Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Credit and Other Measures) Bill 2023. It's an easy decision. It pretty much mirrors a bill I introduced in March this year. It's just a great shame that we've wasted seven months—we've seen harm over the last seven months—because of the lack of action on this very issue. It's a very simple bill in the sense that it recognises credit is really bad when it comes to gambling, and that preventing the use of credit reduces gambling harm because people have to use their savings; they're not using money that's not yet theirs. As well as banning the use of credit cards for interactive gambling services, my private member's bill required gambling companies to ensure people expressly acknowledged their losses, and that is something I would really like to see the government do.

We are the biggest losers in the world. We lose $25 billion a year. Those figures are from 2018-19. We know that they're worse now. We know that those figures will pale in comparison with what's lost in 2023-24. That's why I'm taking this opportunity to ask the government to enact all of the recommendations from the You win some, you lose more committee report, and let's do this now. It has taken months to get to this point. As my mum says, it's as slow as molasses in winter. Enough is enough—that was what the report said, the unanimous report with 31 strong recommendations. We can't keep waiting. We can't push this out to next year and then the year after and then there will be an election. We need to act now.

I also want to recognise that ACMA, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, showed that one million gambling advertisements aired on free-to-air metropolitan and regional TV and metropolitan radio between May 2022 and April 2023. That is obscene. One million advertisements. It's no wonder our young people are getting caught up in this because it's at saturation level. It doesn't end for them. We need to do better in this country. We can't have the title of being the world's biggest loser. We need to do better. This bill is a very good start, but my goodness it's a very, very small step.

I strongly urge the government: you've got an inquiry report; it has some very sensible recommendations. Let's get to it, and let's get to it now. This is harming our kids. Our kids know what the odds are for games on television. Our kids know about all the sporting apps because they see the advertisements. We reacted to smoking differently in the nineties. We said: 'Enough is enough. This is a public health issue. We must do better.' And then we banned advertising for cigarettes. We must do the same now with respect to gambling advertising.

The work that we do in this place is so critical, but we are letting down the 1.3 million people who already have a problematic gambling addiction or who are at risk of that. We wouldn't do that if we had a million people with drug issues. We would say, 'We need to make sure that we have supports available to you.' We're not doing that with this. Let's do better. Let's look at those recommendations. Let's use the rest of this parliamentary year to make sure those recommendations are implemented into law. I commend this bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:29

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