Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move the following motion:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) gambling advertising causes significant health and financial harm to more than 3 million Australians every year;

(b) the Government's exposure draft of the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 was released for limited consultation only, including broadcasters and sporting codes with no public consultation process open to the millions of Australians who are directly affected by gambling harm and with the consultation period too brief to allow meaningful scrutiny; and

(c) open letters from the crossbench as well as the Liberal Party, including from former Prime Minister the Hon John Howard OM AC and former Premier of Victoria the Hon Jeff Kennett AC, have recognised that the Government's proposed reforms to regulation of gambling do not go far enough;

(2) recognises the importance of transparent consultation on significant legislative reforms; and

(3) calls on the Government to undertake public consultation so that Australians affected by the legislation can engage with genuine co-design on the bill before its introduction.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the member for Kooyong from moving the following motion:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) gambling advertising causes significant health and financial harm to more than 3 million Australians every year;

(b) the Government's exposure draft of the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 was released for limited consultation only, including broadcasters and sporting codes with no public consultation process open to the millions of Australians who are directly affected by gambling harm and with the consultation period too brief to allow meaningful scrutiny; and

(c) open letters from the crossbench as well as the Liberal Party, including from former Prime Minister the Hon John Howard OM AC and former Premier of Victoria the Hon Jeff Kennett AC, have recognised that the Government's proposed reforms to regulation of gambling do not go far enough;

(2) recognises the importance of transparent consultation on significant legislative reforms; and

(3) calls on the Government to undertake public consultation so that Australians affected by the legislation can engage with genuine co-design on the bill before its introduction.

We urgently need to suspend standing orders to debate this motion. We need to do that because, while the Australian public has been forced to accept harmful and inexcusable delays to gambling reform, it should not also be expected to accept opaque law making and inadequate public and expert consultation. Consultation is not an obstacle to good lawmaking; it's how good lawmaking happens. If the government is confident in its policy choices on gambling advertising, it should have nothing to fear from consultation with the experts and with the public. If this legislation strikes the right balance and will generally protect Australians from gambling harm while providing industry certainty for the gambling industry, for broadcasters and for sporting codes, the government should be making that case publicly and transparently, but, if there are flaws, unintended consequences or missed opportunities, we should work to identify them before the bill is introduced, not after it's passed this parliament. This motion seeks to improve much-needed reform to gambling advertising. It seeks to ensure that Australians who live with gambling harm; families who have lost loved ones; community organisations who are working on the front line; and researchers, advocates and ordinary citizens have the same opportunity to engage with this legislation as the broadcasters and the sporting codes have had.

More than three years ago, something very rare happened in this place. There was multipartisan, cross-party, unequivocal consensus. That happened when a federal parliamentary inquiry into online gambling harm reached consensus on all 31 of the recommendations in the You win some, you lose more Murphy report. They were 31 recommendations agreed to by all members of the committee, across party lines. I don't have to remind the House—but I will—that that inquiry was led by the late Peta Murphy, a Labor MP who devoted enormous energy and some of her final months to this important cause. With one voice, the committee told this parliament that the harms caused by gambling were real, that the evidence was clear and that the time to act was now. That was more than a thousand days ago—a thousand days of harm, a thousand days of inaction.

After years of campaigning from the crossbench and the opposition, the Prime Minister decided to take out the trash on the government's gambling reform right before the Easter long weekend as journalists were heading out the door and as the public headed out on a well-earned break. That was a strategic play from the Prime Minister. He wanted to minimise media coverage and he wanted to avoid public scrutiny and accountability. Then, weeks later, while all the journalists and every MP in Canberra were cordoned off in the budget lock up, the Prime Minister tabled his government's formal response to the Murphy review. He did that after question time, buried in 18 other government responses to overdue reports. That government response is nine pages long—nine pages in response to a 197-page review. That's 100 days for every page of the government's inadequate response.

I was glad to see an exposure draft of this legislation released before it came to parliament. Exposure drafts are important. They allow scrutiny. They allow experts and affected communities to identify problems with legislation before a bill gets locked in. But the government didn't open up that exposure draft to public consultation. The government conducted targeted consultations only with affected stakeholders, including broadcasters and sports codes. What about the over three million Australians who experience gambling related harm every year? Was this process open to the parents whose children can still see three gambling ads every hour on a single TV channel under this legislation? What about those people who are still receiving inducements under this legislation? Will they get their say? The answer is no. The people who live with gambling harm every day were not given a genuine opportunity to engage with this legislation. There are the parents who come to electorate offices like ours who tell us that their children are addicted to gambling, that gambling is an acute mental health concern for their kids. They don't get a chance to contribute. The health experts who've come out this morning—Mike Daube from Curtin University, Sam Thomas from Deakin—were given three days notice and a 45-minute Zoom briefing to scrutinise the detail of this legislation. They've called it what it is: a charade.

Australia has one of the highest rates of gambling harm in the developed world. Australian families lose their savings. Relationships break down. People lose their homes, lose their jobs and, in some tragic cases, lose their lives. The government has recognised these harms. The Peta Murphy led inquiry recognised those harms. The parliament again and again recognises these harms, and that's why process matters. The government can't tell Australians that gambling reform is too important to ignore and that we have to rush it through but it's not important enough to consult on.

This motion asks for something very modest. It simply asks that, before this bill is put to the parliament, all Australians are given the same opportunity that stakeholders have been given behind closed doors, and that is the chance to read the legislation, the chance to consider it and the chance to provide feedback. If the government genuinely believes that this legislation is sound, then public consultation should strengthen its case. It should solidify its social licence, not weaken it. That's why I'm seeking to suspend standing orders to debate this motion.

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes. I second the motion moved by the member for Kooyong. I sat on that committee, and I heard from people whose lives had been torn apart by an industry that's addictive by design, marketed aggressively and disproportionately harms young people and vulnerable communities. Our report made 31 recommendations, and its central finding was unambiguous. We need a comprehensive ban on gambling advertising phased in over time.

It took the government nearly three years to respond, and that response has been so disappointing. It addresses just a few of those 31 recommendations. This is not a phase-out of ads for online gambling. It's more Swiss cheese. Partial bans simply don't work. The evidence is clear on that. We will have three gambling ads per hour on TV and unlimited gambling ads after the magic time of 8.30, when anyone under 18 apparently trots off to bed. In the 45-minute consultation, which I'll get to, when asked about the evidence to back up unlimited ads after 8.30 pm, stakeholders were told that it was a political decision. Our kids will still be able to name all the betting companies. They'll still know what a multi is before they hit high school, and they will still think that if you know a lot about sport, then gambling is for you.

The so-called triple lock for online ads actually means unlimited online ads if you're watching through an adult account as long as, hidden somewhere on each digital platform, there's technically an opt-out function there. The only evidence we have about whether an opt-out function works is from SBS, which has had an opt-out function for gambling ads for some years now. Zero point one per cent of subscribers have taken up that option despite numerous surveys showing three-quarters of Australians want to see a phase out of gambling ads. So gambling companies are laughing all the way to the bank. Why does the gambling lobby fight so hard to keep gambling ads in front of our children? Because it works. We saw the tobacco industry try all the same tactics as the gambling industry, but then we were willing to put the public interest ahead of the money.

The government knows its response is disappointing, which is why it was announced on Easter Thursday, and details of the reform package were released during the budget lock up, when all the political journalists are literally locked in a room with lots of shiny stories—probably the few hours in the whole year when media attention is least likely. I can only imagine what they'll save up for budget lock up next year. The government's presenting this reform as 'a balance'. But just to be clear, the PM means a balance between the public interest and vested interests. It just happens to contain exactly what the chief gambling industry lobbyist proposed six months ago—three ads per hour. This is not a balance. It's spineless. It's weak caving to the money and the power, and it deserves scrutiny. The government has decided that, even if people don't like gambling ads, the issue probably won't change the way voters vote. That says so much about what's wrong with politics today. Policy decisions are driven by elections and vested interests, not by what's right for the country.

With such a huge gap between what the committee recommended and what the government's proposing, surely Australians have the right to know why. But the government wants as little attention on this as possible so they can tick the box on delivering gambling reform and move on. It's simply not acceptable. After taking nearly three years to respond, the government gave half a dozen people representing the three million Australians negatively affected by this industry a 45-minute Zoom call and a couple of days to make some submissions on the exposure draft. That's what's euphemistically called a targeted consultation. This was a charade. Given the scale of harm and the number of people whose lives have been torn apart by gambling and its incessant promotion, this bill deserves a public consultation process. Where's the evidence to back up any of its half-measures? Without a public consultation process, how can the government claim to be acting in the public interest?

Good process really matters. This bill deserves a public consultation so all Australians can have an opportunity to tell the government what they think about the reform that it's putting forward. We need that public consultation process, which will inevitably surface the many, many ways in which this bill could be improved. They are some of the reasons that this needs to be referred to a proper inquiry with a proper public consultation process, and I commend the motion to the House.

Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

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

The question is that the debate be adjourned.