Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) | Link to this | Hansard source

I table a revised explanatory memorandum relating to the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026, and I move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech es read as follows—

INTERACTIVE GAMBLING AMENDMENT (GAMBLING REFORM) BILL 2026

This Bill delivers a significant package of reforms to reduce gambling harm in Australia.

When the Government introduced this legislation in the House of Representatives, it did so with three clear objectives: to reduce children's exposure to gambling advertising, reduce the targeting and saturation of wagering advertising, and strengthen protections to reduce gambling-related harm.

The Bill has since been considered through the Senate inquiry process and by the House of Representatives. The government thanks the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, as well as stakeholders, regulators, industry participants, public health experts, community organisations and people with lived experience of gambling harm who contributed to that inquiry and to the broader development of this Bill.

In parallel, our National Conference unanimously backed these reforms and supported considering further measures to tackle the harm caused by inducements.

We have also worked constructively to identify sensible improvements that would strengthen the legislation without undermining its practical operation.

The Albanese Labor Government has achieved bipartisan agreement with the Coalition to progress these reforms. On behalf of the Government, Minister for Communications and Minister for Sport, I thank the Coalition and Senator Henderson for their support to see these reforms become law.

As a result of this bipartisan agreement, the Bill has been amended to build on the reforms originally introduced by the government in the House of Representatives. These amendments tighten advertising protections, improve consistency across platforms, establish a Wagering Advertising Opt-out Register, and introduce restrictions on the direct marketing of predatory inducements to vulnerable Australians.

Together, these amendments strengthen the Bill and provide Australians with greater protection from online gambling harm.

The Bill contains a comprehensive suite of reforms to address the proliferation of wagering advertising across television, radio, sport and online.

Australians are seeing too much gambling advertising. The Bill introduces significant restrictions on wagering advertising during live sporting broadcasts, limits the volume of wagering advertising that may be shown during certain periods, restricts the broadcasting of odds, and increases controls on harmful and misleading advertising content.

These measures have been strengthened through amendments that extend protections for children's programs to broadcasting video on demand and subscription video on demand services and ensure protections for live sporting content apply consistently across both broadcasting and online platforms.

Collectively, these reforms help ensure children and young people are not continually exposed to gambling advertising simply because they are watching sport or other entertainment and apply it across all platforms.

Australians should be able to watch and participate in sport without gambling being a normalised part of that experience.

The Bill restricts gambling advertising during sporting events and prohibits gambling advertising on sporting uniforms and at sporting venues.

The reforms recognise that Australians increasingly consume content online and that protections need to apply wherever people are watching, listening and engaging.

Under the triple-lock mechanism, wagering advertising may only be provided where an individual is logged into an account, their age has been verified as over 18, and they have access to an opt-out mechanism, which must be prominently displayed.

The Bill, as amended, will make it easier to opt-out across multiple accounts through the establishment of a Wagering Advertising Opt-out Register.

The Wagering Advertising Opt-out Register will provide Australians with a 'one stop shop' to opt out of receiving wagering advertising across online content services that are implementing the triple-lock system.

Put simply, Australians who do not wish to receive wagering advertising online will have a practical and effective way to avoid it.

The costs of administering, operating and enforcing the Register, should they be needed, will also be recoverable through a levy imposed on licensed interactive wagering service providers.

The Bill has also been strengthened through the introduction of new wagering harm reduction measures for licensed interactive wagering service providers.

These measures recognise that gambling harm can arise not only from advertising, but also from practices that encourage continued or increased wagering activity.

The amendments introduce restrictions on the direct marketing of inducements to vulnerable customer cohorts, including people who have recently opened an account, individuals who have recently deregistered from BetStop, and customers identified as being at risk of gambling-related harm.

The reforms also prohibit wagering providers from offering staff or affiliates commissions or similar payments linked to a customer's gambling activity, helping remove incentives for staff to push customers to increase gambling participation or expenditure.

Australians should not be exposed to illegal gambling services that operate outside Australia's laws and outside Australia's consumer protections.

The Bill further strengthens Australia's ability to disrupt illegal offshore gambling operators. It improves ACMA's enforcement capabilities, expands cooperation with financial institutions and digital services, and supports more effective action against unlawful gambling providers. Amendments made to the Bill enhance the framework to help address the publication of illegal wagering advertising online.

The Bill also enhances BetStop—the National Self-Exclusion Register, by implementing recommendations from the recent statutory review and ensuring the framework remains effective as technologies and marketing practices evolve.

In addition, the Bill addresses emerging products that have the potential to cause significant consumer harm. It prohibits online keno products, prohibits foreign-matched lotteries, and addresses lottery-style schemes operating under trade promotion arrangements that may mislead consumers or undermine legitimate lottery operators and charitable fundraising activities.

The package of measures in this Bill will reduce exposure to wagering advertising, provide Australians with greater control over the advertising they receive, increases protections for people experiencing gambling harm, improve the integrity of Australia's gambling regulatory framework, and support a safer online wagering environment.

This Bill is a significant step forward in tackling online gambling harm and protecting vulnerable Australia.

NATIONAL SELF-EXCLUSION REGISTER (COST RECOVERY LEVY) AMENDMENT BILL 2026

The recent Statutory Review of BetStop—the National Self-exclusion Register, tabled in February 2026, found only 1 in 4 people are aware that BetStop exists.

And among people who placed a bet in the last 12 months, it was still only 1 in 3.

We need to make sure every Australian knows about this vital service.

We also need to place the onus on gambling companies, not taxpayers, to fund this work.

The Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 also includes a number of other provisions to strengthen the operation of BetStop.

This Bill will expand the cost-recovery framework to ensure it covers the full range of activities that ACMA and the Department undertake to ensure the effectiveness of the register, including promotion and awareness raising activities

INTERACTIVE GAMBLING (COST RECOVERY LEVY) BILL 2026

This Bill is a companion to the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform} Bill 2026, which is expected to introduce new restrictions on inducement-based marketing and establish the Wagering Advertising Opt-out Register. This Bill ensures that the costs of administering, operating and enforcing those reforms, should they be needed, can be recovered from the wagering industry.

Government has listened carefully to the evidence presented during the recent Senate inquiry and through ongoing stakeholder engagement. We are particularly concerned by evidence about wagering inducements and the role these practices can play in encouraging gambling and exacerbating gambling-related harm.

It is expected that the Government's reforms will respond to these concerns by introducing new restrictions on inducement-based marketing and establishing the Wagering Advertising Opt-out Register, which will provide Australians with a 'one-stop shop' to opt out of seeing wagering advertising on online platforms.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority will be responsible for implementing and enforcing these reforms, including monitoring compliance with the new restrictions and establishing and administering the Opt-out Register.

This Bill enables the ACMA to recover the costs of those activities through a levy imposed on licensed interactive wagering service providers. It is appropriate that the wagering industry, rather than taxpayers, bears the costs of regulating these activities.

The levy established by this Bill is intended solely to recover the costs associated with administering, operating and enforcing these reforms.

Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications and Digital Safety) | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to rise to speak on the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026, National Self-exclusion Register (Cost Recovery Levy) Amendment Bill 2026 and Interactive Gambling (Cost Recovery Levy) Bill 2026. I have to start by saying these bills, particularly the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026, are vastly different to the ones that the government presented into the parliament a very short time ago.

We have worked constructively with the government to secure a wide range of sensible amendments to this bill to ensure that children are better protected and that there is much greater protection for vulnerable Australians, including those suffering from gambling harm. These amendments also include a very significant crackdown on illegal gambling ads, particularly on social media. But we want to ensure that, in prosecuting these amendments and in bringing forward a vastly strengthened bill, we preserve the personal choice for millions of Australians who gamble responsibly. We have had constructive discussions, and I do acknowledge and thank both the Prime Minister and the communications minister, but it has not been an easy road. We have seen more than three years of delay, deflection and deception from the government in relation to gambling reform.

The government presented before the parliament a greatly flawed and deficient bill which did not get the balance right. It is extraordinary that that bill allowed for up to three gambling ads per hour to be served during children's television programming. It is extraordinary that the government's unamended bill did not combat predatory inducements and the shocking tactics used by gambling companies to target those suffering acute gambling harm and addiction. It is extraordinary that the government's unamended bill weakened the protections online and undid so much of the former coalition government's good work with the reforms that were passed by the parliament back in 2018. It is very disappointing that, while the Prime Minister is no longer saying this, he continued to say for a very long period of time that this unamended bill banned gambling ads during live sport, when, in fact, those prohibitions—the banning of gambling ads during live sport, including the five-minute blackout window before and after live sport between 5 am and 8.30 pm—were very significant initiatives of the former coalition government. When I talk about deception, that was a very misleading, disappointing claim by the Prime Minister—taking credit for the work of the former coalition government.

But I do want to work through and discuss these amendments, which deliver sensible safeguards but, importantly, do not punish most Australians who gamble responsibly whether they want to have a bet on the races, take their chance on a lottery ticket or have a flutter on the race which stops the nation, the Melbourne Cup. In bringing forward these amendments, we also recognise the importance of the wagering sector and sectors such as racing. Thoroughbred racing alone is worth more than $13 billion to the Australian economy. It directly employs 100,000 Australians, half of whom work in regional Australia. But it is absolutely not good enough that the government's unamended bill did not combat predatory inducements, allowed gambling ads in children's television programming and weakened online protections. So now the bill, amended in the House and now before the Senate, includes a wide range of significant amendments delivered by the coalition.

There are tougher restrictions on broadcasters. The blackout period before live sport, before the game commences, has been extended from five minutes to 15 minutes between 5 am to 8.30 pm. It was 6 am under the government's bill. We've now brought it back to 5 am, as was the case with the current law. There will be no gambling ads allowed in children's television programming or programs directed to children. For the commercial television networks that apply the same broadcast rules, which includes a maximum of three gambling ads per hour between 5 am and 8.30 pm, where they apply the same broadcast rules to simulcast of those programs on BVOD platforms—that is now permitted, because, of course, many Australians, when they watch their smart TV, don't know whether they're watching a network through their terrestrial aerial or through the app—we have made sure that no gambling ads will be allowed during video-on-demand catch-up television programs where that triple-lock opt-out exemption applies.

There will now be tougher online restrictions. Labor's bill, as I mentioned, weakened the rules online. It dropped the five-minute blackout before and after live sport. It allowed gambling ads in unscheduled breaks, such as after a goal was scored, which was a huge shock when we first read the government's proposal. I'm very pleased to say that one of our amendments has fixed this, and now the broadcast rules mirror those online very significantly.

There will a complete ban on the direct marketing of predatory inducements. There will be a ban on staff commissions related to customer activity, such as customer spending and betting losses. So no longer will wagering companies in this country be allowed to target those who are incurring very large losses or who are addicted to gambling and making their lives hell. The direct marketing of inducements, including targeting through social media advertising, to red flag customers is now banned. There are very strong obligations to monitor customers to make sure that the gambling companies are appropriately red-flagging customers who are showing signs of gambling harm. And there are big fines for breaches.

This has never been part of our law. Responsible Wagering talks about frameworks. Well, frameworks are meaningless. Until the bill before the Senate now, there have been no laws that ban predatory inducements, and that is where so much of the harm is occurring. We heard that compelling evidence in the Senate inquiry, including from Mr Luke Bateman, a former NRL player, who told a shocking story about how he was being targeted. Those who are addicted to gambling are targeted by these so-called VIP managers, who were of course causing such enormous harm. There will be no inducements for 14 days for all new account holders. This is not just important for anyone signing up to a betting account. It also means that if someone was with one betting company and they'd reached their limit or they'd been red-flagged or they'd been restricted, they can't just go and sign up with someone else and keep betting in an uncontrolled way. So there is an important cooling-off period there.

For those who have registered with BetStop, another very important initiative of the former coalition government—we legislated BetStop—there will be a three-month cooling-off period following a customer's deregistering from BetStop.

There will be AdStop, a global opt-out register which ensures that every Australian can go to the register, a one-stop shop to opt out of all gambling ads no matter where they are online. This is a very significant initiative. The idea that Australians have got to find every single opt-out button on every website, on every social media platform, from our perspective, was untenable. This register will take up to 12 months to design and implement. The government needs to make sure it gets it right. Privacy and data have to be properly protected. But this is now one place where Australians can go to opt out of all gambling ads in this country. This is a huge warning to the gambling companies. If you want to try and get around these laws, if you want to abuse your privilege to operate in the Australian marketplace, I can tell you every single Australian will have the opportunity to opt out of wagering advertising through a very simple mechanism. So this, as I say, is a very important initiative of the coalition.

We have also tackled the scourge of illegal gambling ads online, particularly on social media. Publishers of gambling advertisements are now directly liable for publishing illegal gambling ads online, including from illegal offshore casinos. Prior to this, ACMA, the regulator, had some limited powers. They were playing whack-a-mole with overseas illegal websites, but they were popping up as soon as they were being taken down. We've got to make sure that the publishers of gambling ads in this country check to make sure that they are only publishing ads from licensed wagering providers in this country. Illegal offshore gambling is causing enormous harm to Australians. It is costing Australians some $3.6 billion. The trajectory is that in a number of years it will cost up to $5 billion. They are an absolute scourge on social media. They are very deceptive. We are cracking down and shutting them out.

There will very importantly be a statutory review in three years—another coalition amendment that we fought very hard for. This will be independent. This will include public submissions. This will drive accountability and transparency. We want to make sure that nothing falls through the cracks. This is a big warning to the gambling industry. This is a big warning to all stakeholders—television, radio broadcasters, gambling companies and other online platforms. If you are going to try and get around these laws, if you are going to try and continue to hurt Australians, there will be full and complete transparency and accountability through a statutory review. The coalition has worked very hard to ensure these amendments are practical, they are proportionate and they respect personal choice and responsibility. I have to say—and I do commend others in the Senate, including the Greens and the crossbench—we drove the government kicking and screaming to a Senate inquiry. The two days of hearings shone a very significant light on the extensive gambling harm that is being caused in this country. I want to thank those who did testify in the Senate inquiry for their courage. That was very, very influential in convincing the government that they needed to do so much more.

I want to also reflect on the coalition's record when we were in government. I did call out the Prime Minister in relation to the fact that back in 2018 we banned gambling ads during live sport, including in the five-minute window before and after. We legislated BetStop, the national self-exclusion register, to support gamblers who needed support to take a break from gambling. That is now up and running and that is working very well. Also, we did pass laws to prohibit betting companies offering sign-up inducements, as part of the National Consumer Protection Framework. Now, as we know, we have much tougher provisions before the Senate.

Australians lost approximately $32 billion on legal forms of gambling in 2023-24, and 25 per cent of those losses were as a result of wagering. The consequences extend well beyond financial loss. Gambling addiction can contribute to psychological distress, relationship breakdown, financial hardship and workplace impacts. Families often bear the consequences alongside the individual gambler. We also recognise that we've got to get the balance right. This is a very important industry, including, of course, the racing industry. We think that, in bringing forward these amendments, which have now been passed in the House, we have a much better bill. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026. We have a generation of Australian adults and Australian children who have grown up in an environment where gambling has become normalised—dangerously normalised. This has led to all kinds of harms both to the individual and to broader society. We know that around one in 10 Australians experience gambling harm. However, that belies the fact that this harm has a knock-on effect, a ripple effect, on families and on communities. It's not just mental health impacts. It means that families and individuals are unable to pay their bills. They're unable to put food on the table. Sometimes businesses are put at risk. Sometimes people end up homeless, or worse.

The trendline when it comes to gambling losses is going in an upward direction. Last year, gambling losses amounted to around $36 billion. That is nearly $100 million per day. That is money from hardworking Australians going out the door, in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, and into the coffers of gambling corporations, some of whom are not even domiciled here. That's going offshore. We know that this package of reforms is not going to please everyone. I understand that—this is a morally charged issue—but I believe that these reforms are highly significant. I want to thank the coalition for working collaboratively with the government on these reforms, particularly Senator Sarah Henderson, who sits with me on a committee that has also prosecuted this work.

I also want to pay tribute to one of our own: the late Peta Murphy, former member for Dunkley, whose seminal work kicked off this response. This has been going for a number of years. We didn't fulfil all of Peta's requests, but I think we have delivered in this package of reforms highly significant changes that will make a tangible difference, bearing in mind that this is building on other reforms that we introduced in our first term of government. The work of social policy, as the minister says, is never done. It is never done.

I will go through, broadly speaking, what this package entails. It involves shielding children from gambling ad exposure; creating one set of rules for every screen, whether you're watching it on free-to-air or online through TV in an app, for example; giving people control over what they see through the triple-lock function, which gives them an opt out if they're an adult and they're logged in; closing off inducements at vulnerable pressure points and banning commissions which have driven predatory marketing behaviour; and having an industry-pays approach and enforcement with teeth, bearing in mind that this package of reforms is complementary to what we introduced in our first term.

In 2024 on some channels in this country, you could sit through eight gambling ads an hour in the middle of news. These bills cap it at three an hour on broadcast TV, meaning free-to-air TV, between five am and 8.30 pm, brought forward from 6 am, and none at all during live sport inside those hours. The blackout around a game goes from five minutes to 15—15 minutes before the first bounce and 15 minutes after the final siren. On radio, gambling ads disappear in the morning and in the afternoon around the time of children's programming, which is to say that, every time a child is strapped into the back of a car on the way to school and on the way home, they're not going to hear these ads. It's really important to ensuring that we don't normalise and socialise our children into believing gambling is part of the furniture of their lives. It isn't. Online, the ads are off by default unless a person is logged in, verified as over 18 and given a way to switch them off. That is the deluge dammed.

As a former medical practitioner, I can tell you that gambling harm almost never walks through the door of a hospital announcing itself. It manifests in other ways. It presents as a mental health crisis, and I saw plenty of those. I saw plenty of young men coming through the emergency department door, some of whom were jaundiced from nearly drinking themselves to death. These were people who had really good jobs and had everything to live for and for whom something had gone badly wrong. They would come in silence. It was incredibly difficult to extract what was wrong with them, but then we would chip and chip away, and we would find that, in many cases, gambling was travelling with alcoholism and with other problems.

It may also present in other ways—a young bloke who has chest pain but not a single cardiac risk factor to explain it. Chest pain can be a manifestation of anxiety. It presents as a family sitting in the waiting room who have stopped speaking to one another. Family breakdown is real. You treat what is in front of you, but, very often, you may not find out what is underneath it. We're not very good at picking this, because it is a highly stigmatising disorder. Gambling harm runs into mental health, into family violence, into financial counselling, into homelessness services, into our emergency departments and into our family courts—one ecosystem of pain and harm and suffering. Break one part of it, and you will find the cost somewhere else. Everyone is paying for this harm.

There are some scenarios worth considering. This one should be familiar to every Australian. It's Saturday afternoon. You've got the game on. Your kid is on the floor watching telly, and, by the time the second quarter is done, she can recite the odds back to you—not the ladder but the odds. I didn't even know what the odds were when I was a kid. I don't think I really still do either, because I didn't really grow up gambling. It wasn't part of my life. It's very different with a generation of young kids in Australia today. She thinks that the odds are part of watching football because that's what her entire life has been like.

Here's another scenario: you're 19, you've just opened your first betting account, and, for the next fortnight, your phone lights up with bonus bets, matched deposits and a little push notification at 11 pm at night telling you there's money waiting for you. Under these reforms, that first fortnight will go quiet—completely silent. There won't be inducements, and there won't be direct marketing for two weeks after an account is opened. It's in those first two weeks that a habit is formed. In those first two weeks, a lot of Australians will also be exposed to information on how they can gamble responsibly and the risks, particularly for young men.

Then, there's another scenario. This is one that should trouble us most—you've done the single hardest thing a person with a gambling problem can do. You've taken that first step, which is to put your name down on BetStop, a self-exclusion register. Some months later, you come off that register. Within days, the offers start again, timed almost to the hour from a company that knows precisely who you are and precisely what will work. They know your buttons, and they will press them. Under these bills, that stops for 90 days. That's a significant reform. It's a significant cooling-off period to protect you.

Here's the fourth: you've been flagged by the company itself as a customer at risk of harm. Flagged by their own systems! They know you; they know what buttons to press. The marketing keeps coming anyway. Under these bills, direct marketing of inducements to those customers will be banned outright. Gambling companies know exactly who to target. They have always known. They have the data, they have the models, and they run them with skill. These bills take that intelligence and turn it around, using it to protect people instead.

We are also banning commissions to staff and to affiliates, and we based this on the explosive testimony that we heard in the Senate inquiry. With regards to advertising, our starting principle is simple: what you see on telly should match what you get online. It hasn't, and everyone in the building knows that. We are taking the protections that sat in the Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice, an industry code enforced by industry, and we're putting them into law. Then we're extending them to streaming. The rules on live sport and the rules during children's programming will apply on platforms like 9Now and 7plus, and on streaming platforms like Netflix and Prime—one set of rules for every screen.

The first is simulcast. Where a broadcaster is running a straight live feed on its terrestrial channel online, it may elect to follow the broadcast rules rather than the triple lock. This comes with some transparency obligations: providers must declare to their viewers and to the regulator which rules they are operating under, and the whole framework will be subject to review at three years. If, however, you're watching something on a TV on an app like 9Now or 7plus, and it's not a live simulcast, you can opt out of those ads. There should be a prominent feature on those platforms to enable you, as long as you're logged in and over 18, to actually opt out of gambling ads. It's not a given that, just because you're going to be online watching a streaming platform or a broadcasting platform like a TV in an app, for example, that you will see these ads. You may see them if it is a live simulcast from a broadcast channel, but, if you opt out, then you're not going to see them at other times.

The other reform is that we will be grandfathering stadium and jersey advertising. Existing commercial contracts cannot be voided by this parliament. What we have done here is bring the cut-off forward to the date these bills were introduced—2 July this year—so nobody can rush in and sign a decade-long deal before Christmas. We have also added a sunset, so the whole arrangement expires after five years.

Beyond advertising, these bills also go to enforcement, and enforcement is where reform either bites or it doesn't. Civil penalties have increased to 1,000 penalty units and 5,000 for corporations. In dollars, that is around $364,000 an offence and roughly $1.82 million for a company—more than five times the highest advertising penalty currently in the act. The penalties do matter. So does the opprobrium that comes from the community if these are breached. These are the difference between a rule and a suggestion.

Illegal offshore operators—since 2019, the ACMA, which is the enforcement authority, has had more than 1,700 illegal gambling sites blocked. It's lot of work but the operators are quick, they are invasive and they are sophisticated. And, frankly, the whole process has been too slow. These bills will streamline the blocking process, extend the obligation to app stores and search engines so that they must proactively keep these sites away from Australians and their feeds. Even if you reach the site, you will not be able to send funds to it from an Australian bank account—this is important—and ACMA gets the power to issue take-down notices directly, including to an influencer spruiking an illegal service to Aussie kids.

BetStop is a reform we introduced in our last term of government. As of July this year, more than 67,000 Australians have registered, with around 41,000 who are currently active. This is a self-exclusion register. Before we came to government, that register did not exist. These bills deliver every recommendation of the Eccles review: a mandatory minimum three-month exclusion once you come off BetStop and friction added to the cancellation process so that nobody walks out of it on a bad night. Restrictions are extended beyond email and SMS to apps and push notifications, and old and new accounts will be linked so that harm patterns can actually be seen.

These bills are not a prohibition—I accept that—and not everyone will be happy. But, as a practitioner, I also don't believe in prohibition. I just don't believe it works. I never saw it work in my practice. If you clamp down, people find ways of circumventing those kinds of rules. These are significant reforms and I believe they get the balance right. They are a significant step forward in minimising gambling harm on individuals and in our wider community. (Time expired)

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

The government has one core job, and that is to protect its citizens. The piece of legislation before us today, Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026, fails to do exactly that. The Prime Minister and the leader of the coalition have not just failed to protect Australian citizens; they have failed the clearest moral test of all—to be honest about what they are failing to do.

Labor has proven itself to be captured by the gambling industry. All of those political donation inducements over years and years, adding up to millions and millions, cashed in by the gambling industry to stop this law working, to protect the gambling industry and its self-interest above and ahead of the protection of Australian families. These laws are designed to fail. Labor has proven itself to be captured by the industry, and the Liberal Party has proven itself to be weak and toothless. It is gambling companies who are the winners today, not Australian families—not even Australian media companies. The gambling industry has won the house.

This bill has become so convoluted it looks less like gambling reform and much more like a protection racket for the gambling industry. It's full of loopholes, delays, complexities, carve-outs. It is designed to not work. There was a very simple proposition put to this parliament, and put to the government, off the back of the Murphy review. That report recommended the ban of gambling advertising. It said clearly: 'Halfway measures do not work.' It said there needed to be a ban on inducements because of their 'predatory and harmful' nature. It said there must be a national regulator because the gambling industry has proven itself 'incapable' of doing the right thing. This bill fails on all three of those points. There is no ban on gambling advertising across any medium, there is no ban on inducements, and there is no national regulator to ensure gambling companies—who have shown themselves to be immoral, to be improper and to be corrupt—do the right thing. They have proven themselves unfit to be an industry, and yet the key recommendation, to have a watchdog to hold them to account, is missing from this entire bill and entire conversation, from both Labor and the Liberal Party.

I'll tell you one thing: advertising works. That's why the industry has fought tooth and nail to stop any attempt to ban ads. I'll tell you why we know it works: the gambling industry have done everything they can to get a piece of legislation that does everything but stop them from being able to advertise their dangerous product. We know that ads for gambling work because the gambling industry, in just one single year, spends $600 million on gambling advertising. In the 2023-24 financial year, Australian gambling companies spent $600 million flogging their dangerous and predatory product. You don't spend $600 million if it doesn't work. What is even more galling is that not only are they spending $600 million on gambling but it's six times more than they pay in tax. No wonder the gambling industry want anything but a ban on their advertising. The Labor and Liberal parties are so addicted to the gambling industry and the inducements that come from this industry that, despite all of the evidence and all of the stories of heartbreak and damage, they cannot bring themselves to do the obvious and simple thing.

I foreshadow that I will be moving a second reading amendment to ban the inducements that the gambling industry fork out to Labor and Liberal parties and MPs here today. Australians have lost $104 billion to gambling since the Murphy report was handed down. That's $666 million a week—$666 million a week is what Australians are losing. It is going straight into the coffers, to the profits, of the vultures in the gambling industry.

Since this debate has been elevated over the last few weeks, and we've seen the Senate inquiry and heard the experts and the people telling their personal stories, I've been inundated with accounts from Australians right across the country with their stories of absolute, complete and utter devastation. They are stories that are so shameful to tell, but Australians have been desperate to be heard. There are so many stories of people driven to suicide because they couldn't see any other way out of their gambling addiction. For one victim who wrote to my office, even in death, the gambling companies would not let her husband go. His widow kept receiving inducement offers after her husband had killed himself. What a pack of bastards. How disgusting.

There are mothers who have had to bury their sons, who will never, ever get to meet their grandchildren. There are fathers who will never know retirement, because they have to keep going back to work to support their children's rehab or addiction habit. There is the love of parents, brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts as they desperately try to keep their loved ones from doing the ultimate, heartbreaking act of ending their life to end the suffering for them and their family. There are decades worth of savings, millions of dollars and houses lost, vanished, to save a son who has a gambling addiction. There are entire small businesses that have gone bankrupt because someone in the business stole from the company in order to feed their gambling illness. The list goes on and on, yet it doesn't seem to matter how many bodies pile up on these companies' watch. It doesn't matter that the Murphy report set out a detailed road map of how this harm could be stopped.

Expert after expert has told this parliament what needs to be done. But the Labor Party, the Liberal Party, the National Party and One Nation don't care. It's all too hard. They are cowards. As they cowardly come into this place today to pretend and to beg for a pat on the back for putting through a piece of legislation that is designed to fail, the body count will continue. I feel exhausted by this. Australians and Australian families feel exhausted by this. This is what is wrong with the state of politics in this country. All of the evidence is so clear, and the public have been crystal clear, that the majority of Australians don't want these ads. Even if you like a flutter, you don't want to be bombarded with gambling advertising. You're worried about what it does to the vulnerable person next to you. But it doesn't matter, because vested interests have won the day.

This opt-out register—what an absolute joke. It's as if people in this place or in the Prime Minister's office don't understand how the internet even works, and they expect a pat on the back for a fancy new product called AdStop. We know the ads are not stopping; they're not being banned. How will this opt-out register even work? The government can't even answer that. But we do know that every person in this country who doesn't want to receive ads will have to give their name, email address and phone number to the government, who will then take their name, phone number and email address to every website in the country that runs advertising—every app, every gaming platform.

It beggars belief that the government and the opposition come in here today and think they can sell this rubbish. We're not idiots. The Australian people are not mugs. They can see what has happened here, which is that the Labor Party and the Liberal Party have been played. The Murphy report said that inducements need to be banned immediately because they are so harmful. The government recognises they're harmful because they've had to do something, but it's just to look like they're doing something, because if inducements are so harmful then they should be banned. Are we going to let the gambling companies decide who is vulnerable to their inducements?

Andrew Wallace, the Liberal Party MP in the other house, is right. This is putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank. The gambling companies were on the radio today saying they've already identified these vulnerable people. I bet they have. They know exactly who to target, and they do. There is nothing that is going to stop them from doing that further, because the one thing this government has refused to do is establish a national regulator. These companies all run their dodgy, predatory grooming activities through the regulator in the NT because it's a free-for-all. Everyone knows it, and you haven't had the guts to do anything about it. The gambling companies are getting away with murder. They groom people like paedophiles groom their victims. They have no social licence in this country anymore, yet the Labor Party and the Liberal Party are rolling over for them. What a bunch of cowards.

Kerrynne Liddle (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care) | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition has agreed to support the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 only because it changed significantly from what Labor first put on offer. This is a better bill today than the one they first put forward, and it is a better bill because the coalition did the work Labor should've done. I commend my colleague Senator Henderson for her continued efforts. The coalition acknowledges the importance of protecting children from gambling harm and gambling advertising while respecting the choices of adults who gamble responsibly. The coalition did the hard work that Labor should've done. There are tens of thousands of Australians, including thousands of South Australians, whose job depends on a wagering and racing industry that operates within the law. They deserve that scrutiny.

The Murphy report, You win some, you lose more, was handed down in June 2023. It was a thorough piece of work led by the late Peta Murphy and it deserved a considered, timely government response. Instead, after three years of delay by Labor, we now work constructively to fix serious holes in Labor's bill and deliver practical, proportionate reform. Three years is how long it took this Labor government to respond to a report that warned of the harm gambling is doing to Australian families. In that time, the number of Australians caught up in addiction or not-yet punters that were ripe for recruitment has grown. When the response finally came on 12 May this year, it was tabled on budget day, which is the one day that is guaranteed to bury it in the news cycle. So much for transparency and accountability; we've seen that promise broken over and over again by this Labor government. South Australians deserve better than to have a government that treats gambling harm as a media management problem rather than a policy problem that deserves real attention.

When the exposure draft of this bill was released in May and the bill was introduced into the House in July, it became immediately apparent that it had serious shortfalls. That is why coalition senators strongly backed referring this bill to a Senate inquiry conducted by the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee. Time and again, as is commonplace with government bills, the inquiry heard that the bill, in its original form, was not good enough—so we listened and then we acted. The committee heard from former NRL player Luke Bateman, whose testimony about the tactics used by some licensed wagering companies to target gambling addicts was confronting and courageous. We heard from allied professionals, from advocates and from families who lived through the damage of gambling addiction and what it can do to a household. We heard again and again that the bill as drafted did not go far enough to stop predatory targeting of vulnerable gamblers and, in some respects, actually weakened protections that already existed.

After two days of hearings, the shadow minister for communications and digital safety was clear and public about what she saw: the coalition could not support this bill in its form back then. This was a considered judgement based on evidence and is precisely the kind of scrutiny this parliament exists to provide. Because of that position, because the coalition was willing to say 'no' until the defects and shortcomings were addressed, here we are today, finally talking about a bill with real substantive improvements.

Sport time should be family time. Parents should be able to watch footy with the kids without gambling advertising being pushed at them at every turn, whether they are watching on television or streaming online. I think of Adelaide Oval on a Saturday afternoon, of families packed onto the hill or gathered around the TV at home, watching the Crows or Port—kids and pets in club colours, parents just wanting to enjoy the game together with the whole family. That is what this reform is about.

Labor's original bill could have allowed up to three gambling advertisements an hour during children's programming. That was never going to be acceptable, and the coalition won't waive that through. We have strengthened protections around children's programs and live sport, including bringing online streaming rules into line with broadcast protections. That's the right thing to do. This matters because the way Australians watch sport has changed. A blackout on gambling advertising that only applies to free-to-air television while mainstreaming services are left untouched is a loophole, not a protection. South Australian families streaming the football on their tablets deserve the same protection as those watching on the television in a lounge room. The coalition insisted that online platforms be brought up to the same standard as broadcast, and that is now reflected in this bill.

We have acted on predatory inducements. The Senate inquiry heard confronting evidence about vulnerable gamblers being targeted with significant inducements. Labor's original bill did not properly deal with that problem. This was, to my mind, one of the most serious gaps in the government's original approach. We heard directly through this inquiry that some operators are identifying so-called 'red flag gamblers'—people already showing signs of harmful behaviour—and specifically targeting them with inducements designed to keep them betting. That's predatory conduct—not acceptable to the coalition. The coalition would not accept a bill that left that loophole open, and we pushed hard to see it addressed.

We have secured tougher action against illegal gambling advertising flooding social media as well as global online opt-out registers, so Australians have a one-stop shop to opt out of gambling advertising online. It's simple and makes opt-out services easily accessible to vulnerable Australians should they need it, should they choose to do that. Illegal offshore wagering operators do not play by Australian rules, and they should not be allowed to advertise as though they do. Strengthening payment-blocking and website-blocking powers, and giving Australians a genuine, simple way to opt out of gambling advertising altogether, are practical measures that will make a difference to households who want to reduce their exposure to this content. It will make a difference to Australian families. This is a sensible middle ground. We should be tough on gambling harm and protect children without treating every Australian who enjoys an occasional punt as a problem gambler.

I want to be clear about something, because I think it gets lost in this debate: gambling done responsibly is a legal and legitimate form of entertainment for millions of Australians. The gambling sector directly employs around 33,000 Australians, and gambling taxes generate more than $10 billion a year for the essential services Australians rely on. Thoroughbred racing alone contributes more than $13 billion in economic activity and supports over 100,000 jobs, half of them in regional communities, including right across regional South Australia from Port Lincoln to Mount Gambier.

None of that changes the fact that gambling causes real harm. In 2023-24, Australians lost more than $32 billion on legal gambling. That's among the highest rates of loss per person anywhere in the world. Wagering losses make up around a quarter of that figure. Gambling addiction can bring psychological distress, broken relationships, financial ruin and workplace harm. Both things are true at once, and good policy has to hold both truths at the same time rather than pretending one does not exist.

The coalition has a strong record of practical gambling reforms, including BetStop and the National Consumer Protection Framework, which bans betting companies from offering sign up inducements. This agreement builds on the coalition's record. It was the former government, the coalition government, that introduced the 2018 ban on wagering advertising during live sport broadcasts, including that five-minute blackout before and after the game, because we understand that footy time is family time. It's the best time. That coalition government legislated BetStop, the national self-exclusion register, which has already made a genuine difference to thousands of Australians trying to manage their own gambling. And that coalition government banned sign up inducements through the National Consumer Protection Framework. This builds on the coalition's record.

The task of all sides of this parliament is to build a framework that protects Australians from foreseeable harm while preserving a lawfully, properly regulated industry that supports real jobs and real communities. It is incumbent on all of us to guard against causing unnecessary harm to the wagering sector—and, in turn, to the racing industry and, in turn, to the tens of thousands of Australian jobs that depend on it—while never losing sight of the families who have been hurt by gambling addiction and doing what we can to protect those who are caught up in addiction.

The government took more than three years to bring forward serious reforms in this space. It is because of the coalition—because we referred this bill to scrutiny, because we listened to the evidence and because we held firm until real changes were made—that this bill is now one we can responsibly pass and support. Protect children, protect vulnerable Australians, respect the choices of adults who gamble responsibly and protect the jobs of tens of thousands that depend on lawful, properly regulated industry. That's what this is. This is the balance this parliament should and must get right. Will Labor govern with balance, or will they continue to fail to govern with balance and respect for our most vulnerable people? This is a better bill because the coalition did the hard work, which Labor should have done from the very beginning, to protect Australian families and also protect the industry.

Ellie Whiteaker (WA, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026. Australians love their sports. In my home state of Western Australia we've been spoilt for choice, with local and international sporting events coming to our great state in recent years—from the Matildas opening the AFC Women's Asian Cup last March in Perth to the AFL bringing games to the south-west town of Bunbury, where North Melbourne played the Dockers. Might I just say, the mighty Freo Dockers are having an excellent season at the moment. Just on Sunday, the Freo Dockers women's team played their very first game at their new home in my local community of Cockburn. I can't wait to take my son to a game just down the road at the Dockers' amazing facility at Cockburn ARC, but, when I do, I don't want him to be exposed to gambling ads on the sidelines as we're watching the players play the game.

I know many families feel the same. When they're taking the train—on trains manufactured in WA, thanks to a Labor government, that are running along the Metronet network, funded by both state and federal Labor governments—they should be able to do it knowing that, when they arrive at the game, their kids won't be bombarded with ads that expose them to betting. Families deserve to be able to go to a stadium and watch the game without being worried about the ads that their kids might see. Children should not grow up believing that sports and gambling go hand in hand. Aussies love sports, but they love it for the game, not for the odds. When gambling advertising gets in the way of enjoying the footy or the rugby with your kids or with your mates, we should step up and make change. Gambling ads have taken over our sports, our stadiums, our teams, our TVs, iPads and phone screens for too long. Without these changes, you haven't been able to watch your favourite team without being told to have a crack.

This legislation is groundbreaking. Not only does this bill represent the largest reform to online gambling in Australia's history, but it is also the first time a federal government has taken proactive steps to regulate gambling advertising. The Albanese Labor government is taking the strongest ever action to tackle the harms of gambling. We will protect Australians from the harms of online gambling and we will especially protect children and young people by minimising their exposure to betting ads.

This bill places limits on ads so that no more than three gambling ads can be broadcast each hour between 5 am and 8.30 pm, the time that kids are most likely to watch any television. New measures announced this week, and that I'm really pleased about, enshrine what is in the code of practice into law, to legislate that gambling ads cannot be shown during shows for children. There will be a total ban during live sports broadcasts within those hours, with the marketing blackout starting 15 minutes before each game. On the radio, ads will be banned during school drop-off and pick-up times, between the hours of 8 am and 9 am, and from 3 pm to 4 pm. We are banning wagering advertisements online unless you have a logged in account and are over 18.

We will make sure that everyone has the option to opt out from these ads should they wish. For people that need to stay away from gambling related products, this will make it easier for them to reduce their exposure, because opting out should be easy and straightforward. The new wagering advertising opt-out register is designed to allow Australians to choose to not be exposed to wagering ads through a single, simple mechanism, and it will have effect across all online platforms. These are sensible and good measures.

The Albanese Labor government will also impose a levy on gambling companies to cover the cost of this register and other measures on inducements, because if companies are ready to make a profit from gambling, they should also be ready to pay for the measures that keep people safe from gambling related harm.

After the passing of this bill, online betting companies will not be able to enlist high-profile celebrities and sports players in their ads. We know that the endorsement of these figures can be highly influential, especially with young people. Sporting fans will no longer be targeted by odds-style ads, limiting the ability of betting platforms to induce bets around sporting events. These reforms will also prevent gambling companies from plastering their logos and slogans across the uniforms of players and officials, and from around sporting venues.

In recent weeks, our government has strengthened our reform following significant consultation, the evidence heard by the Senate inquiry and also the advocacy of many, many Labor members around the country which led to a platform change at the ALP's national conference last month. We've added additional measures around inducements, and these are really, really important measures. Inducements can very quickly become toxic. I think we've all seen some of the most terrible examples of those inducements in the evidence given at the Senate inquiry over the last few weeks, and there is absolutely no place for that in our country. We cannot stand for it. We condemn that action in the very strongest of terms.

Our strengthened measures in this bill include additional protections for consumers at the critical points that they risk tipping into gambling harm. These measures include banning inducements for 14 days after signing up with a gambling company, banning inducements on all red flagged customers, banning inducements for three months after a person deregisters from BetStop and banning commissions to staff or affiliates based on consumer activity. These are sensible measures that I think add a lot of important weight to this bill. Banning ads during live sport, banning ads during children's television shows, banning radio ads during drop-off and pick-up, limiting ads online, giving people choice to opt out simply, banning ads featuring celebrities, banning odds-style ads, keeping gambling companies off players and officials and reclaiming our stadiums for sports—these are concrete, achievable reforms that will protect Australians. These changes will be complemented with a comprehensive range of measures to address risky products and integrity concerns.

The government will crack down on services that provide access to offshore lotteries. These foreign matched lotteries sell tickets locally but match their draws and prizes to products overseas. Larger jackpots are promoted to encourage higher spending, but, because the draws are being conducted overseas, they are outside Australian regulation, creating a big risk for consumers. The agencies offering these products are exploiting gaps in the legislation and competing with Australian regulated lotteries. That means they're diverting funds that might otherwise go to supporting local businesses, newsagencies and community organisations through programs like Lotterywest in my home state. We know that many charities and community groups rely on the funding raised through those lotteries. From now on, to sell lottery tickets in Australia, you will be required to run a local lottery. This will strengthen consumer protections and contribute to the financial sustainability of local community and charitable organisations.

Access to new technologies, which are ever-changing—it feels often day by day—makes these kinds of reforms an ever-evolving challenge. Our government will ban emerging, harmful, online 'pocket pokies', and we will keep working to address harms related to online gambling. In line with these changes, we will boost enforcement against illegal offshore gambling providers, making sure the reforms have the intended effect of keeping people safe.

Protecting Australians from the harms of gambling also requires protecting them from illegal activity that smears the reputation of our sporting codes. We've seen cases of criminal organisations fixing matches in order to make a profit from wagering. Sport Integrity Australia leads the way in countering competition manipulation by working with sports codes, clubs and international agencies to identify and prevent instances of match fixing. We will build on these efforts by making match fixing a criminal offence consistent across the country, improving sports integrity and reducing the appeal of our local competitions as a target for illegal activity.

This bill has been designed with people's safety front of mind. These commonsense reforms are an important milestone in Labor's long track record of safeguarding Australians from gambling harm. We have already legislated a ban on credit cards, digital wallets and digital currency for both online and telephone betting services. Getting into debt to place bets is an extremely risky practice. It is already illegal for wagering companies to offer or help you access credit for the purposes of gambling.

We know that sometimes, for people that need to step away from gambling platforms, self-exclusion is the only viable option. That's why we created BetStop the National Self-Exclusion Register. Since its inception, more than 59,000 Australians have willingly registered, almost 40 per cent of those opting for a self-imposed lifetime ban. We will continue to strengthen this scheme following the recent statutory review. Mandatory pre-verification imposed on online platforms ensures that children under 18 and people that have opted for self-exclusion will not be allowed to place bets. In addition to these measures, our government will expand access to financial counselling support for gambling and work to continue to raise awareness of the risks associated with online gambling.

This bill strikes a balance between protecting an individual's right to have fun safely and, importantly, shielding our children and young people and people who are vulnerable to harm from gambling advertising, keeping them safe and putting in place safeguards that can protect them. I know that there are people in this place and outside of this place who feel like this bill doesn't go far enough, but I think we can be really confident in the work that our government has done diligently over the last few years to come to a set of reforms that are the most significant to come to this parliament on gambling ever. No government has done this before, and it is really important that we take this strong action to protect children and young people and people who are vulnerable to harm from gambling action. Thank you.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

But you're not. That's the point.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister Walsh, on a point of order?

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education) | Link to this | Hansard source

Acting Deputy President, interjections are disorderly, and the senator deserves to be heard in silence.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Whiteaker, have you finished your speech? Thank you, Senator Whiteaker.

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

Today, colleagues, is a sombre day. It is a tragic reminder of why we're seeing declining trust in politicians, in politics and in governments. I only started calling myself Australian in 2002, after my family moved here, and in that time I've never seen a prime minister with such a mandate to do something. This is a prime minister who has a unanimously backed parliamentary inquiry that looks at the harms of gambling in this country and has 31 recommendations to turn things around, with not a dissenting report nor additional comment. This is a prime minister who has the support of his party, parliamentary colleagues, rank-and-file Labor members and branches. This is a prime minister who has 80 per cent of Australians saying: 'Ban the damn ads. We're sick and tired of seeing these ads on TV, online and on social media. Get rid of them. We see the impact it's having on our kids. We see that it's setting them up for failure in the country that is the biggest loser per capita in the world.'

Yet we have a prime minister who, despite all that, has not just capitulated to vested interests but over the last three years has actively engaged in watering down reform, providing an off-ramp from the Murphy report, delaying the response and giving us talking points straight from the industry that no experts can actually point to being based in any sort of fact. Now there is this bill, the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026, which is a betrayal of an incredible legacy.

This is a missed opportunity to change the country for generations of Australians, and this is a victory of vested interests over the community, over the people who we are meant to be in here to serve. Today, those vested interests have won. They managed to get to the Prime Minister, and it seems like he has single-handedly stopped the Labor Party doing what 80 per cent of Australians wanted them to do and assumed they would do. The vested interests may have won this battle, but they will not win the war against the Australian people, who want our children protected and a predatory industry put in its place. Fellow independent members, members of the crossbench and senators from the major parties who disagree with this legislation will all keep pushing hard to actually implement the Murphy report in line with what communities want and with what the parliament said was necessary.

I don't know about colleagues in here, but I continue to read the most tragic emails from constituents and from Australians further abroad, emailing from Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne with their personal stories of the impacts of gambling in a country where it's become so normalised—the impacts of inducements, the impacts on their family of losing a brother, son, grandson to gambling addiction and suicide. I've heard from Canberrans who are furious that their elected representative in the south of Canberra has not mentioned gambling reform a single time in the parliament since the Murphy report—not one single time. I assume people are emailing the member for Bean. They are certainly emailing me about this. He couldn't muster a single mention of gambling reform over the last three years.

We've got the independent candidate for Bean Jessie Price out there engaging with the community. Last week, I tabled a petition of over 700 Canberrans who've had a gut full and want the Labor government to act on this. I thought I would just echo some of the concerns I've heard from Canberrans about this. One says: 'This is the first time I've ever written to any member of parliament. The very communities that I live in are appalled at the voracious predatory industry of gambling. It's a social cancer. Its impacts on people's lives in general in our society are so detrimental.' Another one says, 'What or who is stopping the ALP from doing what Australians want?' There are more emails from people saying that they were faithful Labor voters but no longer. They feel betrayed. They feel like they've been sold out to vested interests.

I've seen, and we've obviously heard, Labor members out there trying to defend this weak package, which basically doesn't implement a single recommendation of the Murphy report in full, and vastly overselling what the bill actually does. So let's quickly look at the facts. You already can't have ads in live sport between 5 am and 8.30. This bill doesn't change that. It just preserves the status quo. You're lifting the code and putting it in law. That's not something to be applauded. You already can't play betting ads during G rated programs. Why should we applaud you for doing something that already cannot be done on television. And it's already the rule that inducements can't be sent to people who are struggling. It's just never enforced because we have this industry that is regulated out of the NT, and the regulator there is basically functionally useless—asleep at the wheel. We heard evidence in the Senate inquiry that the regulator in the NT that regulates all of these big multinational gambling companies has no full-time staff. We've since heard that, after the allegations were aired at the Senate inquiry, they still have not contacted a single gambling company to say, 'Hey, were you offering cocaine as an inducement? Were you hooking up drugs? Were you offering sex workers?' and that continues. The Anthony Albanese Labor government is very happy for the NT regulator to continue to have a very light touch, and that is exactly why the Murphy report called for a national regulator.

Offshore betting providers are already banned. Illegal offshore gambling is illegal. It's in the name. That's not something that you're delivering with this. There is so much spin, and it's devastating to hear Labor members trying to sell this reform to Australians.

My team has been working tirelessly on amendments, and I really thank the drafters. I know there's a huge amount of pressure on you at the moment. I'll be moving a host of amendments to try and strengthen this bill and make it a true reflection of what the Murphy report called for. Some I would personally find hard to vote against, but that's in senators' hands. One is an amendment that would ensure that proceeds of crime have to be returned by betting companies. We heard time and time again in the inquiry—and this was canvassed in the Murphy review—that where people have stolen money and bet it, gambling companies have no obligation to actually return that money to the people it was stolen from. That's surely something the Senate could fix.

I'll be moving a full gambling ad ban, as recommended by the Murphy report. Peta Murphy was clear. Partial bans on gambling advertising do not work, and I'm going to take her and the committee at their word. Rather than these weak cooling-off periods that we've heard about from the Prime Minister and Labor members, I'm proposing a full ban on inducements, as recommended by Peta Murphy. She stood up and said, 'This is the most urgent part of all of this reform. We should ban inducements today.' That was three years ago. They should be banned immediately, and, three years on, we're still seeing inducements. Now, we're essentially legitimising inducements with this legislation, basically just saying, 'Inducements are fine, as long as they're not within these certain bounds or scenarios.' That's really hard to stomach.

I'm proposing to replace the unworkable opt-out mechanism with an opt-in one. No-one is saying, despite what the PM might say, that we want to ban gambling in this country. That's ridiculous. We just want to ban these ads. If you are over 18 and you enjoy the ads, then you can opt in. It shouldn't be on everyone else to have to go through some convoluted process and then maybe, in 12 months, hopefully, we have this opt-out register that's modelled on the Do Not Call register. I don't know how many Australians are signed up for that and still get pestered by telemarketers and all sorts of people calling their mobile phones.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

And hand over all your private information!

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

Exactly! And they check your identity. I also propose extending the ban on ads during children's programs to PG rated shows as well. Most family viewing shows—LEGO Masters, et cetera—are PG. Prime Minister Albanese, and, it seems, now, Angus Taylor, think that getting the balance right is three ads per hour during those shows. We're still normalising gambling if kids are seeing those ads during LEGO Masters or if they're seeing them during MasterChef. Whatever the shows that you love sitting down as a family and watching are, you're still going to see gambling ads during those shows.

One of the things that the Murphy report talked about was breaking the nexus between gambling and sport. I'll be moving former opposition leader Peter Dutton's proposal to extend banning ads during sport—both live sports and, really importantly, replays—to 60 minutes either side, in line with the coalition's proposal. This is really sensible.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Including after 8.30 pm.

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

Regardless of what time, Senator Scarr. We know that the vast majority of children, when they're watching Friday night footy and Saturday night games, don't say at 8.30 pm, 'It's bedtime; I've got to go off to bed.' They watch the second half, and we know that half-time will be after 8.30 pm and they'll be seeing gambling ads.

I will also move an amendment that will force gambling companies to pay to promote the government's new ad-stop one-stop shop. If people don't know about it, how are they going to use it? Finally, I will move an amendment mandating that warnings at the end of gambling ads include a reference to ad-stop. I think that's pretty commonsense. We heard during the Senate inquiry that SBS have had an opt-out option for a while now but basically no-one uses it because they're not aware of it, and they admitted that they're not going to promote something which is not good for them commercially if fewer people are seeing gambling ads that they're being paid to air.

I urge senators and colleagues: we have an opportunity to protect Australian children here today in this place. I really commend the courage of colleagues who crossed the floor in the other place and others who may be contemplating crossing the floor on amendments and, potentially, on the bill. Today is a historic day, but I think it'll go down in history for all the wrong reasons. We will look back in time and say: 'There was a prime minister who squibbed it. There was a prime minister who had the opportunity to leave a legacy for this country, and instead we got the talking points from industry and we saw the effect and impact of lobbying and of vested interests on public policy.'

Finally, in my last 20 seconds, I really want to thank all the families that have told their stories and have fronted up multiple times now to this parliament. To all the advocates out there, this is a sad day, but the job's not done and we'll continue to push this government and this system to put our kids and our future first.

I move this amendment to the motion for the second reading:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate:

(a) notes that the unanimous report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, 'You win some, you lose more: Online gambling and its impacts on those experiencing gambling harm', chaired by the late Peta Murphy MP, recommended:

(i) in recommendation 26—a comprehensive ban on all forms of advertising for online gambling, introduced in four phases over three years,

(ii) in recommendation 16—the prohibition, without delay, of all online gambling inducements and inducement advertising, and

(iii) in recommendation 3—the establishment of national regulation and a national online gambling regulator with the sole purpose of reducing harm and responsibility for all licensing and regulation; and

(b) notes that this bill does not implement these recommendations; and

(c) calls on all parliamentary parties to allow their senators a conscience vote on this bill and any amendments to it, so that senators are free to vote on behalf of the communities they represent, which overwhelmingly expect strong action to protect Australian children from an industry that is grooming them to gamble".

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I will be supporting a number of the amendments of Senator Pocock today and I will be crossing the floor today. It'll be only the second time in the seven years I've served in this place that I've chosen to do so, but I think this is such a serious issue for millions of Australians who've been impacted by gambling harm, and the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 is such a flawed piece of legislation that I have no choice but to do so—and it is a flawed piece of legislation. We were advised yesterday in the party room of the amendments that had been achieved, and I commend Senator Henderson for her work in relation to this—I do. We shouldn't forget this is the Labor government's bill. I went through those amendments last night. I went through the legislation and there are serious flaws in this legislation. Hence, I will be crossing the floor and voting in favour of a number of amendments which I believe address those glaring flaws.

Let me give you just one example. Let me talk you through what's going to happen during the State of Origin. In my home state of Queensland, the State of Origin is the biggest sporting event during the calendar year. More than four million people watch State of Origin. When I was a little boy of six or seven years old, wild horses couldn't keep me away from the State of Origin. State of Origin kicks off at 8.05 pm. This bill says:

… if there is a scheduled break or unscheduled break in the sporting event—any content provided on the service during the break is taken to be content in conjunction with live coverage of the sporting event.

So, for the first 25 minutes of State of Origin, you can't play a gambling ad during a break when a try is scored or a penalty is kicked because it's taken to be in conjunction with live coverage of the sporting event.

After 8.30 pm, everything changes. The provision says if there is a scheduled or unscheduled break in the sporting event after 8.30, any content provided on the service during the break is taken not to be in conjunction with live coverage of the sporting event. That's the loophole. Black becomes white after 8.30 pm. How many kids are going to be watching the State of Origin from 8.05 pm to 8.30 pm, and then go to bed at 8.30 pm? What happens at 8.30 pm? It's open slather in terms of advertising. Every time a try is scored, and there's a break: advertising. At half-time, which will be after 8.30 pm: advertising. A penalty is kicked: advertising. An injury: advertising. It is fatally flawed. So for the Prime Minister to get up and say that this is addressing advertising during live sport, when our most totemic sporting event, State of Origin, is only going to be regulated for 25 minutes out of 80 minutes is just absurd. It's an absurdity, and I won't be part of it.

I would like to commend all of those who were involved in the Murphy report. The Murphy report was bipartisan; it was unanimous. I've read the Murphy report, and I read it again last night as I was reflecting on what I'd do in response to the amendments which the coalition had secured. The Murphy report is clear: gambling harm is a ravage through the Australian community, through Australian families. Can you believe that, on latest estimates, 600,000 kids under the age of 18 are engaging in sport betting. There are 900,000 Australians at risk in terms of gambling harm, and for every one of those there are at least one or two or three or four people impacted. Millions of Australians are impacted by gambling harm, and all we're doing by introducing this bill is changing the contours of the marketing and advertising budgets of those who are preying on the vulnerable. That's all we're doing.

Evidence—plain, unequivocal evidence—was given by gambling experts, psychiatrists, those who've studied gambling practices for decades. The evidence was clear: gambling advertising works. That's why the gambling companies use it. It's having an impact on our children. Gambling inducements work. The research is that with the use of free bets and other promotions and inducements, people gamble more. They gamble more frequently. They're at more risk of harm. That is why, as Senator Pocock said, the Murphy report was clear and unequivocal that inducements need to end immediately. In my view, we should be spending less time listening to the gambling companies and spending more time listening to those wonderful people in the Australian community who are there to pick up the pieces after the gambling companies have done their work.

I want to commend all of those organisations who provided evidence to this inquiry. I'd like to commend the Alliance for Gambling Reform, and I spoke to Tim Costello last night. I went through these amendments with a fine toothcomb. Senators know me. I went through these amendments with a fine toothcomb. This is what the Alliance for Gambling Reform said in their release. I'll quote it because it's important that their words are on the record of this place when senators make their decision:

The Senate Inquiry into these reforms highlighted shocking cases in which gambling companies were abusing their power, offering illicit drugs, escorts and free luxury accommodation in order to keep people betting—even when their betting was completely out of control.

The reforms that will now go through the Federal Parliament are cosmetic over substance and reflect the major party's intent to prioritise power, money and vested interests over the welfare of Australians who lose more to gambling than any other country on the planet on a per capita basis.

That's what Reverend Tim Costello said in relation to this package. Reverend Tim Costello has been at the coalface in relation to trying to help people suffering from gambling harm, and some of the stories he has told are absolutely heartbreaking. I commend the work of the alliance in terms of their advocacy, and I know how profoundly disappointed they must be with the outcome that we're seeing here today.

I want to deal with a number of other issues. As Senator Pocock said, no-one is calling for a ban on gambling. Anyone who argues that in this place is misleading the Australian public. No-one is calling for that. But this is a public health issue of the first order, and it needs to be addressed as a public health issue.

Earlier in the week, I saw a video of a psychiatrist who specialises in addictive medicine putting a gambling addict into an MRI machine to see what was happening to that gambling addict's brain when they were gambling in an MRI machine. As soon as the addict hit the bet, even before the outcome was known, their brain lit up like a Christmas tree. It lit up like a Christmas tree. Then, when they had the win, it lit up as a Christmas tree. That is the biology that is being exploited by gambling companies with their inducements and with their advertising. That is the reality.

People can talk about responsible gambling all they want, but gambling disorder is a recognised psychiatric disorder, and it's a real thing. The tactics the gambling companies use mean that people are spending money they can't afford, potentially not feeding their family and kids, and suffering devastating mental health consequences as a result of their gambling.

Today, I will be crossing the floor for only the second time I've done so in this place in seven years. I do not do so lightly. I'll be crossing the floor to support a number of Senator Pocock's amendments, including his amendments for there to be a true independent statutory review in relation to the operation of these provisions. I commend Senator Pocock in relation to that amendment, which calls for—and I wouldn't have thought this to be a novel idea—actual experts in relation to gambling harm and its impact on the young and the vulnerable to be the ones who actually engage in the review in three years time. I have no confidence whatsoever, given what we've seen in this legislation with respect to any review that is orchestrated by the Labor government. I have no confidence at all. Any review must be open, it must be transparent, and it must be presided over by experts.

So, today, I'll be voting with St Vincent de Paul, who helps people who have suffered from gambling harm and their families. I'll be voting with the Salvation Army. I'll be voting with Anglicare. I'll be voting with Suicide Prevention Australia, who have talked about the impact of gambling in terms of rates of attempted suicide and suicide. I'll be voting with Relationships Australia, which has to deal with the consequences of relationships falling apart as a result of gambling. I'll be voting with Financial Counselling Australia as well, because they've also got to try and put the pieces back together. I'll be voting with the legion—and there is a legion—of experts in relation to gambling. There's a legion of them who have provided the evidence, which is not reflected in this bill. It's not reflected in this bill. This isn't an evidence based bill. It's some sort of awful compromise which doesn't achieve any substantial change.

I'll be voting with those experts. I'll be voting with the psychiatrists and the medical practitioners and the addiction treatment specialists who all wrote to the inquiry. I'll be voting with them. Most of all, I'll be voting for those people with lived experience of gambling harm, who have been the prey of these predatory companies. I'll be voting for them and I'll be voting for their families.

Charlotte Walker (SA, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to begin with something that will be very familiar to pretty much everyone my age or younger. Gambling ads are literally everywhere. When you watch the footy, they're there. When you scroll on Instagram, they're there. When you listen to a podcast or open a streaming service, there they are. Sometimes it feels like you can't engage with sport in this country without someone, somewhere, trying to get you to put money on it. For a lot of young Australians that has been the case for, basically, our whole lives. We have grown up with betting companies as sponsors, with odds appearing during sports coverage, with celebrities and athletes promoting betting companies and with gambling apps sitting on the same phone we use to message friends, check our bank account, order dinner and watch the footy. It has all become incredibly normal, so now there's a whole generation of Australians who have never known sport without gambling advertising attached to it.

This is something many of the young Australians I meet say over and over again. It comes up nearly as frequently as issues like housing and cost of living. Most young people understand perfectly well that adults are allowed to gamble. What they question is why gambling has to be pushed at us relentlessly. Why does watching a game mean we need to hear the odds? Why should betting companies be able to follow people across the internet? Why should celebrities and influencers be selling gambling products? And why have we allowed gambling to become so deeply embedded in Australian sport that sometimes it's difficult to tell where one ends and where the other begins? We should be able to love sport without being constantly encouraged to gamble on it.

A kid watching their first AFL game should be thinking about whether they want to play footy themselves one day, who their favourite player is or whether their team can come back in the final quarter. They do not need to know the odds. They don't need to understand a multi. They do not need betting to become part of what following a sport looks like. This is something that the Labor Party has recognised. At the national conference our platform specifically acknowledged that children and young people face a heightened risk of gambling harm and committed us to strengthening inducement protections. The research backs up what young people are telling us, which is that exposure to wagering advertising has been associated with more positive attitudes to gambling, greater intentions to gamble and increased gambling activity.

There is also evidence of a dose-response relationship, where, the more gambling advertising people are exposed to, the greater the risk of participation and harm. We're talking about the repeated exposure of gambling advertising across different platforms for years. You see betting advertising on TV and then you open your phone and you see it again. You see a betting company associated with your favourite team, your favourite competition, a celebrity you like or an influencer you follow, and the product being advertised is available instantly. There's no need to go anywhere. You can place a bet while sitting on your couch, waiting for a bus or lying in bed. That is a very different gambling environment from the one our laws were originally designed around.

We have also heard from people and groups working on the front line of gambling harm. Their experience of gambling looks very different from the one we see in ads. These ads are usually fun. There are mates, there's sport, there's excitement, and someone is having a laugh. You don't see somebody staring at their bank account after losing the money they needed for rent. You don't see someone trying to work out how to tell their partner about a debt they've been hiding. You don't see the argument with family, the anxiety, the shame or the stress. You definitely don't see the people working in support services, trying to help someone put their life back together when their gambling has gotten completely out of control. Frontline advocates see those consequences every day and, a lot of the time, by the time somebody reaches out for help, a lot of harm has already happened. There may be debt, financial stress or relationships under enormous pressure.

That is also why inducements are such an important part of these reforms. For someone who has a bet occasionally, an inducement may look fairly chill, but for someone whose gambling is becoming a problem, being offered another incentive to bet can be incredibly harmful. Betting companies have enormous amounts of information about their customers. They know who's betting, how often they are betting and how their behaviour is changing. These reforms will require that information to be used to help protect people who may be vulnerable, rather than on encouraging them to bet more. This government's amendments will ban inducements for the first 14 days after somebody signs up with a gambling company. They will ban the direct marketing of inducements to customers who have been identified as at risk of gambling harm. They will ban direct marketing of inducements for 90 days after someone deregisters from BetStop. They will also ban commissions to staff or affiliates that are based on customer gambling activity.

These are important protections at exactly the moments when somebody may be particularly vulnerable. For a long time, conversations about gambling harm focused heavily on individual responsibility. We were told to gamble responsibly. Of course, people make their own choices, but government also makes choices about the environment in which industry operates. We decide what can be advertised and where, we decide what protections companies have to put in place, and we decide what happens when companies break those rules. These bills make significant changes to the way wagering advertising and online gambling are regulated in Australia.

One of the central objectives is to break down the connection between wagering and sport. The bill will prohibit wagering advertising in conjunction with live sporting events, with restrictions applying across television, radio and online services. The government's amendments strengthen this further by extending the blackout period before live sport from five minutes to 15 minutes. They also bring forward the commencement of the wagering advertising frequency cap and live sport restrictions from 6 am to 5 am. That means no more than three wagering ads each hour on broadcast television between 5 am and 8.30 pm, with a complete ban during live sport broadcasting during those hours. Wagering advertising on radio will also be prohibited during school drop-off and pick-up times.

Importantly, what Australians see on television should broadly match their experience online. The current protections in the Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice will be enshrined in law and extended to online streaming services. The rules applying to gambling advertising during children's programming will also be enshrined in legislation. Online services will only be able to provide wagering ads when they take reasonable steps to ensure they are not being shown to restricted users. Users will need to be logged into a registered account, confirmed as over 18 years old and given a clear way to opt out of gambling advertising.

The government is strengthening that further through a new wagering advertising opt out register, a one-stop shop where Australians can choose not to see gambling ads and have that choice applied across their online services. For services operating under the triple lock system, that opt-out choice will also have to be prominently displayed. People should not have to dig through five menus and a page of fine print just to tell platforms they do not want to see gambling ads. The gambling industry will pay for the operation of that register through a levy. I think that this is entirely reasonable. The cost of protections introduced in response to a gambling harm should not simply be shifted onto taxpayers while the companies profiting from gambling walk away from the bill.

This is particularly relevant to young Australians because TV is only one part of how we consume media now. We're watching videos on YouTube, we're using streaming services, we're listening to podcasts and music, and we're scrolling on social media—sometimes all at the same time. There would be little point in having restrictions on the TV in the living room while the same advertising simply migrates to the phone in your hand.

Another part of this bill I particularly welcome is the restriction on using notable people to promote wagering. That includes professional athletes, celebrities, influencers and other prominent people. This is very relevant to younger audiences. The way influence works has changed enormously in the past 10 years. A young person might barely notice someone appearing in a traditional TV ad, but they might spend hours every week watching a particular creator online. They might have followed that person for years on Instagram or TikTok, or listen to their podcasts, so when that person recommends a product, the message can land very differently from a traditional TV ad.

This bill also prohibits the promotion of odds in wagering advertising. For too long odds have been treated like another sport statistic: 'Here is the injury list. Here is the ladder. Here is the weather. And here are the odds.' We have become so used to hearing it that it barely registers anymore, but we can enjoy sport perfectly well without gambling odds being woven through the experience.

This legislation will also prohibit wagering advertising on sporting uniforms and sporting venues. Sport occupies a pretty special place in Australian life. For young people, local sporting clubs are places where friendships are made, communities are built and people spend enormous amounts of their childhood and teenage years. Reducing the pressure of gambling advertising in those spaces is a good thing.

This bill also strengthens BetStop, Australia’s national self-exclusion register. Since BetStop launched in August 2023, more than 54,000 people have registered to exclude themselves from licensed online and phone wagering services. Behind those numbers are tens of thousands of Australians who have decided they need to put some distance between themselves and gambling. Making that decision can be incredibly difficult. Once somebody has taken that step, the system should help them stick with it. And we should recognise that the period immediately after somebody leaves BetStop can also be a vulnerable one. That is why the government’s amendments will prevent wagering providers from directly marketing inducements to a customer for 90 days after they deregister. If somebody has taken the step of saying, 'I need to stop gambling,' the last thing they need is a gambling company immediately trying to pull them back in.

These reforms also deal with illegal offshore gambling. Whenever stronger gambling regulation is proposed, we hear the argument that people will simply move to illegal operators. I do not accept that as an argument for keeping weaker protections around licensed gambling. These reforms strengthen enforcement against illegal offshore providers, including stronger powers for ACMA. Social media services will also be required to ensure they only serve advertisements from licensed wagering providers in Australia.

This bill also responds to newer forms of online gambling. Gambling products evolve quickly and our regulation needs to keep pace. There will, of course, continue to be debate about whether this package goes far enough. We know the 2023 parliamentary inquiry recommended a comprehensive phase-out of online gambling advertising. We know many public health experts and gambling harm advocates continue to support a complete advertising ban, and I've heard from other young people who would happily see gambling advertising disappear altogether, and I think those views should be taken seriously. And, importantly, this government has continued listening throughout this process.

Following the introduction of the bill, concerns raised through the Senate inquiry and by parliamentarians have resulted in further changes to strengthen these reforms. That is how this process should work. These amendments give us stronger protections around inducements. They extend the live sport blackout. They strengthen protections for children watching streaming services. They give Australians a clearer and more comprehensive way to opt out of wagering advertising. They strengthen action against illegal operators and they made the gambling industry contribute to the cost of the protections we're putting in place. These are worthwhile reforms, and I support the bills.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026, a bill that the Greens have opposed from the moment it was introduced by Labor.

Every member of Labor should hang their heads in shame today. They say that the house always wins, and, boy, are they winning big today with this deal between Labor and the Liberals to deliver for the gambling industry. With this cowardly deal, the Prime Minister has abandoned vulnerable Australians and given predatory gambling companies the freedom to keep overrunning our sport, our screens and every aspect of our lives.

The Murphy report was clear:

Gambling advertising is grooming children and young people to gamble and encourages riskier behaviour. The torrent of advertising is inescapable. It is manipulating an impressionable and vulnerable audience to gamble online.

Three years on from this landmark report, after doing nothing for three whole years, we get this embarrassing excuse for gambling reform, the weakest possible version. It's a semblance of action done in a way that actually delivers for the gambling industry. How very Labor. This is claytons reform that actually just delivers for their donors, the gambling industry—the same industry that, in the last five years alone, have donated $4 million to the Labor Party. They're having a bet each way because they've also donated $2 million to the coalition. They're having a bet each way, buying policy inaction for three years and now buying a weak and ineffective response from government that was three years too late and is too little, too late.

That's the inducement that should be banned, as my colleague Senator Hanson-Young, who's done an excellent job on this for the Greens, said. The political donations that the gambling industry uses to buy the complicity of the Labor and Liberal parties is the inducement that should be banned. Boy, haven't they won big today. These laws will not work to protect Australian families. They will allow the gambling companies to continue with business as usual.

This bill doesn't implement the Murphy report recommendations; it is the very half measures that that report warned against. There's no national regulator—a recommendation ignored. There's no total ban on gambling ads. Three an hour is three too many. It is the ultimate half measure, and it will not work. The minimal amendments that the Liberal Party have extracted don't fully address the inducements that prey on folk that have a gambling addiction—and there are so many of them. Our heart goes out to them. We should be helping them, not condemning them.

This bill still relies on an opt-out model for gambling ads instead of putting people in control with an opt-in function that they could choose, if they wish. I bet barely anyone would because no-one likes these ads, they're sick of them, and they want them gone. You two have colluded to deliver for the gambling industry. The Liberals think they're really clever at creating some new powers for ACMA to administer what is basically a 'do not call' register for the internet. Does anyone think that's going to work? It's costly, and it's not going to work. The only guarantee that people have to not be spammed with gambling ads would have been to give them the right, like the Murphy report recommendation suggested, to choose to opt in, rather than having to opt out or having to send an email to ACMA, hoping they can somehow put some parameters on the internet. It doesn't match this century.

After this bill passes with bipartisan support, Australians will still be the biggest gambling losers on the planet. Did you know we've got gambling losses of $666 million every week? Generations of Australians who've suffered through the gambling industry's bombardment will still have the ads relentlessly following them. With this dirty deal, Labor and the Liberals have teamed up to leave your living rooms, your cars, YouTube and even your kids' Spotify playlists at the mercy of gambling corporations.

The predatory behaviours of the gambling corporations were laid bare through days of devastating testimony from people with a gambling addiction, from experts and from advocates. But, instead of actually taking that on board and listening and then making changes that are based on evidence to protect people, we get this pathetic policy, this absolute capitulation to the gambling industry, who donate to both sides of politics. Even some of the Liberal backbenchers are crossing the floor because this bill is too weak, and I commend them for doing so. I salute their moral stance. They're taking a stronger stance than the Labor government's—how pathetic! How will you go back to your electorates and explain that, instead of working for people, you've backed in laws that only benefit the gambling industry?

Last time I checked, the job of any government is meant to be to look after people, but Labor seems to have completely forgotten that, and they seem to have forgotten that they shouldn't be supporting an industry that is making massive profits off people's pain and misery and loss and, in some cases, their lives. You're not meant to be here to run a protection racket for corporations that have offered people with a gambling addiction drugs, booze and sex workers to keep on spending. You're not meant to be here to deliver for the companies that have breached the law over 500 times in the last three years. Oh, but you can't do anything about that, because you took too long to investigate and because there still won't be a national regulator. Instead, every chance they get, Labor bends the knee to their wealthy donors. They side with big corporations, and they leave Australians behind.

Whenever Labor and Liberal team up to rush through dodgy legislation, it means one thing: it's good for rich corporations and it's bad for people. These two parties have taken, as I said, over $6 million in donations from the gambling lobby in the last five years, so of course they will gang up to pass through weak gambling laws that will not protect Australians but will protect the profits of those donors. Corporate donations are the fatal flaw of the Labor Party. When they come under lobbyist pressure, they fold every single time. A vote for Labor is a vote for the vested interests that they protect. A vote for the Greens is a vote for people. Think about it.

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) | Link to this | Hansard source

It's interesting to rise to talk on the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 and to hear what is said on the other side. It's been an interesting thing for me as we've gone through this process, because what was presented by this government was clearly unacceptable in its original form. I compliment Senator Henderson for undertaking this in a good way and talking with government about how it needed to be better, but we were coming from a position of weakness, where there was a 'if you don't like it, walk away with what we've got' mentality. Tightening up, to some extent, on what we've done has improved this bill. We know it's not perfect. We know it'll never be perfect. There are people suffering every day. We heard those examples in the committee. But, equally, people suffer from all of the things across our country, and, when they can't all be removed, they can't all be protected from themselves. That's a real sad thing in this.

For me, when we talk of many things in this world—things like smoking, things like vaping and things like gambling—regulation has seen that we should do more and could do more yet often leads to perverse outcomes. We've seen that with smoking now. The tax is there to encourage people not to smoke, to go out there not to buy cigarettes, but it's come to the point where we're now virtually responsible for a massive organised crime wave and profitability as they sell illegal tobacco on the market. We've seen vapes that are virtually illegal but for a prescription model that isn't working in this country fail. People are now buying imported vapes from China that have no restrictions on what is in them, no restrictions on who they are sold to, and they are out there in the market. So I see the point that overregulation has failed to protect many Australians, and there needs to be some personal responsibility.

I think this compromise goes a long way to getting that personal responsibility and putting that into the bill. I think it is a good thing that we have done that. Of course, there will always be horror stories, as there are with any product or anything in the world. People can abuse many things, and hearing them was average. So overall that is all I will say on the substantive motion, the bill, given the time. I know I have about 30 seconds to go before we go into continuation.

But I will have more to say after this because I think there have been deals done. I think the Greens are right—certainly there have been some deals done around how this has happened, not all of them good and not all of them positive. Most of them aren't. I think the government are protecting some of their mates and certainly punishing some people out there in the world, through how they've gone about this and how they've engaged. And that does need to be brought out. When you are making things tighter because of Murphy and loosening things because of Murphy, that is not consistent. I'll talk more about that later.

Dave Sharma (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 12.15, I'll now proceed to senators' statements. Senator Cadell, you will be in continuation.