling behaviour is no secret. These advertisements seek to normalise gambling and to foster a culture among Australians, particularly younger Australians, of continuous betting. The Australian Institute of Family Studies found the link between gambling advertising is not only strong but strongest amongst our young people. Moreover, one in five young women and one in seven young men began gambling because of an advertisement. Worse still, 40 per cent of those already at risk of gambling related harm gamble impulsively after seeing or hearing promotional material. No wonder recent research shows that gambling addicts make up 20 per cent of some sports betting companies' entire company base. Surely this is unacceptable. Surely it must end. I'm constantly told by constituents that they are sick to death of the incessant gambling advertising campaigns, especially in recent years, when there has been a surge of exposure to gambling marketing, advertising and sponsorships. Indeed, the Australian Communications and Media Authority reports that more than a million ads bombarded Australians between 2022 and 2023 alone, which genuinely is an onslaught of harmful messaging that can no longer be ignored.

Behind these statistics are real people, like Mark Kempster, a constituent and recovering gambling addict who has lost around $100,000. Despite repeatedly pleading with gambling companies not to contact him and being on an exclusion list, Mark still found himself receiving emails offering him bonuses to open new accounts. In the words of Mark himself, 'These types of unsolicited advances can ruin people's lives,' and he's right. They did their best to try and ruin his. And then there's Gavin Fineff, the formal financial adviser who gambled and lost more than $8 million of his clients' money with the willing assistance of Tabcorp, Ladbrokes and BetEasy. Yes, Gavin understands he did the wrong thing and is now in jail. But he's not the only one to blame, because the predatory practices of the gambling companies clearly facilitated and encouraged Gavin's gambling addiction, offering him VIP status, bonus bets and even tickets to big sporting events.

The government cannot allow this madness to continue. When the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, chaired by the late Peta Murphy, published their report on online gambling harm last year, they made 31 recommendations, including banning gambling advertising. So it's entirely unacceptable that an entire year has passed, almost to the day, and the government still hasn't responded to the report or enacted any meaningful reforms to combat gambling advertising. But I suppose that's not inconsistent with the report released by the Centre for Public Integrity last year, which showed that $24 million in donations have flowed to Labor and the coalition from the gambling industry over the past two decades. And let's not forget the $19,000 or so that Sportsbet donated to the then shadow communications minister, now the communications minister, in the lead-up to the 2022 election.

It's way beyond time the government stopped kowtowing to the gambling industry, as well as the big media companies and sporting codes, and instead focused on protecting Australians from such predatory industries. The voice of the community is loud and clear on this issue, and the government needs to start listening. There is simply no place for gambling advertising in the Australian media, and it's way beyond time it was banned. The member for Mayo's bill would do just that, and I'm delighted to support and second it for the second time due to continuing inaction of governments.

Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Social Services) | Link to this | Hansard source

on indulgence—I'd like to thank the member for Mayo for bringing this motion forward. I was the deputy chair on the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs with the former member for Dunkley. It was a bipartisan committee. We all came to the same conclusion that gambling advertising should be banned on live TV and on social media. I urge the government to respond to our recommendations. It has been a year. It's time to do something about it. Thank you again to the member for Mayo.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

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