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

There's a lot of hand-wringing and excuses being heard in this chamber this afternoon. No-one in this place can deny the facts. The experts have all told us that the single most important thing that we can do to stop the scourge of gambling is to stop the advertising of it. It is the single most important and impactful thing that this parliament could do, but rather than doing that, we see this hand-wringing and excuse making.

There are not many things I agree on with John Howard, the former Prime Minister, but I do on guns and gambling. If you want to hear more weasel words and excuses from both the government and the opposition about why they can't make the hard call and have the guts to stop advertising, you just have to think about the amount of lobbying that the Labor Party and the Liberal Party have had from the gambling industry over the years, the dinners and donations. The Labor Party is addicted to gambling. The Liberal and Labor parties are addicted to gambling donations. They are addicted to the revenue that is sucked out of the pockets of vulnerable people.

We now hear the glib, snarky excuses from people like Mr Bill Shorten this morning. This has to be kept going. This parasite of an industry advertising to our children must be kept in place so that media companies can keep operating. Cry me a river! This is the exact same government which only two months ago threw the free-to-air televisions under the bus with their antisiphoning rules, bowing to the pressure of the big tech companies to allow sport to be locked behind paywalls. They didn't give two hoots about the survival of free TV then! They didn't give two hoots about the survival of regional television for regional Australia then. But, all of a sudden, it's a nice, sneaky, snarky excuse for not doing the right thing. Have some guts! Just like they complained and squealed about tobacco, they are squealing and complaining and excusing about gambling. (Time expired)