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

This reference is an important one. Last year, the parliament handed down a report by the late Peta Murphy. It was an important report, a unanimous report, that recommended a number of things to clean up the gambling industry in Australia because it does such harm to Australian families, to businesses and to our society.

At the time, the government said they would respond to the report in an appropriate time and would get on with the recommendations. Well, we still haven't seen the government's response. In fact, worse than that, what we have got is a glib reply—a suggestion that, despite all of the months' work that went into this report on the inquiry led by the late Peta Murphy, the government wasn't going to follow the advice. A full, total ban on gambling advertising is what was recommended, and the reason it has been recommended is because it is the single most important thing that this parliament can do to stop gambling's scourge on Australian society and families. 'A total ban': that means across television, that means across catch-up services, that means across newspapers and across radio, that means online, because, if you care about stopping the harm of gambling, you've got to stop pushing it down people's throats.

It's just like we've done with tobacco advertising. We said: 'You can smoke if you like, if you're of appropriate age. You can spend your money on a pack of smokes if you like. It keeps going up, but if you want to spend your money on that, fine. But we're not going to advertise these products and allow the advertising of these products, because they are dangerous and harmful.' The cost that this harm has on families and on our public health service is extraordinary. There's a litany of different types of disease and cancers alone which are caused because of smoking and addiction to tobacco, so Australia said, 'You know what, we're not going to advertise tobacco anymore because it's hurtful to people, it's harmful to people, and we certainly don't want kids being influenced by the advertising, and to take up smoking.' That is what was recommended by all of the experts for gambling. If it's harmful, why are we allowing it to be promoted? If it ruins families, why are we allowing it to be advertised? If it is one of the leading causes of domestic violence in this country, why on earth do we have ads on our televisions during family time, during the sport, when you're watching your favourite football team? We know that gambling harms people, so we should stop the promotion of it. I'm not suggesting for a second that we should ban gambling. (Time expired)