Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) the gambling industry donated almost $3 million dollars to the Liberal, Labor and Australian Conservatives political parties in 2017-18,

(ii) these donations came from sports betting companies, casinos and poker machine operators,

(iii) the Australian Hotels Association was the second largest political donor in the country for the 2017-18 year, with declared political gifts leaping from $153,000 in 2016-17 to $1.1 million last financial year,

(iv) Australia has the world's worst per-capita gambling losses of $1,000 a head,

(v) there are at least 115,000 Australians at the moment who are directly and seriously harmed by gambling, and another 280,000 experiencing significant risk,

(vi) for every person directly harmed by gambling, between 5 and 10 friends, family and others, including employers, are also affected – this means that up to 5 million Australians could be negatively affected,

(vii) online wagering is the fastest growing gambling segment, with over $1.4 billion gambled online each year,

(viii) pokies cause the most harm, with three out of four people being harmed by gambling, principally using poker machines, and

(ix) enormous donations from the gambling lobby to the major political parties has resulted in consecutive Australian governments failing to support harm-minimisation reforms that would help protect people from predatory gambling; and

(b) calls on the Federal Government to:

(i) ban corporate donations from the gambling industry,

(ii) introduce evidence-based harm-minimisation and product safety measures to reduce the development of problem gambling, and to assist gamblers to limit their expenditure,

(iii) phase out poker machines, and, in the meantime, implement $1 maximum bets per spin, $20 machine load-up limits, and $500 jackpot limits, and mandatory pre-commitment for pokies and sports betting, and

(iv) ban sports betting advertisements during the broadcast of sporting events and children's viewing times.

Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for one minute.

Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is more Greens hypocrisy on donation reform. They talk about corporate donations and yet accepted a $1.6 million donation from the founder of an online travel company, the biggest in Australia's history. They talk about gambling donations while taking half a million dollars from a professional gambler from a secret group called the Punters Club which was investigated by the Australian Taxation Office. We will not be lectured to by the Greens on donation reforms.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that motion No. 1380 be agreed to.