Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Emergency Management) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Pocock asks about the interview provided by a woman who was referred to as 'Kate' this morning. Can I start by really acknowledging the public contribution that this woman is making, her courage in telling her story publicly and the contribution that I understand that she made to the inquiry into gambling harms.

I say to Senator Pocock that the government has made it clear that we are deeply concerned about gambling harms. It is one of the reasons that we have taken so many steps since election to deliver reforms to prevent online wagering harm. Indeed, I would assert that more reform has been undertaken in the last two years than was delivered in the preceding decade. Those reforms include: banning the use of credit cards for online gambling; introducing new evidence based taglines in wagering advertising; strengthening classification of gambling-like features in video games to protect children; establishing mandatory customer ID verification for online wagering; and, most importantly, launching the national self-exclusion register, BetStop, for problem gamblers. More than 28,000 Australians have now registered, and 40 per cent of those have opted for self-imposed lifetime bans. BetStop is the most effective harm-reduction initiative to date in terms of directly helping Australians who are experiencing harm, and I encourage anyone who is experiencing harm from online wagering to visit the website of www.betstop.gov.au.

The senator asks about our model to reduce wagering ads, and we are consulting on this at the moment. We are focused on objectives to reducing exposure of children— (Time expired)