Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I, too, would like to say a few words, as the deputy chair, on the tabling of this timely report. Labor support and commend the report. I thank the chair and the secretariat for their conduct of this particular report. It makes a number of important recommendations to address the serious impact of the use of credit cards for online gambling and the need for urgent action.

Over the period we looked at for the report, over 10, 15 and 20 years, gambling in Australia used to be traditional horse racing and perhaps a flutter on the lotteries or raffles. We've seen this growing online gambling insurgence take place, and much of our legislation hasn't kept up with it.

This report is important because there is a clear disconnect between the regulations around the use of credit cards for in-venue gambling as opposed to online gambling. Today in Australia, if you're at a racetrack, in a TAB or in a casino, you cannot use a credit card to gamble. Most state and territory governments introduced such bans in the early 2000s. So this is basically keeping up with the times. But, today, anyone can log onto their favourite app from anywhere around the world and place a bet using a credit card. We've seen this disparity in legislation. At the time of banning the use of credit cards for gambling, online gambling didn't exist—at least, not as it does today. It's imperative that we as policymakers move with the times and address this disparity.

Online gambling is currently the fastest-growing section of the gambling market. The 2018 national framework baseline study found that, compared to non-interactive gamblers, people who gamble online are more likely to experience higher rates of gambling related harm. Online gambling creates an environment in which people can gamble at any time, in any place and in a cashless way, which can distance the person gambling from the money which is actually being spent. For those who experience problem gambling, this can be a particularly dangerous set of circumstances. In addition, evidence provided to the inquiry identified substantial harm resulting from the ability to gamble online with credit. Credit cards make it quicker and easier to lose large sums of money when gambling online in comparison to other forms of gambling.

This is an important report. We look forward to the recommendations being adopted by the government. They are very important recommendations, such as:

The committee recommends the Australian Government prioritise the collection of data on online gambling in Australia—

That would be a first step to see how big a problem it is—

including the size and growth of the online gambling market, online gambling with credit, and the extent and nature of the associated harms.

This will be an important first step to understanding the extent of the problem and identifying important areas that may have remained outside the scope of the inquiry. There are some important recommendations. We also made it clear that we did not want to see any adverse effects for the not-for-profits. Many lotteries and raffles support children's hospitals and research centres, and we didn't want to see an adverse effect for them, so we ensured that that is mentioned within the report as well.

I thank the chair and the secretariat for all their good work, and the whole committee as well. This is an important area of reform, and I look forward to the government implementing these recommendations, adopting them and acting upon them quickly.

See this speech in context