Question Time Response – Online wagering advertising

Question – Federal Member for Hughes, Jenny Ware:

I refer to the June 2023 report prepared by the late Peta Murphy - a report I signed concerning online gambling restrictions. In December 2023, the Minister said she would ensure their policy would be resolved "expeditiously" and would be announced "without delay." It is October 2024 and the Government has not arrived with a policy. Which parts of the Murphy report does the Minister disagree?

Answer – Minister for Communications, Michelle Rowland: 

I thank the Member for her question – I acknowledge her interest in this matter. As I am sure all Members in this place are concerned about the harms that occur when it comes to wagering in certain contexts. Of course, we understand, given the high level of community concern here, and the fact that Australians lose some $25 billion every year in response to gambling, that this is an area in which improvements need to be made. That is why I commend the Member for Hughes’ work on the Committee and all Members in this place that worked on that report. 

There are three things I would say to the Member. The first is that this is a report that set out some 30 recommendations, many of which go to the interaction between Commonwealth and State Governments and their regulatory arrangements. We are working carefully through those with the States and I'm doing that in conjunction with a number of other Ministers including the Minister for Social Services. It is a complex area in that aspect. It is complex because there are certain regulatory arrangements the States obviously have a keen interest in - that it is one that where of course they want to ensure that we have the most robust response when it comes to dealing with wagering harms. 

The second point is of course we know that the high level of gambling harms not only in terms of economic but social consequence [inaudible] that we need changes that go to that, but also go to cultural change. The first is breaking the nexus between sport and wagering. Second, it is concentrating on the exposure of children to gambling harms and thirdly that it is the saturation of ads particularly as they are targeted towards young men aged around 18 to 35.

The first goes to reduction in gambling harms and secondly the way in which they can actually be implemented. The point that I'm making, and I know she asked this question from a good place, is that we need to understand but we also need to ensure that the impacts in responding to this report actually achieve their desired outcomes and to give some example of that, the need to be forward-looking and comprehensive in this response that is really not only whole of Government, but is whole of nation as well. We are doing this through looking at areas where exposure might not be prevalent yet but could be in future and we are also looking at areas in which we need to ensure there is a strong legislative response from the outset. So these are complex areas, we are determined to make a difference and the status in relation to advertising is unacceptable.