Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to also speak on the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Ban Gambling Ads) Bill 2024. Just to be very clear, we do not support this legislation with or without suggested amendments. We do take this issue very, very seriously. The Albanese government takes seriously our responsibility to protect Australians, particularly young people, from harms of all forms of gambling. An alarming fact is that Australians lose more than $31 billion a year on gambling, which is, of course, a very strong motivator to take serious action.

As we know, the late and wonderful Peta Murphy helmed a major review. The recommendations that she put forward are part of the ongoing consultation. It was a very valuable, important and informative piece of work. We have been consulting on a proposed model, and that model to reduce online gambling advertising has raised some issues. The consultations have brought forward more complexities for us to work through. Senator Hanson-Young noted in her opening that the ban she's proposing within this private senator's bill is popular, but popularity is not a great parameter for effective policy.

So yes, the work that the government is undertaking is taking longer than we had hoped. It is taking longer to land the right balance. But it is critical that we get this right. It is critical that we ensure that future reforms are both effective and comprehensive and do not have unintended consequences.

Those who remember the coalition's changes, when they were in government, in 2018, will recall that these changes resulted in a huge spike in online gambling ads. In fact, the coalition gambling ad restrictions in 2018 resulted in a 50 per cent increase in the total volume of gambling advertising spots on television and radio and a whopping 76 per cent increase in spots on regional TV. I'm sure that was not their intention when they put that policy together—but well-formed policy is not exactly their strong suit, either. That aside, rushing complex legislation like this can result in terrible and unintended consequences, like what we saw with the 2018 policy from the coalition.

Now we see that the coalition's current proposed policy of only restricting gambling ads around live sport is highly likely to see those ads increase elsewhere—maybe on family TV programs, or maybe just online. But the advertising ban they are putting forward is so limited and shallow as a policy that it is likely to cause more harm.

It is also important when we are looking at this issue to consider the multiple channels over which advertising is delivered. It's not just television, radio and Spotify but also digital platforms and social media, where advertising can be targeted at vulnerable Australians. There has been a significant shift in advertising spend to online and digital channels, and we need to assess exactly where all the advertising is going and what the impact of any policy might be before we move ahead with it, or we could end up with the kind of shift in advertising that we saw from the dismal 2018 policy from the coalition.

So, as I said, we've gathered a lot of evidence about the harms, and there's no doubt about the severity and seriousness of those harms. We've assessed the impact of various options, and we have been consulting with stakeholders, from the wagering industry to the harm reduction advocates, sporting codes and broadcasters. But let's be clear: it is complex reform, and getting it right is essential. And we are talking to everyone, not just some people, regardless of what's being said here.

The proposed model we are working on is about breaking the nexus that exists between wagering and sport, minimising the exposure of children to online wagering ads and tackling the saturation and targeting of these ads, particularly where we're seeing them tick up towards young men. The government's consultation process in response to the Murphy parliamentary inquiry has been thorough. But, as I said, it has raised some significant and additional considerations that we are continuing to work through. We will progress legislation to implement any form of online gambling advertising reform only when we have concluded our consultation and we have a policy that we are confident in.

But it's not as though nothing has happened. Let's be really clear. We've taken a range of actions since coming to government in 2022. We have delivered more gambling harm reduction initiatives in 2½ years than were delivered in the preceding decade. I'm not saying that's enough. I'm saying we have started this really important process. Let me take you through what we have done. We have banned the use of credit cards for online gambling, because we shouldn't be able to bet with money we don't have. The Albanese government is committed to ensuring that gambling takes place within a robust legislative framework and with strong customer protections, and this ban on credit cards is helping us do just that. It is legislated and it delivers on that commitment. It is a significant part of the progress to minimising gambling harm, and the principle really is very simple: Australians should not be gambling with money they do not have.

The second thing we did was establish mandatory customer ID verification for online wagering. This is to prevent children and people who have self-excluded from placing a bet online. Under the national consumer protection framework, Australian governments agreed to implement customer preverification for online gambling accounts. These are some of the things that aren't as straightforward. We need to get all the states on board and we've done that. To implement this measure, the AML and CTF rules have been amended to strengthen the applicable customer identification procedures that apply to online gambling service providers. This vital measure will help ensure that online gambling services are not exploited by criminals or used by individuals on the National Self-Exclusion Register.

Strengthening the classification of gambling-like features in video games is the third item on the list of what we've done so far. This of course is to better protect our children. Children and young people are being exposed to gambling through interactive games like social casinos which stimulate real gambling or gambling features such as loot boxes. Appropriate classification guidance is essential, so that we can protect our children, because we know that a lot of the game developers are building these structures to encourage gambling.

The fourth item on the list is implementing monthly activity statements so that Australians who gamble online can clearly see their wins and losses each month. The fifth on my list is introducing new evidence based taglines, with stronger messages about the risks and harms of online gambling. The sixth item on the list is the National Self-Exclusion Register, or BetStop. BetStop has been used by more than 30,000 Australians since it came in, in August 2023. Of the registrants, 79 per cent are aged 40 and under, 39 per cent have registered for a lifetime ban and 23,000 have an active exclusion. Actually preventing and reducing online gambling is one of several important measures that we have implemented under the National Consumer Protection Framework, and BetStop is valuable—

Thanks for the interjections, Senator Hanson-Young. But it is a valuable tool and a valuable mechanism, because one popular, one-size-fits-all approach to this isn't going to get us the outcome we need.

These are meaningful reforms that are making a difference, but it is critical that we develop further reforms to build on those we've already implemented, to continue our consultation, because we are only going to progress legislation to implement online gambling advertising reform when we have concluded our consultation and when the policy development process is concluded. We must ensure that the changes we make are robust, effective and appropriately address associated impacts for a range of stakeholders, and harm minimisation will be our guiding principle. We need to make sure that everyone is kept safe—that the scourge of gambling is minimised and ended and that people are kept safe.