Alison Penfold (Lyne, National Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Bonus bets, deposit matches, betting credits, VIP programs, special offers pushed directly to customers—these aren't simply advertisements saying, 'Here is our product if you would like to use it.' They are designed to get somebody to put another bet on. The Murphy inquiry heard that inducements can make gambling appear less risky while actually encouraging riskier bets and greater expenditure. VIP programs deserve particular scrutiny because they target people who are gambling and often losing very large amounts.

Some of the evidence presented to the current Senate inquiry into this legislation has been deeply disturbing. The inquiry heard allegations of extraordinarily large bonus bets and VIP treatment involving travel, accommodation and tickets and much more serious allegations involving drugs and sex workers in the cultivation of high-value gamblers. The betting companies concerned have strongly denied knowledge of some of those allegations and call for evidence of illegal conduct to be provided to police. That is important to put on the record, but the evidence should still make every parliamentarian ask, 'How did we get to a point where competition for someone's gambling dollar can involve inducements of this scale?'

I believe strongly in personal responsibility, but we also need to understand what addiction does. Addiction can impair the parts of our brain that help control impulses, weigh consequences and make rational decisions. When a betting company sends an inducement to somebody it knows is gambling heavily, we cannot simply wash our hands of it and say, 'Oh well, it's personal responsibility.' The company knows who it is targeting. It has the data, and the inducement is designed to produce another bet. That is partly why we're here today.

I didn't want to rely only on lobbyists, industry groups or commentators to tell me what people think. I went directly to my community—814 people responded to my gambling advertising reform survey. More than 90 per cent supported stronger restrictions, and 71 per cent supported the Murphy review's recommendation for a complete phased ban on gambling advertising and sponsorship, while another 20 per cent supported significant restrictions without a complete ban. When I asked what our highest priority should be, 43 per cent said reducing gambling addiction and harm, and another 38 per cent said protecting children and young people. More than four in five put reducing harm or protecting our kids first, and 245 respondents—almost one in three—said they or somebody in their family have been negatively affected by gambling. Behind all the arguments about advertising models, broadcast revenue and sponsorship are real people, real families and real consequences.

I want to put some of their voices on the parliamentary record. One constituent wrote:

The constant bombardment of gambling ads during family shows and sports is ridiculous and needs to stop. I have an 18-year-old son with multiple friends the same age, who already have gambling addictions. It is really bad.

Another constituent said that—this is really heartbreaking—when their 10-year-old grandchild suggested gambling as a means to make money, they knew that 'gambling advertising is something we need to ban'. Countless respondents revealed personal stories, recounting the physical loss, hardship and grief caused by gambling addiction. They shared stories of financial loss and hardship, of criminal prosecution for fraud committed to support addiction, of the breakdown of relationships, of the breakdown of their family unit and of suicide. For many constituents, the problem and the answer is clear. Kerrie said:

The constant promotion of betting during sporting events, entertainment programs, and across digital platforms normalises gambling as a routine part of everyday life. This repeated exposure can influence children and young people before they are old enough to understand the risks, while also making it more difficult for people experiencing gambling harm to reduce or stop gambling.

Not everybody agreed. Lesley from my electorate told me his mother gambled so much after his father died that she could not afford food or gas for hot water, yet his view remains that people have a choice to gamble and are entitled to live their lives as they wish. I respect that view. Personal responsibility is an important part of my position, but personal responsibility does not mean corporate behaviour should be without limits.

Another message came through repeatedly in my survey: people are sick of the sheer volume of betting advertising during sport. I understand exactly what they mean. You sit down to watch the footy, and it can feel relentless—before the game, during coverage, on the phone, on social media. It's odds, promotions, gambling branding. My particular concern is what that does to children. I don't want Australian kids growing up thinking they need money riding on a game for it to be interesting. I don't want them knowing the odds on a football match before they properly understand what those odds mean. Sport should first and foremost be about playing and enjoying the game.

As often as I can, I watch some young kids I know play rugby league for the Taree City Panthers and the Port Sharks Blues—and a shout-out to Lennox, Buddy and Huxley and to all the players across all of our electorates in hockey, soccer, netball and footy, which are coming to the end of the season. Good luck to you all. I've known these kids all their life. They love their footy. There's good sportsmanship, and some are very good players who I reckon might one day play in the NRL. There's no talk of betting, no gambling ads; it's just good hard-fought junior rugby league. That's what sport should be about. But, when they go home and sit around the television with their siblings, parents, cousins, grandparents and sometimes me, watching the game, giving the opposition some curry and calling out the ref for bad calls, they're getting betting ad after betting ad. The contradiction is stark. Our kids shouldn't have the game they play and love contradicted by the game they watch on the TV.

This bill contains measures that move us forward, but it does not get us all the way there. The government proposes new restrictions on wagering advertising, sporting branding and online advertising, but I remain concerned about whether these measures sufficiently reduce what children actually see. I'm also concerned about an online model that relies heavily on people opting out of gambling advertising. Why should the default be that somebody receives gambling advertising until they tell a platform to stop? Why shouldn't people choose to opt in? And we need to go further on inducements. We cannot focus on the advertisement someone sees during the football while ignoring the personalised offer arriving on the phone of somebody already losing thousands of dollars. That may be where some of the greatest harm is occurring. At the same time, reform has to be practical. Regional broadcasters need revenue. Sporting organisations and community clubs rely on sponsorship, and poorly designed regulation could push gamblers towards illegal offshore operators where consumer protections are even weaker. Those consequences matter.

I also support the different treatment in this legislation for horseracing, harness racing and greyhound racing. That distinction is important. Racing isn't a football or cricket match onto which gambling has been bolted as another product. Wagering has always been intrinsic to racing. People deliberately tuning into racing coverage know what they're watching, and information about fields, form and odds is part of it. Racing is also enormously important to regional Australia. Country racing clubs are part of the fabric of our towns. They bring communities together, attract visitors and support trainers, jockeys, drivers, breeders, stablehands, hospitality workers, volunteers and local businesses. So I support the racing carve-out; there is a real difference between deliberately watching a racing broadcast and a child sitting down with mum and dad to watch the footy or the cricket and being confronted with gambling advertisements.

But the carve-out should not become a back door around sensible protections. Inducements in the targeting of vulnerable gamblers still need strong safeguards. The principle is straightforward: recognise the legitimate place of racing and its importance to regional communities while regulating gambling advertising according to the risk, audience and context. Not every form of gambling, sporting event or audience is the same.

There is nothing inconsistent about supporting personal responsibility while also expecting corporate responsibility. Adults can choose to gamble. Adults can choose not to gamble. But billion-dollar businesses should not have an unlimited right to engineer advertising and inducements designed to make people gamble more. There is a balance to be struck, and the 814 people who responded to my survey have told me very clearly that they don't believe we've struck it yet. I will listen to them, and I'll listen to the evidence. That is why I want meaningful reform. But this bill doesn't get the balance right.

The coalition has a strong record here. In government, we introduced major restrictions on gambling advertising during live sport in 2018, legislated BetStop and prohibited betting companies from offering sign-up inducements. Labor's claim that this bill introduces a ban on gambling advertising during live sport is simply not true. Those restrictions were introduced by the coalition eight years ago. Worse, there are serious deficiencies in this bill. It does not adequately deal with inducements. Indeed, it leaves predatory inducements including VIP contact, gifts, reactivation offers and loss-linked incentives untouched. Furthermore, on its face it could allow up to three gambling advertisements an hour during television watched by children, and its treatment of streamed live sport actually weakens protections that already exist. It removes the online blackout period during live sport and allows unlimited gambling advertising online, including during breaks and live sport—something that has been prohibited to date. You cannot weaken existing protections and call it stronger reform.

The government has had more than three years since the Murphy report to get this right. It hasn't. That is why the coalition cannot support the bill in its current form. But we are negotiating in good faith with the government to fix these deficiencies, and I hope we can. I hope we can achieve, across this parliament, a position we can all support. We don't need to ban gambling. We don't need to tell Australians they cannot have a punt. But we can protect our kids from the relentless saturation of gambling advertising. We can crack down on predatory inducements and put proper guardrails around VIP marketing. We can recognise the different place racing has in Australian life, particularly in regional Australia, and we can strengthen—not weaken—the protections around live sport so that enjoying Australian sport does not come with the expectation that you should also have money riding on the result.

The coalition wants practical, workable reforms that protect vulnerable Australians while respecting the choices of responsible adults. This bill isn't there yet. That is why we cannot support it in its current form and why we will keep working in good faith to fix it.

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Sometimes in this place, the legislation that we debate needs some explanation, about not just the mechanics of what the change to the law is that we're creating but the reason why it's even needed. Some laws don't feel relevant to people as they navigate busy, stressful lives and get kids dinner or chauffeur them to sport or do invoicing for the jobs they did that week or worry about the next rent or mortgage payment, but this is not one of those pieces of legislation. Feedback from my community—mums and dads, grandparents, brothers and sisters, cousins, sons and daughters and friends who love or have lived with someone with a gambling addiction—tells me that the laws we're working on right now in this parliament do not need a preamble of 'why'. What people want to know is: why not yesterday? And it's true; there have been years and years and decades of opportunity for this parliament to change the rules so that there is less exposure to gambling ads by children and teenagers and young men and women and that there are greater restrictions on where any of us see advertising, whose prevalence, proliferation and pervasiveness in my lifetime has created the impression that you're not really enjoying sport without a bet on the game.

Hundreds of people have emailed my office just this year to tell me how concerned they are about the volume of ads they and their families are exposed to. People like Helen and Carole have each shared with me heartbreaking stories, and they are just two names of many. Some of the examples that I've heard are of addiction that has been in the past and has left a scar, but too many of the stories are a weeping sore for people where gambling losses happening right now, right this minute, are causing untold distress. Even as we've had this discussion about gambling advertising, the evidence has shifted the spotlight on yet more things for us to take action on. Inducements is a good example of that. Only last month, the Labor Party national conference—representing branch members around the country who've been among the strongest advocates for gambling reform to reduce the risk of harm—included a commitment to strengthen measures around inducements into the party's platform. What was subsequently exposed in testimony was just how disgusting the array of inducements are that are being used to keep people gambling. We know that inducements are harmful, and, as we work to strengthen this bill, that's an area I would point to.

While I acknowledge the work of Labor rank-and-file members, I want to thank one person in particular, and that's Blue Mountains branch member Paul Gannon, who, with his fellow St Vincent de Paul members, has been among the staunchest advocates for strong action on this matter for many years. They're informed by the stories they hear day in, day out as they, without judgement, provide essential support to vulnerable members of the Blue Mountains community. For me, these are motivations to get this bill right. But there is one other. We know that the momentum for change was initially driven by the inquiry chaired by the late Peta Murphy. When Peta died, I was asked to assume the chair of her committee. By that time, the report was written, and the work had been done. However, as the now member for Dunkley feels, along with so many of the members of that committee that listened to hours and days of testimony about why action was needed, I feel the weight of that responsibility. In fact, the entire Albanese government takes seriously our responsibility to protect Australians, particularly children and young people, from the harms of gambling. That's why we're taking strong action to protect Australians from online gambling harm and why I hope we can ultimately pass a bill that goes further with the support of others in this place.

The Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 implements the announced reforms that are intended to break the connection between wagering and sport, to minimise children's exposure to gambling advertising and to reduce the overall saturation of advertising across the internet, radio and television. The bill also contains provisions to disrupt illegal gambling operations, to strengthen BetStop the National Self-Exclusion Register and to crack down on harmful and emerging online lottery products.

The Albanese government's gambling reforms are about getting the balance right. We want Australians to be in control of what gambling ads they see and where and how they see gambling ads. These changes would ensure that, from 1 January next year, Australians can sit down with their families and cheer on their favourite team without being bombarded by gambling advertising. For our kids, these changes mean that they can grow up with the love of the game without thinking that sports and gambling are the same thing, and I think that is a sentiment that both sides of this House can agree on. Our changes will minimise children's exposure to the harms of wagering advertising. They'll break the link between sports and wagering, and they'll reduce that saturation and targeting of wagering advertising.

Look at the details. Many of these details have escaped people's attention in the noise of the top line. On gambling advertising, this is what we'll do. We'll be banning on TV during all live sport any gambling advertising between specific hours, and we'll establish frequency caps outside of specific hours. We're banning gambling promotion by celebrity athletes and influencers. We know influencers are being used to target kids and younger Australians, especially young men, but that stops with this legislation. We're banning advertising in stadiums and on jerseys, we're banning ads on radio at school drop-off and pick-up times, and we're banning online advertising and looking at the opt-out functions. The online ban applies to any site or platform, including on social media, on news websites, on Spotify and podcasts, on streaming services, on YouTube and on search. It will be up to online platforms to implement these restrictions. If they choose not to, then the rules are really clear. They cannot show gambling ads at any time to anyone.

I think, with a focus on the advertising part of the demands that the community is making to this parliament, there's also a need to explain what the broader reforms of this package are. There are several concrete actions. One is to tackle illegal offshore gambling providers to reduce their impact on gambling harm and ensure that anyone who participates in gambling in Australia is doing so with the safety of Australia's consumer protections. We're also looking to strengthen BetStop, the National Self-Exclusion Register, so that Australians recovering from gambling addiction can easily and reliably opt out of marketing products, including inducements. The broader reforms also address harmful and emerging online gambling products, including banning online keno and foreign matched lotteries—and I'll talk a little bit more about these in a moment—and crack down on fake lotteries operating under the pretence of trade promotion.

Let's look at these individual measures. We know BetStop is an essential service that is actively improving the lives of Australians every day. Since its launch in 2023, it has supported 61,000 Australians to exclude themselves from gambling. Many have spoken publicly about the positive impact on their life, but it can be even stronger and more effective. The statutory review of BetStop found only one in four people are aware that BetStop exists, and among people who placed a bet in the last 12 months it was still only one in three. We need to do better. So that every Australian knows about this service, we will be running a national campaign to raise awareness of BetStop, and I think there are further ways we can utilise and strengthen the great work that BetStop does.

Online keno—I have started really noticing these pocket pokies—has a rapid-draw format, a high frequency of play and high spending limits. They have significant capacity to cause harm, with people able to lose up to $1,000 every three minutes. That's why we're going to ban online keno.

The government is protecting small businesses, local news agencies and charities who legally sell lottery products. We're protecting them from this new range of emerging harmful lottery products. Foreign matched lotteries allow Australians to buy tickets in offshore lotteries when the law would otherwise prohibit them from doing so. They operate through loopholes that allow them to act as a middleman, buying a ticket in the offshore lottery on someone's behalf, on the claim that they'll deliver the winnings to them if they do win. But there's no guarantee that the offshore lottery will honour the ticket, especially because in many jurisdictions authorities are acting to explicitly exclude these sorts of purchases. In addition, by offering the hope of large offshore winnings, these companies are benefiting from lottery purchases that may have otherwise gone to Australian lotteries, who ensure a substantial portion of each dollar spent goes directly towards supporting essential community services and small business owners. So we're taking action on those foreign matched lotteries.

On fake trade promotion lotteries, we are also closing regulatory gaps that allow some operators to offer lottery-style products under the guise of trade promotions and rewards clubs. Unlike licensed lottery providers, these models are not subject to consumer protections and can undermine legitimate charity fundraising and genuine business loyalty programs. The rules that exist for trade promotion lotteries are meant to support genuine companies focused on promoting actual products, but some operators are just using this as a loophole without any link to the actual product. This is having a profound effect on Australian charities. They estimate that these fake lotteries diverted more than $60 million from the charity sector in 2024. Closing this loophole will protect genuine Australian lotteries, including charities.

These measures that we are legislating build on the significant online gambling harm reduction initiatives that the Albanese government has already delivered. These include banning the use of credit cards for online wagering. Obviously, we've already launched BetStop, and we're really strengthening that National Self-Exclusion Register. These measures build on the legislation that restricts gambling companies from accessing R&D grants, research and development grants, and on the other harm reduction measures from the National Consumer Protection Framework for Online Wagering.

Our reforms are the most significant of any Australian government in history. I think they can go further, and with the support of those opposite we will be able to strengthen them prior to this proposed legislation finally passing this parliament. We have continued and always will continue to work closely with people experiencing harm from gambling; with their advocates, who have spent many hours in this building; and with affected stakeholders as we implement these significant reforms. We'll also continue to work with free-to-air television networks, streaming platforms and sporting clubs to ensure we get the balance right so that Australians can still enjoy and access the sport that they love. Together we can break the connection between sport and gambling. We can do it.

We'll continue negotiating as this bill proceeds through the parliament, and I thank those opposite for their constructive negotiations. But, more than anything, I thank those who have shared stories. Very rarely have they been positive stories. They've been hard stories to hear: stories of distress, of financial loss, of mental health consequences, of broken marriages and of families torn apart. If we can get this right and break the nexus between sport and gambling advertising, we'll be setting the next generation up to avoid some of those horrific consequences.

Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 and a related bill. The proliferation of gambling advertising across Australia has harmed Australians, their families and their children for far too long. Today I want to start by sharing what we know from experts and what the community cares about, because we should be looking through those lenses to develop the right legislation for this country.

Australians lead the world in many ways, which is something I'm incredibly proud of—in our discoveries, in our research, in our businesses and in our sports. Anyone could have watched the Commonwealth Games recently and been astounded by Australia's medal tally. But there's another area where we lead the way, and that's in gambling. We lead the way in problem gambling, in the losses of Australians to gambling in this country—particularly sports betting, which is growing. Last year our losses reached $31.5 billion. That's around $1,600 per adult lost in Australia. We are the world's leading gamblers. Now, remember who's losing the most; it is the most vulnerable Australians. This isn't a shrinking problem.

Let's specifically talk about sports betting because this is largely what this legislation is about. Sports betting is growing in this country. The losses are growing in this country, and that's exactly what the industry wants. The Australian sports betting industry reached around $8.3 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow at around 22 per cent annually to 2035, reaching nearly $61 billion. The HILDA survey found that there was a 60 per cent increase from 2015 to 2022 in men betting on sports, from six per cent to nine per cent. They are growing in their betting, they are growing in their sports betting and they are losing more on a monthly basis. Their average bets are going from around $88 a month to around $110 a month. That is growth in the sports betting industry, and that's exactly what the gambling companies want.

I'm not anti gambling or against people having a gamble, but I can recognise this as the problem that it is in this country. And I think that we need to recognise and make a choice. Do we want to continue to lead the world as the biggest problem gamblers, or do we want to take significant action, particularly in an area which is growing and which we know is targeting our young people the most? That is the question in front of the House today.

I've asked my community what they think. They don't want to see this. We did a survey, just recently, of around 350 people in Wentworth, and nearly half told us about someone who had been negatively affected by the proliferation of gambling advertising. People are worried about it, and they do not believe that this government gets it. Ninety-seven per cent said that it was important or very important that the government take action to limit gambling advertising, but 86 per cent didn't have confidence that this government would. Now why is that? It's because the government took a thousand days to respond to its own committee report that it put forward.

The government talks a big job of rebuilding trust. That's what the government and what, particularly, the Prime Minister speak on. But people do not trust the government to make decisions on gambling in their interests; they believe decisions are being made in vested interests. And that's because this legislation is out of step with community action. Four out of five Australians want a complete ban on gambling advertising, but the government has not gone down that route, saying, 'We're trying to find the balance.' It would be much better to listen to the Australian people here.

We talk about problem gambling and we talk about people's experience. But this comes down to individuals. I want to talk about a couple of people I've met in discussions about gambling, because people come up on the street to tell me about their views on this. I met a woman in Kings Cross. She told me about her son. She told me about how she'd had to go back to work—she was working as a cleaner—to support her son who's struggling as a problem gambler. He's got mental health issues, but he's trying to do the right thing. He's self-excluded from the local pubs and clubs because of the pokies. He said to his mum: 'I'm trying to listen to a podcast, or something on Spotify, and I feel the gambling companies are chasing me. I can hear their ads all over the place.' This is what's going on. This is exactly the sort of person who is trying to fight the gambling and trying to do everything he can. But the government, with this bill, is not backing him up in the way that it should. We all know that the impact goes beyond the financial loss. That inquiry chaired by the late Peta Murphy and this recent Senate inquiry shared shocking experiences facing and struggling with gambling harm. The question, again, in front of this House is: should we, as a country, do what the community ask us to do to take action here? Should we, as a country, do what the experts suggest that we should do, or should we do something else that some of the vested interests and the lobbyists think that we should do for gambling harm?

We know that gambling harm can lead to criminal behaviour, housing insecurity, homelessness and family violence. We've heard stories of loneliness, of stealing from one's own parents, of anxiety, depression, anger and enormous shame, and we have heard stories of suicide. Peta Murphy and her committee laid out a clear roadmap in the You win some, you lose more report: 31 recommendations, backed by evidence from experts and those with lived experience calling for a total ban on online gambling advertising, a national regulator and a ban on inducements, and this bill goes halfway. That roadmap was backed by Relationships Australia, Wesley Mission, the Grattan Institute, the Alliance for Gambling Reform, St Vincent de Paul, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and public experts like Professor Samantha Thomas.

It's against that roadmap that I measure this bill. I look at this bill, and I want to be fair. It's how I try and approach legislation in this House. There are good things in this legislation, and I support it. I am proud that I, others on the crossbench and many people from the community have been pressuring the government for years to act on the Peta Murphy report and start to take action, but we also need to be honest where this bill falls short.

What does this bill do? The bill bans gambling advertising on free-to-air TV, radio and online content services during the live coverage of sports events, along with a ban on wagering ads within sports stadiums and on player uniforms. Those are good things. But there is a specific carve-out on ads during sports: this only applies between 6 am and 8.30 pm. After those times and overnight, you can still have those gambling ads. It's part of what is in this bill.

Outside of live sport, free-to-air providers are restricted to a maximum of three gambling ads per hour between 6 pm and 8.30 pm. But, post 8.30 pm, when kids are still awake and watching stuff—let alone adults living with gambling problems—stations are free to show as many ads as they would like. I've got to say: three an hour outside of live sport is still a lot. That is still normalising the culture of gambling in this country which is exactly what these gambling companies want.

We have seen partial bans before. We've actually seen partial bans in relation to gambling. What you end up with is greater saturation at other times of the day. We know it doesn't work; I don't know why this bill is contemplating it. There's a ban on celebrity, influencer and athlete endorsements of gambling sites and apps. This is backed by the community, with Ad Standards research finding 50 to 55 per cent of Australians are the most concerned about influencer marketing. Again, I think that's a good element of this bill, and there's also a ban on radio ads during school pick-up and school drop-off. But, again, if this bill was really trying to protect kids, they'd recognise that kids listen to radio more than just during school pick-up and drop-off.

If you're serious about this, go the whole hog because the normalisation of gambling in this country is increasing, and that's deliberate. I remember one of my constituents saying, 'My seven-year-old has just asked me, "What is a same-game multi?"' Why on earth does a seven-year-old have that question? It's because it is pervasive, and it is everywhere. As a parent, if you're trying to protect your kids, it is very difficult.

At a recent school forum I had where I gathered year 10 students together, I talked to and asked them about this. One of them said, 'The gambling ads are the funniest ads on TV.' I will say there are some that are very funny, but that's the problem: they're really good because they've got the cash behind them to make them as creative and enticing as possible. They're making it about socialising; they're telling people that, if you want to be part of the gang, you gamble with your friends. That's the culture they're trying to make. What they are taking—and this is what a year 10 student said—is that Australians are really proud of our sports. We really care about sports, we love our teams, and we back them. The gambling companies and the sporting codes are making gambling and sporting the same thing. They're just trying to tie them together. This is the oldest trick in the book—take something that everybody loves and try and associate your brands with it. That's what gambling's done to sport, and it's absolutely effective.

Online, the government is saying: 'Look, we're trying to restrict some of this. We've got this triple lock in place.' A lot of people are watching sport these days. Online, you can only be shown ads if you're over 18, logged in and you haven't opted out. But it places enormous onus on the individual to login to every platform and hunt down the settings, which we know people don't find very easy, and to log themselves out. In fact, a football match on free-to-air TV won't have the gambling ads, while the same match streamed on TV can carry unlimited gambling ads at every quarter time or half-time break unless the viewer has actively sought to close these off.

SBS actually has this function already—good on SBS—except only 0.1 per cent of users have been using this, because, again, you don't always get to choose who's setting the settings. It's something that you are asking people to opt out of, and some people don't have the wherewithal. We're not making it easy for people to avoid these ads. We're saying that the onus is on you.

I support elements of the bill: the prohibition of the promotion of odds, the strengthening of BetStop, the protections it provides to those who choose to self-exclude and the stronger regulation of illegal gambling services. Those are useful changes. I want to be clear because there is some confusion here. I think there are some people in the parliament who have said, 'We don't want to ban gambling.' I'm not trying to ban gambling either. I never have. I think that is up to people to choose, but I also think that we should recognise that the advertising that we currently have is harming our community and is harming our kids. We can do that piece of removing those advertisements. Then, if people want to keep on gambling, it's up to them. Those are the choices we could make as a community, and the government, at the moment, is choosing not to.

Beyond advertising, two of Peta Murphy's central recommendations are simply missing from this bill. There is no national regulator and no ban on predatory inducements. Inducements really matter. The government says, 'We really care about problem gambling.' I heard the PM say recently that they're trying to protect kids and protect people who are really problem-gambling. Well, if you cared about problem gambling, the first thing you would do is ban inducements, but this is what the government hasn't chosen to do. They may or may not be being talked into doing this by the coalition, but it's not, as far as we can tell, a full ban.

That is a real problem. Why is the government so reluctant to lead in this area? Why is the government so reluctant to listen to the community in this area? I do not know. I will be putting forward amendments on inducements. I urge every government member and every opposition member who has said they care about inducements and see that as a real problem to stand alongside me and vote for a complete ban on inducements. It's simple. It's what the Murphy report recommended. It's what the experts recommend. It's one of the most predatory aspects of gambling reform. Please vote with me if you say that you really care about this. This is how you can turn your care into action.

Before I end this speech, I want to talk about the human cost. We're talking about gambling in the abstract, but this is about the impact it has on people. People's fathers, people's sons, someone's sister—lying awake at 2 am refreshing an app. Each clause that we debate here has an impact on people's lives. The impact of this is really serious. I was speaking to one group of people today who were saying that, in their school, an estimated 25 per cent of young people are gambling. Another person was telling me about family violence and some of the challenges of this single dad who is too ashamed to see his kids because he's betting his entire wage online. These are some of the issues that people are facing in our country. We've got to give people the choice to gamble or not, but we don't have to rub it in their faces time-in and time-out, and this is what this bill could do.

Libby Coker (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

We all have stories of someone whose gambling addiction has led to trauma, life savings lost or families torn apart. And now, with the advent of social media and smartphones and with an increase in TV advertising for sports betting, gambling is more accessible than ever. It is increasingly in your face. Children are seeing it on the TVs in their lounge rooms and they are hearing it on the radio at school pick-up. Young men are seeing it on their phones constantly. Whether you're watching arch rivals Geelong and Hawthorn in an epic battle or listening to the game on the radio, you'd be hard pressed to avoid hearing or seeing a gambling ad. It may be a former player plugging a multi or simply the odds flashing up on the screen.

This form of gambling, advertising is all pervasive and is now part of our sporting culture, but it has real and potentially damaging impacts on children, families and everyday Australians. It's time for change. That's what my communities have increasingly been saying to me, and in turn I, along with many of my parliamentary colleagues, have pushed for more action.

This bill is the result of much advocacy and consultation. It introduces strong, robust laws that will better protect Australians from the impact of gambling addiction while ensuring people can still responsibly have a punt. These laws are designed to break the connection between wagering and sport, to minimise children's exposure to the harm of wagering advertising and to reduce the saturation and targeting of wagering advertising.

The world has changed. Gambling used to require a deliberate decision to walk into a TAB, buy a ticket or place a bet. Today, a betting account can sit on the same phone as a person's banking app, social media messages and news. The bookmaker's in your pocket. The advertisement can follow you around. The odds can appear during the game, before the game and after the game, and the boundary between watching sport and participating in gambling has become increasingly blurred. When gambling becomes part of the ordinary language of sport, we risk teaching the next generation that betting is simply part of being a sports fan. That is not a lesson I want Australian children to learn, and it is not a lesson parents should have to fight against every time they sit down to watch their favourite sport.

The evidence heard by the parliamentary inquiry chaired by my former colleague the late member for Dunkley, Peta Murphy, was very clear on this point. Peta chaired the House Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs inquiry into online gambling and its impact on people experiencing gambling harm. The committee heard evidence about the normalisation of gambling through advertising in sport, the exposure of children and young people and the increasingly sophisticated ways gambling companies market their products. It made 31 recommendations. Its report, You win some, you lose more, made a point that remains incredibly powerful: Australians should be able to enjoy sport for the sport itself.

Peta and the committee listened to people who had experienced gambling harm, and to experts, industry and sporting organisations, and put forward a serious reform agenda. This bill acts on that work. The reforms will restrict gambling advertising on television during live sport at specified times, with frequency caps outside those periods. They will restrict gambling advertising on radio during school drop-off and pick-up times and place restrictions on online gambling advertising. They will also remove gambling advertising from sporting venues and uniforms and restrict the use of celebrities, athletes and influencers to promote gambling.

That last point is particularly important. When an advertisement comes from a bookmaker, we understand that the bookmaker wants our money. But when it comes from a former player, a celebrity or an influencer a young person may follow every day, it can feel like a recommendation. It can feel like part of the culture. And that is precisely why these reforms matter. We should not underestimate the power of repetition. A single gambling advertisement is one thing. But when Australians see gambling advertising again and again and again, the cumulative effect is very different. That is why reducing saturation matters. It's why protecting children matters, and it's why breaking the connection between sport and gambling matters.

This bill also recognises that gambling harm is not confined to advertising. BetStop, the National Self-Exclusion Register, has provided an important mechanism for Australians to exclude themselves from online wagering. Since its launch, tens of thousands of Australians addicted to gambling have used it. For these people, it is one of the hardest and most important decisions they will make. We know that self-exclusion registers work, but more people need to know about it. The statutory review found awareness of BetStop is very low. Only around one in four people were aware of it, and even among people who had placed a bet in the previous 12 months, awareness was only around one in three. That's just not good enough, and it's why we are strengthening BetStop and will continue to work to raise awareness of this vital service.

We also need to recognise that the internet has created new forms of gambling that our existing regulatory framework was never designed to deal with. Online keno is one example. The government's proposal to ban online keno is an important step, so too are measures dealing with foreign matched lotteries and fake trade promotion lotteries. These products exploit regulatory gaps, put consumers at risk and undermine legitimate Australian businesses, newsagents and charities.

Measures to disrupt illegal offshore gambling operators are equally important. There's little point having strong consumer protections in Australia if operators can establish themselves offshore and target Australians from outside our regulatory system. The laws we are introducing today will help keep pace with the products being developed and the technology being used to sell them.

This is not about taking away individual freedoms and responsibilities. This matters, but responsibility does not just sit with the individual. It also sits with gambling companies, social media platforms, sporting organisations and government. For too long, Australians have been asked to carry too much of the responsibility themselves. This is not a sustainable approach. This bill recognises that harm minimisation is not about waiting until someone has lost everything. It is about early intervention, it is about reducing exposure, it is about making it easier for people to step away, and it is also about ensuring commercial incentives are held at bay.

I want to acknowledge the people who have advocated for these reforms over many years: addicted gamblers who have spoken publicly about their experiences despite the stigma and judgement; people who have lost family members; people who have supported partners, parents, children and friends through gambling harm; people who work in counselling and financial support; my communities and branch members; and people like Peta Murphy, who brought those voices into this parliament and insisted that we listen. Their contributions matter. They have helped to drive these reforms. They represent an important shift—a shift away from accepting gambling advertising as simply the price we pay for watching sport and a shift towards strong and effective laws that keep pace with an ever changing digital world.

The reforms will commence from 1 January next year, and I know our nation will be better for it. They will include restricting gambling advertising on broadcast television to no more than three ads each hour between 6 am and 8.30 pm, with a complete ban during live sport broadcasts within those hours, banning gambling promotion by celebrities, athletes and influencers, banning advertising on sporting jerseys and in stadiums, banning ads on radio at school pick up and drop off, banning online advertising and enabling opt out functions. The online ban applies to any site or platform, including social media, news websites, Spotify, podcasts, streaming services and YouTube, and it will be up to online platforms to implement these restrictions. If they choose not to, they will face severe penalties.

Last week's Senate inquiry showed us the most toxic versions of inducements, and our government condemns those alleged actions in the strongest terms. In constructing this bill, the Albanese government has listened to community concerns on inducements, and we are continuing to work with the parliament to further strengthen protections. I hope our negotiations with the opposition will be positive.

Australians should be able to sit down with their families and watch their favourite team without being bombarded by gambling advertising. Children should be able to grow up loving sport without being taught that sport and gambling are inseparable. Adults at risk of gambling harm need to have access to resources and supports to confront and overcome their addiction. And gambling companies need to be more accountable. At the end of the day, we must all work to better protect people from the harms and impacts of gambling. That is what this bill sets out to achieve. Australians should be able to love their sport for what it is: the contest, the skill, the drama and the connection to community—not the odds. I commend the bill to the House.

Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm going to go back in time to many, many years ago. I was a detective at Knox criminal investigations branch, and we had a job where we attended a house in Boronia. The job was an aggravated burglary. What that means is that there was a person inside the house and offenders entered. So I and another detective went there, and there was a middle-aged man with tape around his wrists where he'd been taped to a chair. I remember that his wife was there as well, but she wasn't getting too close to him, which we thought was a bit strange. We said to him, 'Okay, tell us what's happened.' We had an ambulance on the way and he had some bruises. It was a Sunday morning. He said: 'You wouldn't believe what happened. At six this morning these guys came and kicked my front door in, tied me up and said they wanted money. So I gave them the only money I had, which was the rent money.' The detective and I looked at each other and said to the guy, 'We don't believe you.' He said, 'What?' We said, 'It just doesn't make sense.' To cut a long story short, he had wasted all his money on gambling. He went down to, I think, the Knox Tavern and spent the rent on the pokies.

The difference is that's that was a time when there was no social media and no online gambling. This guy had the bug to go down there and bet and stay there, and then he created a crime to cover his addiction. Many times back in the day we had investigations that were gambling related where people would steal from work or rip their partner off or take the rent money or whatever it was. That's how strong this addiction is. Most people go and have a punt, and I've got no issue with that at all. They spend $20 or $50 or whatever. But there are those who are addicted, and that's what gambling advertising is all about. It targets people for their addiction to get them to pay more and tries to get young people involved with fancy ads. That's what the gambling industry is all about. Gambling harm is real. It affects individuals, families, friends and communities. I know every member in this House, including the government members, has the intention of reducing the harm gambling causes, but the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 must go further.

Australians lost $32 billion in legal gambling in 2023-24. Remember that the odds are stacked against them. I think people have an 80 per cent chance of not winning. In the world we have the highest percentage of gamblers. Fifty per cent of gambling losses come from poker machines, 25 per cent come from online wagering and sporting bets, and 25 per cent come from lotteries and gambling products. Behind the addiction—and this is what this is all about—is financial stress, mental health challenges, relationship breakdowns, family conflict and loss of employment. As I said, that leads to crimes too.

The bill does not properly deal with the gambling incentives that encourage people to gamble more. There is growing evidence that bonus bets, rewards and special offers can target people already struggling with gambling. The bill could allow up to three gambling advertisements each hour during children's viewing times, as you've heard before. It's like my wife says: we're watching a family movie with my daughter and all the gambling ads come up. Lots of them are very funny. They're very entertaining, very appealing. They do a great job. But that's what it's about—to attract new people. It sounds like you're going to have a win nearly every time, so why wouldn't you have a punt?

For those of us who occasionally listen to music on YouTube, like me, every second ad is a gambling ad. As I've previously said to other people, if you go on the internet and you search for, say, a lawnmower or a chainsaw, in the next few months you'll be inundated with ads for lawnmowers and chainsaws, as I found out. At the same time, if you go and have a punt during the grand final, cricket, election or whatever else, you then get all these ads appearing all the time. Most people would say, 'Oh, the ads; get rid of them,' but if you're drawn into that, you get involved and you start putting good money into it, then that's how the addiction can start. Especially when we're hearing from young people talking about betting odds and things like that, that is of great concern to me. We need to make sure we are (1) protecting our kids and (2) protecting those people who are addicted.

Under Labor's proposal, gambling ads could appear during breaks in live sports streamed online. This includes breaks that happen during the game, such as after a goal is scored. The current five-minute gambling advertising blackout before and after online sport live streams could be removed. Australians were told this bill would ban gambling ads during live sport. However, the original ban was introduced by the former coalition government in 2018.

The Murphy report was delivered in June 2023. It's now August 2026. Why would it take the Prime Minister three years to actually get on this and deliver legislation? It's absolutely insane that it's taken so long. How many lives and families have been destroyed, and how many people have become addicted to gambling, since then? The report contained 31 recommendations covering advertising, consumer protections, research and harm reduction. It has taken more than three years, as I said, to bring this bill on. Australians deserve much better.

The evidence we heard in the Senate inquiry last week raised serious concerns. As evidence was presented about betting companies targeting vulnerable gamblers, former NRL player Luke Bateman spoke about his own experience with gambling addiction. I congratulate him for having the guts to come and give his evidence. He told the inquiry that VIP account managers offered bonus bets and other incentives to keep him gambling. He described being flown to race events and provided with hospitality designed to encourage more betting. Mr Bateman said that these inducements played a major role in worsening his gambling addiction. These allegations highlight why strong consumer protections are needed. Remember, if a person has an addiction, it's hard to get out of that headspace. When you've got all these TV ads and everything coming on, it makes life really tough.

There are major concerns with the bill. As I said, the bill does not properly address gambling inducements. It must do so. Inducements are designed to encourage people to gamble more. They include bonus bets, rewards, promotions and personalised betting offers. As everyone would remember, you hear those really funny comedians doing the advertising for you to basically double your bet. It sounds like you'd have this amazing luck and win money—it just doesn't happen. Exposing our children to gambling just shouldn't happen. They're so vulnerable anyway. The kids at school are talking about this; they're watching some sporting event, or even, I've heard, as I said, kids' programs, and gambling ads are there—just to get it in their mind that gambling is a good thing and is normal. It's not, and it's bad. Sport should be about sport; it should not be a vehicle for promoting betting products. Many parents are concerned about the amount of gambling advertising their children are seeing.

I understand, too, there's an industry out there that we need to protect: the racing industry. I know there are a lot of jobs in that industry. In my view, we just have to make sure that people are able to have an opt-in, so they can actually make their bets. That's really important. I know other members have spoken about that.

The most significant gambling harm reforms in recent years were delivered by the former coalition government. These reforms included the ban on gambling advertising during live sporting broadcasts; blackout periods before and after live sport—that's what we wanted; the creation of BetStop, the Australian National Self-Exclusion Register, which has been a great thing; and restrictions on sign-up inducements.

We should be putting Australians first—there's no doubt about that. Secondly, adults should take responsibility for their own decisions. The only thing is: I hear, quite often, people say, 'It's their choice,' and it may be an adult's choice to go down that path, but, when that ends up destroying his family and the children, sometimes governments must step in to protect that person and to protect his family.

I'd like to see happen is for the bill to ban gambling advertisements for a set period, before, during and after live and replayed sporting events, across television, radio, streaming and online platforms, and apply the same gambling advertising restrictions online as those already in place for broadcast television; to require betting companies to stop all marketing, promotion, offers, gifts and reactivation contact, when there are signs a customer may be experiencing gambling harm—so, rather than having that VIP manager targeting the person, it just should be a no-go zone for that person; to prohibit gambling companies from rewarding staff based on customer losses or on increasing gambling activity, as, sadly, the more a person is betting, the more that VIP manager gets in his pay packet. I'd like to see an independent review conducted after the next federal election to assess the effectiveness of these measures and identify any further protections that may be needed.

In conclusion, gambling harm is real and demands real action, and it shouldn't have taken three years. The legislation must be effective and must be evidence based. It must genuinely protect vulnerable Australians, and especially children. It must not weaken existing safeguards. The government has had more than three years to get this right—and I again thank the Labor members who've been outspoken on this; it's a lot easier for us, on this side, to speak out, compared to those on the government's side. The bill should be amended so that it delivers meaningful reforms, stronger protections and better outcomes for Australians. And, as I said before, we must protect our kids first.

Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Addiction is the business model. 'The business model of gambling companies is addiction.' That was the evidence of one of the lived experience witnesses at the inquiry into online gambling chaired by the late Peta Murphy, the former member for Dunkley. She went on to say, 'It's not incidental—it is their business model. No-one is a better customer than an addict.' This woman had lost her young adult son to suicide. After his death, she found out about his massive gambling debts, and she believes that this was a factor—perhaps the defining factor—in his decision to take his own life.

You may have a flutter from time to time—maybe you bet on the Melbourne Cup every year, or in an online footy tipping competition—and not have a problem with your gambling. You are incidental to their business. Your money is welcome, of course, but you are not their target customer. Their target customer is the addict—that is their business model.

The gambling companies make their money by turning Australians into losers. They make their profits—and every business must make profit to survive. They make their profits when you lose. If you were winning all the time, then they would have gone out of business. So, no matter what you think you're betting on, no matter how much of a sure thing you think it is, the gambling companies are betting on you being a loser. Australians are the biggest gambling losers in the world. While other countries consider they have a gambling culture—China, the UK and the US all think they have a gambling culture—Australians lose more money than any other country. The statistics from the 2023 report quoted $25 billion every year. It's probably around $36 billion now, or about $99 million a day.

I was a member of the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, chaired by the late Peta Murphy, the former member for Dunkley, which undertook the inquiry into online gambling and its impacts on those experiencing gambling harm. This was the inquiry that resulted in the You win some, you lose more report released in June 2023. As a committee member, this was a challenging and very impactful inquiry. We received 161 submissions and 26 exhibits and held 13 public hearings. We heard from all sides of this issue—from support services that help people experiencing problem gambling and from antigambling advocates and harm reduction advocates. We heard from people who told us that they were problem gamblers or had been problem gamblers, and we heard from family members of those with gambling problems, including some who'd lost a loved one to suicide. We also heard from gambling companies, from media organisations and from sports organisations.

The inquiry also looked into online gaming, including video games with gambling-like content which trains up young people to be addicted to the adrenaline hits of games of chance. There are other forms of gambling that are very harmful, including pokies, which are still the most harmful form of gambling. But online gambling is harmful, and it's growing, and it has some very unique aspects that make it even more dangerous. While some forms of gambling require you to leave your home and sit in a club, a racetrack or a casino—to be clear, problem gambling is found in all of these venues as well—the really unique difference of online gambling is that, now, we all carry smartphones with us all the time, and this form of gambling is available 24/7.

The committee heard from people losing tens of thousands of dollars or more in an overnight gambling session in the privacy of their own home or their own bedroom. Night after night, redundancy payments are gambled away. House sale proceeds are gambled away in the matter of a few weeks. In the privacy of your own home, your own bedroom, no-one necessarily knows what you're doing, so no-one can suggest that perhaps you should moderate your gambling. The privacy of a secret gambling addiction becomes shame, and reaching out for help means you have to tell someone what it is you've been doing, so you're trapped, and, even if you try to stop, the company pulls you back.

Each online gambler has an account. The gambling companies know them and can directly target them, individually, in real time. They know who they are. They have their phone number, their email address and their account. They know their gambling profile and preferences. They know what's worked on them in the past. So inducements can be targeted, individually, to the account holder, and they can be targeted at a time when inducements will be most effective. If you've been gambling for a few hours and you slow down or stop, you can be targeted directly, straight away, to come on back and try and recoup your losses. If you've self-excluded from a gambling company because you think you might have a problem or you just can't fund the losses, when your exclusion time is up, you might be welcomed back with a few thousand dollars of bonus bets. It seems generous—it's not really. The companies know they will never have to pay it out, because you're going to lose it and then lose some more. They wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't profitable for them.

At the recent ALP National Conference in Adelaide, the rank-and-file Labor members unanimously passed a motion to add the banning of gambling inducements to the ALP national platform, and I want to thank them for their work. This is an issue that Labor members are concerned about. It's something that the Australian public are concerned about.

Who's affected? Various reports to the inquiry quoted statistics of between 46 per cent and 67 per cent of gamblers being classified as being at risk of gambling harm in the past 12 months. One of the most vulnerable, or most targeted, groups is young men from their late teens to their mid-to-late 20s. These are the people targeted by programs such as the 'bet with your mates' promotion. 'Bet with your mates' sounds like a great way to share your love of sport with your mates, except, suddenly, this is the way you're engaging with your friendship group. If you have a problem and you want to stop gambling, if you drop out of the betting group, you're effectively exiting your social group and their shared activities, so you're trapped.

Those with gambling problems reported poor mental health, anxiety, shame, depression and suicidality. Social isolation, or the capture of social support groups around gambling activities, exacerbates the impact and makes it harder to release the trap in which some gamblers find themselves. So gambling is a men's health issue. It's also a mental health issue, and it's a public health issue.

One of the other lived experience witnesses we heard from was a man in, I'm guessing, his mid-20s, who told us he was a reformed gambling addict. He told us he loved sport, but, as a result of his problems with gambling, he'd had to change his entire life. He can't play footy at the local club, because they're sponsored by a gambling company and the adverts at the local club trigger him. He can't go and watch a game with his mates, because the stadium has gambling advertising. He can't go to the local pub, because it has pokies. He can't listen to the radio in his car or watch a game on TV—or any other TV shows or streaming services—because of gambling ads. His emails and his social media algorithms all target him with gambling adverts. His mates still play sport and go to the game together, so he's more isolated from his friends and his support group. He described himself as a gambling addict in remission. He is aware that his demons remain lurking, always waiting for him to slip just that once.

The Albanese government has done a lot since the You win some, you lose more report was released. It used to be that, if you decided you had a gambling problem and wanted to self-exclude, you had to hunt down each company and exclude yourself one by one from everyone. And, once you'd done that, magically—hey, presto!—you might suddenly find yourself getting offers from other gambling companies you hadn't heard of before, and then you'd have to exclude yourself from them. BetStop means that now there is a one-stop shop for self-exclusion, excluding you from all companies. Preverification of accounts means no longer can someone underage or someone on the exclusion register get an account and start gambling before their identity has been checked, and banning gambling with credit cards means you can't gamble with money you don't have. It's bad enough to lose what you have, let alone to lose what you don't have. These are all really meaningful ways that address gambling harm, and these are things that this government is already doing.

The thing is, unless you're a gambler, you don't know about any of these things, because they are invisible to the non-gambling public. The thing that is visible is gambling advertising. Now, I confess, I don't watch a lot of TV, but, on those occasions when I do, I am shocked at the in-your-face gambling adverts and their frequency. And that is the one thing I hear most about in the community, because, if you're not a gambler, that's the thing you see.

I've already talked about the impact that gambling advertising has on those people who have gambling problems. But the other really important thing about gambling adverts is they normalise gambling as a part of Australian society. When you grow up and turn 18, you enrol to vote, you can legally buy a drink and you can gamble—as if that's a normal part of being an Australian adult. When young children can talk about the odds when they're talking about a footy match, we know the gambling adverts are working—and of course they work. They wouldn't be paying for them if they didn't. Sport has so many benefits in our community: fitness, community connection, entertainment, volunteering opportunities, learning to work as a team. We want sport to be available and accessible to everyone. We don't want to train our children to think sport is about gambling. We must break that nexus.

As a member of the committee, I signed off on the You win some, you lose more recommendations, so my position on this is public. We heard a lot of evidence, as part of the inquiry, about the practices of the industry and the impacts on Australians and Australian families, and it was shocking. During last week's Senate inquiry, a lot of the evidence was being repeated in another public forum, so everyone else is getting to hear about some of the behaviour and practices of the gambling companies. Some of it's new—the former committee did not hear allegations about drugs and escorts—but a lot of what you're hearing now is the same as what we heard in the first inquiry, and people should be shocked. It is shocking. The practice is nasty, it's predatory, and it's predatory towards people who have gambling problems.

I think it's also really important that the gambling companies, the gambling industry, the sporting codes and media that are supporting the status quo pay attention to how this evidence sounds to the Australian public and to the reaction of the Australian public, because, like any industry, they need social licence to operate. This is direct feedback from the Australian public about the behaviour standards we expect and will tolerate. Peta Murphy actually said exactly this to some of the industry bodies and sporting codes during the first inquiry—that they should listen to the evidence from the other witnesses, their customers, the families and the Australian public and reflect on their own evidence in that light.

When the Prime Minister announced the next round of gambling regulations at the Press Club I was really pleased, not because I think the job is done in the social services field—the job is never done—but because this is another step forward. I and many of my backbench colleagues in this place who've worked together advocating for change are pleased at the progress.

The package includes a crackdown on illegal offshore gambling providers. It includes further work on strengthening BetStop and raising awareness of BetStop in the community. It includes addressing harm and emerging gambling products, including foreign matched lotteries, Pocket Keno, fake promotional lotteries and, importantly, a number of steps to limit advertising, including banning advertising on TV during all live sport between specific hours, establishing frequency caps outside those hours, and banning gambling promotion by celebrities, athletes and influence—and it is really important that this targets our children. It also includes banning stadium jersey advertising so that people such as the man who gave evidence at the inquiry can play footy with his mates or watch a game, banning ads on radio at school drop-off and pick-up times, and banning online advertising, including on social media, news websites, Spotify, podcast streaming services and YouTube via opt-out options.

I welcome this legislation as another step forward, and I welcome the minister's and the Prime Minister's commitment to continue to strengthen the bill to provide stronger protections for children and vulnerable people from exposure to advertising and predatory industry tactics. And I wish the minister and the Prime Minister all the best with these ongoing negotiations. This is a really important issue that Australians care deeply about, and I look forward to seeing where the negotiations land. I commend the bill to the House.

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 and call it out for the hypocrisy and the offensiveness that it is. To couch this as in any way responding fully to the Murphy report's recommendations or what the scale of this health crisis demands is an insult to the Australian people and to victims of gambling. And of course I see the minister walking away. I normally have great respect, but on this issue have none. This is a cave-in, and it is shameful, especially when I hear members of the committee who unanimously supported recommendations to genuinely address this health crisis now coming in here trying to peddle to their community that this legislation is going to meaningfully impact this health crisis.

It is wrong. I can't even begin to express the outrage I feel at what I've heard in some of the speeches in this place in relation to this issue. Members of the government would have you think that this is better than nothing, that there's good progress, and more will come. But we've seen that all too often in this place. The experts are all saying that this will not make any meaningful change to this health crisis. More Australians will continue to be targeted and harmed by this predatory industry through their advertising, through all the loopholes to this legislation that you are letting through. So shame on you. How many more victims is an acceptable number? That is the question, because there will be many more victims from this.

Australia urgently needs real gambling advertising reform—a comprehensive advertising ban. If this had come into effect three years ago we would nearly be there: strong consumer protections, an end to predatory inducements and effective national regulation. Gambling is destroying families. It's leading to suicides. It's destroying the integrity of sport. After three years of delay, the Albanese government and the minister have brought forward a bill that ignores the central recommendations of the Murphy inquiry, a bill that preserves major loopholes for the gambling industry and sporting codes that disgracefully profit from a public health crisis. Three ads an hour is not a ban. An opt-out is not a protection. A fragmented system is not national regulation.

The government says this bill is better than nothing. After they've sat on the report and recommendations for three years, we all have to think that this better-than-nothing approach is an appallingly low bar. It's a cop-out bill. It has all the hallmarks of legislation designed around the gambling industry's wishes, not around the evidence, certainly not around the Murphy report recommendations and absolutely not around the best interests of Australian families. But hey, follow the money.

The industry and its allies warned that stronger regulation could affect broadcasters and sporting code revenue. Their financial interest is pretty obvious. The NRL and AFL and other areas of sport, particularly those two sporting codes, enjoy tax-free status and significant funding from state and federal governments. Yet the media reports indicate that the NRL receives more than $50 million a year and the AFL more than $40 million a year in wagering product fees, which allegedly include commission structure. They have an interest in continuing this. Meanwhile, both the Labor and Liberal Parties received around $5 million each from gambling companies over the past five years. Well, doesn't that explain a lot?

I want to be really, brutally clear to all those people in the communities that are hearing all this grandstanding and hypocrisy about what voting for this bill actually means. A vote for this bill is a vote to permit up to three waging ads an hour, which is still potentially more than 40 a day on a single television channel. It's a vote to preserve the streaming loopholes and force parents to opt out of advertising that should not be there in the first place. It's a vote to leave predatory inducements untouched, despite the unanimous Murphy inquiry and reports saying they should be prohibited without delay. It's a vote to proceed without a national regulator or ombudsman, nationally consistent harm detection standards, proper gambling harm and suicide data or a ban on commissions from recruiting gamblers.

The failure of courage is just staggering. The government has adopted these reforms the gambling industry can live with; that's clear. They've abandoned the reforms that would actually threaten their profits and actually help Australians. I think this is a deliberate political choice to protect a toxic industry revenue stream. A vote for this bill means owning these political choices and the harm that follows to every one of the members in your communities. Government members can't claim there was no alternative, because the Murphy Review Committee gave them a clear roadmap of 31 unanimous recommendations grounded in extensive evidence.

If this bill passes through the other house and comes back here, the government and industry will point to it for years to say they've dealt with the problem. We already hear it in the speeches—allegations that, 'Oh, the Albanese government has done more than any other government before it.' Well, how effective has that been? How many families have been destroyed by this predatory industry? We know this legislation is a weak compromise. It falls so far short and delays the real reform into the foreseeable future, because we know exactly what's going to happen. You're going to have the chest-beating of saying, 'But we've acted more than any other government before us.'

So—where is Australia in the scheme of things? Australia holds a deeply unenviable world title. We have the highest per capita gambling losses in the world. Official statistics released this week show Australians lost almost $33 billion to legal gambling in 2024-25. That's approximately $1,500 for every Australian adult. The Grattan Institute analysis has found that our per adult losses are more than twice those of the United States and almost three times those of our neighbour in New Zealand. Australia is not merely above average; we're a global outlier. And so how has the Albanese government responded? With weak reform.

These billions represent mortgage repayments, rents, groceries, school expenses and retirement savings. They also represent partners discovering secret accounts and hidden debts. They represent children going to school without what they need, while a parent desperately tries to win back what has already been lost. They represent small businesses being defrauded, homes being sold and families being torn apart.

Make no mistake—this is a public health crisis, and it is an absolute conflict of interest that this portfolio sits with the communication and sports minister. This should be in the health portfolio. Gambling harm must be treated as a public health issue, not as a collection of isolated failures of individual responsibility.

The latest national research found that nearly one in five Australian adults gambled at risky levels in 2025. Among people experiencing high-risk gambling, two-thirds reported serious financial stress, including going without meals or selling belongings. Sixteen per cent reported experiencing suicidal thoughts. People whose partners gambled weekly or more were substantially more likely to report intimate partner violence. Almost six per cent of Australian adults reported being harmed by another person's gambling in just one year, so gambling harm does not stop when a betting app is closed. Research using the Victorian Suicide Register found that gambling was linked to at least 4.2 per cent of suicides examined between 2009 and 2016, including deaths of people harmed by someone else's gambling. We do not have a complete national data on gambling related suicide, which is itself an indictment of the current system. A serious public health response would collect that data, identify the causes of harm, regulate the environment creating it and intervene before families reach crisis point. This bill barely scratches the surface. It says: 'It's okay. You can still have three ads per hour.'

That is what makes the government's response to the late Peta Murphy's report so difficult to accept. The inquiry was adopted in September 2022. It received 161 submissions and 26 exhibits and held 13 public hearings in Canberra, taking evidence from almost 100 individuals drawn from across Australia. It heard from people with lived experience and their families; researchers; doctors; psychologists; suicide prevention experts; financial counsellors; Commonwealth, state and territory regulators; banks; broadcasters; and advertisers. It heard from the sporting codes, and it certainly heard from the wagering companies. Nobody can say that the industry was not heard. The AFL, the NRL, Sportsbet, Tabcorp, Entain and Responsible Wagering Australia all gave evidence. After that extensive process, Labor, Liberal and crossbench members all agreed unanimously on 31 recommendations. They produced a clear, comprehensive and interconnected health reform agenda. There was courage in confronting industries with enormous financial and political influence, and Peta Murphy had so much courage in putting that forward as her legacy. Her report was a holistic and interconnected reform plan.

Had the Albanese government responded promptly, the three-year advertising phase-out recommended by the committee would actually now be approaching completion. Instead, Australians have endured three more years of saturation advertising while the government has delayed and powerful interests lobbied behind closed doors. It's profoundly tragic that the legacy and the implementation of the Murphy report has been so compromised and that the Albanese government has chosen not to live up to the values that were brought to the work into that report—the compassion, the respect for evidence, the political courage and the determination to put people and their health ahead of vested interests.

Let's be clear about what is in this legislation, because we've heard lots and lots of details from backbench government members trying to justify this poor legislation. Three ads per hour is not a ban. The government described it as an advertising cap, a strong reform. But let's be clear. Three gambling ads per hour between 6 am and 3 pm could still mean more than 40 ads per day on an individual channel. The presumption that people are stopping watching at 8.30 or that children stop watching at 8.30 is just so—I can't even begin to say how naive. But the idea that people aren't channel surfing and thus coming across way more ads than just three is ridiculous. This is not removing gambling advertising from Australian lives.

From May 2022 to April 2023, more than one million gambling ads aired on free-to-air television and metropolitan radio. Half were ads for online gambling providers. In the same period, ACMA found that gambling advertisers spent $34.6 million on social media and $19.5 million on websites and apps, totalling more than $54 million in online advertising expenditure. That saturation has conditioned Australians, especially children, to see betting as an ordinary and inseparable part of sport. It is on their screens. It is in their pockets on their phones. It is everywhere. Children can identify betting companies, repeat promotional language and discuss the odds before they're even legally permitted to open an account. They should grow up talking about the players, the score and the great moments, not the odds and the multi.

The distinction this bill draws between television and streaming is so increasingly—it's just artificial. A family watching a match on television may receive one level of protection, limited, while somebody watching the same match through a streaming device or service can continue receiving gambling advertising unless they locate and activate an opt-out setting. So, again, that responsibility is put on the viewer. The loophole is large enough to drive the future of sports broadcasting through. The opt-out model places a burden on individuals and families to protect themselves from a harmful environment. We know this does not work, yet here we are continuing with it.

Inducements are not ordinary advertising; they're direct, personalised offers designed around an individual's gambling behaviour. They include bonus bets, deposit matches, cashbacks, enhanced odds, VIP hospitality, free travel, gifts and offers delivered at the moment an operator knows a customer is likely to bet and that they are vulnerable. They are not acts of generosity; they are predatory and designed with sophistication to go after people. We saw horrific evidence during the recent Senate inquiry about how far they are prepared to go. How, then, the government can present legislation that does not ban inducements is just beyond me.

We know that, instead of protecting and minimising harm, the gambling companies prey on people. They seek to capitalise on their vulnerability and make more money. The system then rewards those customers with VIP status and further incentives to gamble. This is predatory. It's exploitation. The corporate media, the NRL, the AFL and other sporting codes—they are complicit. We need a national regulator, an ombudsman—we actually need the implementation of the full suite of recommendations.

This is regressive, and Reverend Tim Costello neatly summed it up—'the most generous gift to the sports betting companies I have ever seen'. I agree. Shame!

Andrew Gee (Calare, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

Gambling addiction destroys lives, and it takes lives. It wrecks families, it erodes relationships, it hollows out regional communities and it leaves a wake of human misery and financial ruin right across our nation. The consequences of gambling are devastating: job loss, broken relationships, bankruptcy, domestic and family violence and other crimes and suicide. The human cost is heartbreaking, and it's there for all to see if we just take the time to listen and look.

Last year, I attended a gambling roundtable held here at Parliament House in Canberra. The Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja was there. He called out the government for being too slow to ban gambling advertising. We also heard from 'Kate', who didn't want to be identified and whose brother took his life by suicide brought on by gambling. 'Kate' said her brother lost $10,000 a year from gambling. She said this:

This is exactly the burden that our 24-year-old brother was carrying six days before he ended his life.

On this particular day he walked into the kitchen with pain all over his face and I could tell something was wrong, so I prompted him, are you okay? … He could barely find the words.

Six days later, my dad, sister and I found him 500 metres from our childhood home. The sound dad made, the look on my sister's face, haunts me every moment of every day.

'Kate' said her brother's suicide note stated:

I'm so disgusted and revolted with myself that I want to end my life before my addiction ruins more people around me.

That roundtable and 'Kate's' story were featured on the ABC's Four Corners program.

This legislation before the House—the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 and the National Self-exclusion Register (Cost Recovery Levy) Amendment Bill 2026—does not go far enough. It falls short of what's required to actually stop the harm. What we need is simple, clear and decisive action. We need to ban these toxic gambling inducements. We need a full ban on gambling advertising, not a partial one. We need a full ban. We need to implement the full recommendations of the landmark Murphy report. The late Peta Murphy has already given this parliament the blueprint that needs to be followed. It's comprehensive. It's a multiphase roadmap to ban online gambling advertising across the board. It was a bipartisan unanimous recommendation from a parliamentary committee: 31 recommendations grounded in evidence, backed by experts and demanded by the Australian public. Since the release of that report, Australians have lost over $104 billion to gambling. Between July 2023 and July 2026, that's $666 million each week. It represents a 75 per cent increase in gambling losses since 2020.

Many across Australia are asking a very simple question: Why? Why hasn't a full online gambling advertising ban been brought in before this time? I'll tell you why. It's because of the money. Don't think for a second that money doesn't talk in this place, because it does. I'm speaking to this House as someone who's escaped a major political party. I've seen how the machines operate. I'll give you an example. Back when I was in the National Party, we'd have these corporate days once or twice a year, right here in Canberra. I'm sure all of the major parties do it. They rent out a ballroom in a hotel, and the corporations pay big bucks for the privilege to meet with every single MP that they want to. A bell would ring after 10 or 15 minutes and the next one would come along.

Amongst those people that were coming to see the MPs were gambling companies. Gambling companies pay big money, and in return they get direct private access to the major parties. As election time approaches and the campaigns ramp up, so do the political donations. If you want to know why a comprehensive ban hasn't been implemented so far, if you want to know why we're getting half measures instead of total reform, follow the money. According to donor records, the Labor Party has collected about $5 million in gambling related donations in five years, including about $1.5 million in the lead-up to the last election. The coalition has pocketed about $4.5 million. Follow the money if you want to know why we haven't got a full gambling advertising ban in place.

Inside the major party rooms, MPs are locked in. I know that there would be backbenchers in all of the major political parties, and others on the crossbench, who agree with me. They know that online gambling advertising should be banned, but many of them—too many of them—are afraid to speak out. They feel that they're in a political straitjacket, because they're told by their leadership: 'This is the party line. This is what we're doing. Sit down and go with it.' Trust me—I've seen it and I know how it rolls. Occasionally you'll get someone in a major party who's brave enough to speak out, but it doesn't happen very often.

This is the great thing about being an independent and serving on the crossbench. You get to stand up in this place and say exactly what you believe in on behalf of the people who sent you here. We speak out on the difficult issues that members of the major political parties are unable to and so often fail to. The only reason we're having this debate now is because the crossbench has been driving this—not the major political parties, the crossbench. That's because we're not beholden to party interests. We're not beholden to the donors from the gambling companies. When I speak with people across our regional communities in the Central West of this great state of New South Wales, they are demanding real, long-lasting reform, because, when you get out into the real world, away from the corporate lobbyists in Canberra, you can see that this is an issue about priorities and community health.

Why would we want to keep socialising and brainwashing our kids into thinking that gambling and watching sport go hand in hand as an acceptable, normal part of everyday life? I remember a few years ago I was sitting with my son. We were about to watch an NRL game. He was in primary school at that time. It was a Bulldogs game. Before the game had even kicked off, he looked at me and started quoting the betting odds for the match. I just couldn't believe it. I was stunned. A primary school child who knew the betting odds on the footy game that he was about to enjoy with his dad—unbelievable. Since that day, it has just got worse and worse.

When our young people grow up believing that you can't enjoy Rugby League or AFL or cricket or any other sporting event without putting a bet on, we've failed them. We are conditioning the next generation of Australians to walk into a trap of financial distress and addiction. In every electorate of Australia, we see the ripple effects of gambling. There are the effects on the person doing the gambling, but there are also the families who can't pay for their groceries, the parents losing their homes, the small businesses left unpaid and the devastating, tragic loss of life when someone sees no other way out. We have the means in this place to stop this. We can all do it and we should be doing it. It's simply the right thing to do.

Let's be clear. This isn't about banning gambling. It's not about that at all. I don't seek to ban gambling. Like others in this place, I like the odd flutter or the punt every now and again. It's not about banning gambling. It's about protecting the community and preventing the tragic consequences of gambling addiction. I've heard people in this House say that there has to be individual responsibility. Really? It's our kids we're talking about here, for crying out loud! Are you really prepared to put it back on them or put it back on the gambling addicts—those who feel that they don't have a choice but to answer the irresistible call of the betting companies? Following that logic, you could have argued that we shouldn't have banned smoking advertising. We banned smoking advertising because we, as a society, accepted the harm it caused, how addictive it was, and we did something about it. We didn't just say that it was up to the individual or the kids to deal with it and work it out. It's disgraceful.

This is about stopping predatory corporate behaviour, banning aggressive inducements and removing the constant saturated presence of gambling ads from our screens and our airwaves. There is something direct and meaningful that we can do in this parliament to make life better for the vast number of Australians. We can prevent whole families going through unimaginable pain and spare other parents, partners, children, brothers and sisters from the heartbreak of losing a loved one to gambling fuelled despair. How much more evidence do we need? How many more stories of people taking their lives because of gambling addiction do we need to hear until we do the right thing?

We have the power to do it here in this chamber. That's what we're here for. We should be doing it now in this House. We need to do it. We need real action, the full 31 recommendations of the Murphy report implemented and inducements banned. Our communities want the ads off our TVs and off our kids' screens. Let's stand up to the moneyed interests and put our children and our communities first. The compromised half-measures in this bill are simply not good enough. We need a complete ban on online gambling advertising.

We're in this place to make life better for the people who we represent. We're not here to do the bidding of gambling companies. Banning gambling advertising is the right thing to do. Peta Murphy knew it, and, in their hearts, there are a lot of people in the major parties in this place who know it too. We need to ban gambling advertising to spare our children, our fellow Australians and their families from the tragic human cost of gambling addiction. People need to be put ahead of profits. The price of inaction on a ban on gambling advertising is more lives destroyed and more lives lost.

Anika Wells (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sport) | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with the resolution agreed to by the House earlier today, I require the debate to be extended until the conclusion of the speech by the member for Mackellar.

Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026, a bill that is as deeply flawed as it is disappointing. It's often said that gambling is to Australia what guns are to the US. We've heard it before. It's our blind spot. The highly respected Chair of the Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, the late Peta Murphy MP, summed up gambling harms powerfully in her introduction to the You win some, you lose more report. She wrote:

Australians are the biggest losers in the world when it comes to gambling. We have a culture where sport and gambling are intrinsically linked. These behaviours are causing increasingly widespread and serious harm to individuals, families and communities.

The gambling industry has been allowed to let rip in Australia for way too long. So, when the committee handed down its report on online gambling harms in Australia in 2023 with 31 recommendations that had unanimous and multiparty support from all on the committee, there was a huge amount of optimism that our parliament would be able to achieve meaningful reforms and protections for Australians, particularly for our children and young Australians. But we waited, and we waited. It was over 1,000 days before the government provided its response, and, when it finally did, the proposed reforms were devastatingly disappointing and a far stretch from the comprehensive suite of recommendations of the You win some, you lose more report.

Let's be clear. No-one is calling for an end to gambling or trying to stop people from gambling. This is not about stopping people from 'having a punt on the Saturday', as the PM keeps repeating. It's about regulating the endless deluge of advertising, marketing, promotions, inducements and other tactics that the gambling industry uses to reel people in, get them hooked and keep them gambling.

I'll say it again: gambling is to Australia what guns are to the US. We are the biggest losers per capita to gambling anywhere in the world. Last year Australians lost $36 billion to gambling. Report after report shows gambling losses growing across every demographic and postcode in the country and causing serious harm. Australia's gambling losses have increased a staggering 75 per cent since 2020, with online gambling now being a major driver. While the government has sat on its hands since the release of the Murphy report three years ago, Australians have lost over $104 billion to gambling. This affects so many people across our communities. The harms are not isolated to so-called problem gamblers. We all know people who are harmed by gambling, whether it's their own gambling or that of somebody that they know, so it's time to stop pointing the finger of blame at the individual, and instead point it at government policy and the predatory industry behaviours.

A young man in my electorate told me a story that shocked me. He'd been at a pub with his mates not long before, and they'd all been chatting about gambling. Every single one of them sitting around that table had estimated that they had lost the equivalent of a deposit on a house due to gambling over the past several years. That is your everyday bloke on the Northern Beaches.

So many people I speak to want an end to gambling. This is all pervasive. Gambling harm is a whole-of-society issue. It is addictive, and, all too often, it is the cause of significant financial distress, mental distress, shame, family breakdown, family violence, job loss, home loss, crime and, most tragically of all, suicide. Over 400 Australians die by suicide linked to gambling every year. This is a national tragedy and our national shame. In Mackellar organisations such as Women & Children First, the Northern Beaches Women's Shelter and Zonta Northern Beaches all witness the true impacts of gambling harm in the work that they do to support women and children fleeing domestic violence. Zonta president Dr Scott wrote to me recently and noted that efforts to reduce family violence will remain limited unless the role of gambling harm is directly addressed through stronger regulation and legislation. It seems senseless to me that, at the same time the government is refusing to end gambling advertising, it is consulting on the Second Action Plan to End Violence against Women and Children.

The gravity and extent of the problem and harms were clearly documented by the committee inquiry into online gambling. The report showed that regulation of the industry has failed. It has failed because it is fragmented and inconsistent, consumer protections are far from adequate, and harm-reduction services are underresourced. The overarching failure is that gambling corporations have no responsibility for preventing harm.

I want to now turn to the specifics of the bill. The You win some, you lose more gambling report had 31 recommendations for reform. These were underpinned by international evidence. Most of these have been roundly ignored. The government's proposed reforms in this bill contain no comprehensive phase-out of gambling advertising, no end to industry inducements, no single national regulator and currently contains an opt-out framework for online gambling advertising instead of an opt-in framework.

I'll start by talking about the gambling ads. The Murphy report recommended a comprehensive ban on all gambling advertising to be phased in over three years across all media, broadcast and online in a way that would leave no room for circumvention. Public support for a complete ban on gambling advertising in Australia is very strong, with polling commissioned by the Australia Institute showing roughly 80 per cent of Australian citizens back in a total phase-out of gambling advertising. Instead, the government is proposing a set of limited restrictions, allowing three gambling ads per hour between six am and 8.30 pm and no gambling ads during live sports before 8.30 pm but a free for all after 8.30 pm. For a footy game that kicks off at 7.55, that means gambling ads throughout more than half of the match, and, as a mum of three, I can tell you the kids will not be going to bed at 8.30. They will continue to be exposed regularly to gambling advertising. When department officials were asked to provide evidence for these measures during the recent Senate inquiry, they were not able to. The limits to gambling ads on radio are even weaker, with ads not being permitted for only one hour in the morning and afternoon during school drop-off and pick-up times. I've got to say, this is one that I think is particularly ridiculous. What happens after four pm when kids are still being driven to their after school activities?

We cannot ignore the statistics. Annual expenditure on gambling among teenagers is estimated at $230 million. The bill also fails to ban inducements. These are the bonus bets, the deposit matches, the cash-back offers and the so-called risk-free bets. They include the VIP incentives, such as interstate flights to events and being wined and dined in company marquees and boxes. Inducements are strategically designed by marketing professionals to encourage impulsive behaviour, reduce the perceived risk of gambling and keep vulnerable people engaged in gambling for longer. Research published in the Journal of Behavioural Addictions has documented their link to gambling harm, finding that inducements increase betting expenditure, significantly reduce the number of people who choose not to bet, increase the proportion of bad bets and disproportionately affect people experiencing gambling problems. It's no wonder the gambling industry has fought so hard to retain them. During last week's Senate inquiry into this bill, we also heard even more serious allegations about the extreme practices used by the industry VIP account managers, including allegedly offering illegal inducements such as drugs and escorts. The companies named have rejected those allegations. Inducements are effective at keeping people addicted to gambling. They are predatory, and they target those who are most vulnerable.

Let's move on to the opt-out model for online advertising, noting that the recommendation of public health experts was for a complete phase-out of all gambling ads, regardless. We've heard a lot from the government extolling the virtues of the opt-out system, but we know from experience what a weak measure this is. Using SBS On Demand as an example, only about 0.2 per cent of users have taken up the opt-out measure on their platform. If the objective is to genuinely reduce gambling harm, the evidence tells us that we should instead be adopting an opt-in approach where gambling activity can only occur once a person has actively made a conscious decision to participate.

Additionally, gambling safeguards should not depend on a person recognising they are already in trouble. Gambling harm often develops gradually and, by the time someone decides to opt out, significant financial, emotional and family harm may already have occurred. It's abundantly clear that the government's proposed reforms in this bill will not stop our children from being exposed regularly to gambling advertising and that vulnerable people will not be protected from predatory industry practices that aim to keep them gambling and keep them addicted.

Finally, there's no national regulator provided for in this bill. Regulation, to date, has been entirely ineffective in Australia. Each state and territory has its own regulator, and the Northern Territory Racing Commission has become the de facto regulator for online wagering companies because it has the lowest tax settings and the weakest regulations. This is despite organisations such as the Alliance for Gambling Reform consistently calling for stronger regulatory powers to ensure the industry is held to account and that public health, rather than industry interests, is placed at the centre of our policy making.

With so many vivid and harrowing testimonies of harm and suffering due to gambling heard at the inquiry, coupled with the strong evidence about which measures will actually be effective in helping to fix the problem, it is incredibly difficult to understand how on earth the government could ignore the 31 recommendations of the Murphy report and instead propose such a weak and limited response—that is, as my colleague mentioned, until you follow the money. The Labor Party collected more than $4.4 million in gambling donations over five years, including $1.5 million around the last election. We know that in 2024 at least 19 federal politicians across both Labor and the coalition accepted gifts from Tabcorp and Sportsbet to attend major sporting events. This included the Nationals leader and the current shadow health minister. We heard about the lavish birthday party for the minister responsible for gambling at the time, which was hosted by the peak industry body. Then there's the powerful influence of lobbyists, people such as the former Labor communications minister Stephen Conroy, who, after politics, became the CEO of the peak industry body for Australian gambling companies. There is also the former New South Wales Liberal premier Barry O'Farrell, who was the CEO of Racing Australia. These are just a few of the long line of former politicians and political advisers touting for the gambling industry.

Research published by academics at the universities of Melbourne and Queensland found gambling beat out the alcohol, tobacco and food industries in terms of the number of third-party lobbying firms hired. To quote from the Grattan Institute's report, 'Big gambling is playing with our democracy through heavy political donations, intensive lobbying and close personal relationships with decision-makers.' Big gambling protects its profits at the public's expense. We need to end donations from harmful industries like the gambling industry.

Australia led the world on tobacco advertising bans, and smoking rates fell dramatically. And we have strong protections in place for our children from tobacco and alcohol marketing. We must now show the same conviction. We know what needs to be done—it's laid out in the Murphy report. This bill merely tinkers around the edges. It tries to have a bet each way, promising action for Australians harmed by gambling, while shielding the industry from meaningful reform. I cannot in good conscience support this bill. I say to the government: listen to the evidence, back real reform and stand up for Australian families. Let's end all gambling advertising and inducements now.

House adjourned at 22:03