Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I do appreciate the need for items in this chamber to come under scrutiny. My Nationals colleagues and I will always support the Senate's right to look into things in depth and in detail, so we will support the Greens to seek an inquiry into this issue. But, in saying that, I want to stress that I think the Greens have, once again, taken their usual unbalanced approach to this issue. They simply seem to want to ban everything—any fun, anyone doing anything, anyone wanting to have a punt on the footy or enjoying looking at the odds. It's just too unbalanced and too over-the-top. But we will support this. Yes, let's have an inquiry, because I don't think there's anything to hide here about the Australian pastime of having a punt on the football, the races or whatever it may be.

There is, of course, a major issue with irresponsible gambling. Making sure we promote responsible gambling and have proper restrictions and regulations is a major issue. This is a heavily regulated industry, as it should be, and there should be appropriate restrictions on advertising—when ads are put on, how children are exposed to them et cetera. We support all of those things, and we have no compunction and nothing to hide with it going to an inquiry right now. But we can't simply have an approach here that seeks a blanket ban on all types of behaviour in this country. On other platforms, the Greens are all for consenting adults. They are all for consenting adults exercising their rights to engage in all sorts of activities. I do think adults should be allowed to make those choices. I worry about where the Greens are heading on this. But I don't know why sometimes this chamber is almost afraid of the Greens, in a way—'We can't let them have an inquiry or go on a committee and have a say.' I say: let them talk. Let them go. Give them enough rope. Let them have their say.

So we from the National Party have no problem here in supporting an inquiry into these things because it will expose, I think, the need to have a balanced approach to these issues. It will allow our gambling industry, a responsible industry, to outline what they do to protect against people irresponsibly gambling. I know, having met with many of the industry, that they take these issues very, very seriously, and we should be properly regulating them.

I want to make one more comment in the time I have. I wonder why, at the moment, we seem to be so focused on one form of gambling—on sports betting, in particular. As I say, it's a fairly traditional Australian pastime. But we have ignored the insidious nature of poker machines. All the evidence on problem gambling shows that poker machines are a much, much greater issue. I am a Queenslander. I grew up in Queensland when we didn't have poker machines. I don't think our state is any better for having them. But that's something that we seem to have ignored lately in this obsession over one form of gambling which, yes, can still lead to pain and heartache but on all the statistics is nowhere near the same issue as the gaming machines that have proliferated all throughout our country.

I always welcome scrutiny. We will support this initiative for the Senate to apply that scrutiny, but we will do so, as we always do, in a balanced way. We'll seek to balance all of these concerns and let people have their say, not shut people down, from all sides of the debate, including the industry, which, as I say, takes this issue very seriously. It has to and should take a responsible approach to wagering in this country.