Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The matter before the Senate at the moment is indeed a matter of great public importance. The damage done to communities, individuals and families around the country by the massive continued expansion of harmful and predatory gambling is something that I'm sure we are all aware of, and we also must be aware of the fact that it is not being adequately addressed as things stand. One of the things that I think many in the community find most frustrating and irritating when they are raising a persistent problem that is not being addressed by elected representatives is when people try to pass the buck between state and federal level and say that it's a state issue, or a federal issue, or a local issue, and there's nothing we can do about it. The simple fact is there is something that needs to be done about this, and it can be done at federal level with more federal leadership.

The Greens have long campaigned for winding back the extraordinary expansion of poker machines in Australia. Australia is home to 0.3 per cent of the world's population but 18 per cent of the world's poker machines. Australians lose more money per capita to poker machines than do people anywhere else in the world. This isn't some manifestation of a quirk of the Australian character where we somehow or other love a punt more than anyone else in the world or have a compulsion to put coins into a machine; this is the result of an explicit policy choice by governments of both major party political persuasions, at federal as well as state level, for many years. This is an almost inevitable outcome of the regulatory regimes at state and federal level and a lack of political will to tackle this problem.

It is no coincidence that the gambling lobby in general—the pokies, the casinos and the like—put in literally millions of dollars of political donations at state and federal level. We need not just greater transparency about those donations but to eliminate those donations. The Greens have long campaigned to eradicate political donations from the gambling sector, as we did long ago in the tobacco industry—well, not so long ago in regard to the coalition in particular, who seemed keen to keep taking money from that sector for quite a long time. It is clear that this is a harmful industry and needs to be better regulated at federal level, with incentives, assistance and support for states to wean themselves off the revenue stream that they themselves have become addicted to.

A 2010 study by the Productivity Commission, hardly a bleeding heart social welfare body, found that problem gamblers account for 40 per cent of losses to poker machines. Most countries around the world—226 out of 238—do not have poker machines in pubs and clubs. Suicide rates among problem gamblers are twice the rates among those with other addictions. Problem gamblers are far more vulnerable to depression, relationship breakdown and job loss. Parts of our criminal justice system are being affected by this as well. This is a failure of the political system, because there's a lack of political will to tackle a major problem. It's not just about pokies. The expansion of online gambling is another serious concern with regard to the lack of protections for people. It's not a wowserish anti-gambling approach; it's about recognising that some forms of gambling are predatory, deliberately and knowingly causing harm to people and families. We need to stop that.