Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

Well, it is somewhat ironic that we are here today in this chamber debating a bill put forward by the Australian Greens to ban gambling advertising. On 12 May 2023, in his budget reply speech, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Dutton, announced the coalition's policy. He was clear that a coalition government will ban gambling advertising during live sport, for one hour before and one hour after the game. We heard from Australians, and their message was clear: footy time is family time, and family time is precious—too precious to be swamped by a rising tide of gambling ads.

Watching and listening to live sport is a great Australian tradition, and we on this side of the chamber want to preserve that. We backed it in and delivered a bill just six weeks later, the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Ban on Gambling Advertisements During Live Sport) Bill 2023. Our bill would have drawn a line in the sand and put an end to gambling advertisements during live sport. That was 20 months ago, more than 600 days ago. Guess what happened? When that bill went before the parliament, the Albanese government opposed it. Guess who else voted against our bill? Yes, it was the Greens. While crossbench senators overwhelmingly backed our bill, the Greens voted against it. The Senate vote was lost 30 to 33.

The coalition won't be taking lectures from the Australian Greens. This bill represents gross hypocrisy. I say to Senator Hanson-Young, and I repeat her words that we've just heard in this chamber: you've got to have the guts to do something about it. There were no guts and no glory when the Australian Greens voted against a bill to ban gambling advertising during live sport. It would have made a big difference. I say to Senator Hanson-Young and to the Australian Greens that this is why Australians have had enough of the Greens. They are all talk, with no principle.

Our coalition bill was a commitment from the Leader of the Opposition, who said in his budget reply speech last year:

… the bombardment of betting ads takes the joy out of televised sports. Worse, they're changing the culture of our country in a bad way and normalising gambling at a young age.

If the coalition bill to ban gambling advertising during live sport had been supported through parliament by Labor and the Greens then it would have been law by now. Since then, Australians have waited and waited for the Albanese government to make up its mind on what it's going to do about the issue. This government will continue to wait and wait, because that's all we get from this government. Where is this Prime Minister? Why has he failed to step up and make the hard calls?

We just heard from Senator Grogan, who said after 2½ years, 'We are continuing to work through it.' Yes, these are difficult issues. Well, it's no wonder so many Australians have lost faith in Labor. It's tough being in government, but being in government means you need to make tough decisions, and this is an absolute shocker from this incompetent and weak Labor government.

Just yesterday, the Prime Minister said in a podcast interview that Australians spend and lose more to gambling than people in any other country in the world. Yet he's failed to take any action to address the problem, and so have the Greens. It may not have been everything the Greens wanted, but why on earth would the Greens oppose our bill? It would have made a huge difference, particularly to young Australians. It would have made a massive difference. It would have driven a huge cultural difference in our country, and the Greens partnered with Labor to do absolutely nothing.

The Prime Minister said his government is considering a range of measures, but there has never been legislation, which begs the question of what on earth the government has been doing for the last 18 months, since the report by the late Peta Murphy was tabled. There has been no government response to the report and no legislation. The Albanese government promised a comprehensive response to tackle gambling harms, yet we have seen literally nothing. What on earth does this Prime Minister stand for? It is clear: absolutely nothing, because we have seen no answers and no solutions. I'm sure even Senator Grogan is embarrassed to stand up and have to justify why her government has done nothing on this very important issue.

This is a Prime Minister who doesn't have the ticker and doesn't have the backbone. He's scared of antigambling advocates like Tim Costello. He's scared of the AFL, the NRL and the media companies. So what does he do? He cowers in a corner and he does nothing. As I said, there are great lines: 'We're continuing to work through it.' We're just on the cusp of an election. It is clear that this government has no answers, and this government is lurching from one disaster to the next as it limps to the next federal election.

Of course, in the Communications portfolio, I think the absolute standout failure is the waste of time and resources on bills and legislation which have amounted to nothing more than political posturing. The government's misinformation bill was a disaster of epic proportions, prosecuted by the Minister for Communications, Michelle Rowland, who, frankly, has demonstrated that she is not up to the job, because the misinformation bill was so bad that not a single non-government senator would back it from across the aisle. The government was forced to dump the bill in one of the biggest humiliations we have seen this entire term. The bill united a wide cross-section of groups against it. Top lawyers, church groups and civil libertarian and human rights groups were all opposed. Had this bill been in place during the Voice referendum, for instance, Labor would have weaponised it to gag opinions it didn't like or agree with. Thankfully for all of us living in this great democracy we call Australia, freedom of speech won the day.

Now, of course in this same portfolio, the Prime Minister and his Minister for Communications are wasting even more time, resources and taxpayers' money on another unnecessary bill branded as committing to public ownership of the National Broadband Network. The NBN is, in fact, already publicly owned. This is just more political posturing. This hapless government is seeking to amend its own legislation, which committed to the sale of the NBN. The Prime Minister himself, in his second reading speech to the parliament on 25 November 2010—when, of course, he was not the Prime Minister—said:

The … bill … sets out arrangements for the eventual sale of the Commonwealth's stake in the company once the NBN rollout is complete, including provisions for independent and parliamentary reviews prior to any privatisation, and for the parliament to have the final say on the sale.

The bill was even referred to a Senate inquiry, but there were only seven submissions made to the inquiry and not a single one from a government department or agency or even the NBN themselves. This whole thing is a stunt. It's a farce, and what the Albanese government is trying to do is run a deceptive and pathetic campaign along the lines of its notorious 'Mediscare' campaign.

But Australians won't be fooled by this government, because it's proven time and time again that it cannot be trusted to act on the most important issues. It does not keep its word, and it will attempt to deceive Australians at every turn. Well, I say to the Prime Minister, to members opposite and to the government: Australians are onto you. They can see through you a million miles away. They've listened to your rhetoric, they've listened to your false promises, they've listened to your wrong priorities, and they do not believe you anymore. They do not trust you.

As for the Greens, the Greens had the opportunity to support a bill that would have banned gambling advertising during live sport but they chose to get into bed with the government and vote against it. I'm sorry, but that is just a joke.