David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Australian Government, with the cooperation of the states and territories, to implement a comprehensive ban on all forms of advertising for online gambling, to be introduced in four phases, over three years, commencing immediately.

Yesterday the gambling lobby said on radio that their ads were not normalising gambling among children and young people. I think nearly every parent in the country would scoff at that if they had heard it. The evidence shows us that 75 per cent of young people and children now think that gambling is just a normal part of enjoying sport; it's what you do. Think about that for a moment.

We're currently the biggest losers in the world. We had the Olympic Games and did really well in the medal tally. It inevitably flips to per capita medals, which we love to do as Australians. The one thing we are winning, year in, year out, is in losses per capita when it comes to gambling. Now we have research showing that this next generation coming through thinks that this is just normal. What can we expect to happen when they hit 18, when they can actually gamble—even though we're hearing that 16- and 17-year-olds are already placing bets.

We have to come to the question of what sport is for. Is sport just another business? They can have sponsorships and they can have business models where they flog what we know is a very harmful product. They have young people looking up to and idolising their favourite player and thinking, 'Gambling is just part of this game that I love.' Talk to parents and young people. They'll name all the gambling companies. They'll be able to recite odds. They'll talk about the odds for the upcoming games of their favourite teams. What I'm hearing from people here in the ACT that I represent is that this is not the direction they want to go in.

A number of people in this place were at a briefing where a family shared their son's, their brother's, tragic story about him not being able to escape his gambling addiction, not being able to live with himself and, ultimately, taking his own life. It was incredibly sobering. It was an incredibly brave thing for that family to share that story, in the hope that parliamentarians would take the action that is needed—action that was recommended by this parliament to this parliament 14 months ago.

All the major parties, the Greens and the Independents said, 'This is the way forward.' There were 31 recommendations, and the one that's been talked about the most is a three-year, phased-in ban on all gambling advertising. And now, 14 months later, we're hearing that the government doesn't have the courage to do that. We're hearing—I think, genuinely very worryingly—the PM and government ministers parrot lines from the gambling industry about all of these things that could happen, some of which we know haven't happened in the international experience. Yet we are still seeing the Labor Party falter and not back the Murphy review—not back what almost 80 per cent of what Australians want. No-one is saying, 'Let's ban gambling.' You can still have a punt. The apps will still be there for people. They're not going to suddenly want to bet with international gambling companies, which is illegal in Australia. What we know is that this will start to turn the ship around on the total inundation—the saturation online and on TV—of gambling ads, which is having an effect on young people.

So I urge the parliament: let's put young people first. Let's draw a line in the sand and say, 'We can do this better,' and let's work out how that can happen, because we have the opportunity and we have the support of the people we represent.