Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Australia has been a world leader in protecting our young people from smoking and vaping. There is irrefutable evidence that gambling is also a serious public health threat, especially for our young people, through suicide, addiction and family breakdown. The public health community is united in its call for a complete ban on gambling advertising. As the health minister, will you heed the public health community's call and support a full ban on gambling advertising to protect our children from being preyed upon for profit?

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question and her deep engagement on health policy since being elected to this parliament after a very long career in health as a GP. As I think the member knows and other members in this parliament know, the issues that she has raised in her question are being led, in terms of the government response, by the Minister for Communications and the Minister for Social Services, but I am happy to give a perspective from our position in health.

Gambling services are among those goods and services available in the community that, consumed and enjoyed responsibly and in moderation, lead to no harm to individuals themselves or to those around them, including their families and the broader community, but that, used to excess or used in a problematic way, can cause real harm both to the individual and to the broader community. Problem gambling in particular, as the member points out, can cause very serious harm to an individual and to those around them, and that harm can extend particularly to mental health impacts like anxiety and depression. Pathological gambling—as the member, I suspect, knows—is now a recognised mental illness in DSM-V, the latest version of the DSM, which is the psychological diagnostic manual.

That's why, of course, this government, as the Prime Minister pointed out yesterday, has taken more action than any government before it around prevention, early intervention and harm reduction when it comes to problem gambling. The Prime Minister outlined a range of those measures yesterday, in response to a question from the member for Goldstein. They are very significant, and, in two years, they are way more than any government—Labor or Liberal, frankly—has ever delivered in this parliament before. I'm not going to go through all of them. They are very significant. I particularly want to refer, though, to BetStop, which I think is the most significant harm reduction measure ever initiated in this parliament.

To get to the heart of the member's question around advertising, the Prime Minister did say yesterday that the status quo regarding the saturation of gambling advertising, particularly where children are exposed to it, is untenable. As he also said, the government is working through those issues, and that work is being led, very appropriately, by the Minister for Communications and the Minister for Social Services.