Ms SPENDER (Wentworth) (20:29): I rise today to speak on the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 and a related bill. The proliferation of gambling advertising across Australia has harmed Australians, their families and their children for far too long. Today I want to start by sharing what we know from experts and what the community cares about, because we should be looking through those lenses to develop the right legislation for this country.
Australians lead the world in many ways, which is something I'm incredibly proud of—in our discoveries, in our research, in our businesses and in our sports. Anyone could have watched the Commonwealth Games recently and been astounded by Australia's medal tally. But there's another area where we lead the way, and that's in gambling. We lead the way in problem gambling, in the losses of Australians to gambling in this country—particularly sports betting, which is growing. Last year our losses reached $31.5 billion. That's around $1,600 per adult lost in Australia. We are the world's leading gamblers. Now, remember who's losing the most; it is the most vulnerable Australians. This isn't a shrinking problem.
Let's specifically talk about sports betting because this is largely what this legislation is about. Sports betting is growing in this country. The losses are growing in this country, and that's exactly what the industry wants. The Australian sports betting industry reached around $8.3 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow at around 22 per cent annually to 2035, reaching nearly $61 billion. The HILDA survey found that there was a 60 per cent increase from 2015 to 2022 in men betting on sports, from six per cent to nine per cent. They are growing in their betting, they are growing in their sports betting and they are losing more on a monthly basis. Their average bets are going from around $88 a month to around $110 a month. That is growth in the sports betting industry, and that's exactly what the gambling companies want.
I'm not anti gambling or against people having a gamble, but I can recognise this as the problem that it is in this country. And I think that we need to recognise and make a choice. Do we want to continue to lead the world as the biggest problem gamblers, or do we want to take significant action, particularly in an area which is growing and which we know is targeting our young people the most? That is the question in front of the House today.
I've asked my community what they think. They don't want to see this. We did a survey, just recently, of around 350 people in Wentworth, and nearly half told us about someone who had been negatively affected by the proliferation of gambling advertising. People are worried about it, and they do not believe that this government gets it. Ninety-seven per cent said that it was important or very important that the government take action to limit gambling advertising, but 86 per cent didn't have confidence that this government would. Now why is that? It's because the government took a thousand days to respond to its own committee report that it put forward.
The government talks a big job of rebuilding trust. That's what the government and what, particularly, the Prime Minister speak on. But people do not trust the government to make decisions on gambling in their interests; they believe decisions are being made in vested interests. And that's because this legislation is out of step with community action. Four out of five Australians want a complete ban on gambling advertising, but the government has not gone down that route, saying, 'We're trying to find the balance.' It would be much better to listen to the Australian people here.
We talk about problem gambling and we talk about people's experience. But this comes down to individuals. I want to talk about a couple of people I've met in discussions about gambling, because people come up on the street to tell me about their views on this. I met a woman in Kings Cross. She told me about her son. She told me about how she'd had to go back to work—she was working as a cleaner—to support her son who's struggling as a problem gambler. He's got mental health issues, but he's trying to do the right thing. He's self-excluded from the local pubs and clubs because of the pokies. He said to his mum: 'I'm trying to listen to a podcast, or something on Spotify, and I feel the gambling companies are chasing me. I can hear their ads all over the place.' This is what's going on. This is exactly the sort of person who is trying to fight the gambling and trying to do everything he can. But the government, with this bill, is not backing him up in the way that it should. We all know that the impact goes beyond the financial loss. That inquiry chaired by the late Peta Murphy and this recent Senate inquiry shared shocking experiences facing and struggling with gambling harm. The question, again, in front of this House is: should we, as a country, do what the community ask us to do to take action here? Should we, as a country, do what the experts suggest that we should do, or should we do something else that some of the vested interests and the lobbyists think that we should do for gambling harm?
We know that gambling harm can lead to criminal behaviour, housing insecurity, homelessness and family violence. We've heard stories of loneliness, of stealing from one's own parents, of anxiety, depression, anger and enormous shame, and we have heard stories of suicide. Peta Murphy and her committee laid out a clear roadmap in the You win some, you lose more report: 31 recommendations, backed by evidence from experts and those with lived experience calling for a total ban on online gambling advertising, a national regulator and a ban on inducements, and this bill goes halfway. That roadmap was backed by Relationships Australia, Wesley Mission, the Grattan Institute, the Alliance for Gambling Reform, St Vincent de Paul, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and public experts like Professor Samantha Thomas.
It's against that roadmap that I measure this bill. I look at this bill, and I want to be fair. It's how I try and approach legislation in this House. There are good things in this legislation, and I support it. I am proud that I, others on the crossbench and many people from the community have been pressuring the government for years to act on the Peta Murphy report and start to take action, but we also need to be honest where this bill falls short.
What does this bill do? The bill bans gambling advertising on free-to-air TV, radio and online content services during the live coverage of sports events, along with a ban on wagering ads within sports stadiums and on player uniforms. Those are good things. But there is a specific carve-out on ads during sports: this only applies between 6 am and 8.30 pm. After those times and overnight, you can still have those gambling ads. It's part of what is in this bill.
Outside of live sport, free-to-air providers are restricted to a maximum of three gambling ads per hour between 6 pm and 8.30 pm. But, post 8.30 pm, when kids are still awake and watching stuff—let alone adults living with gambling problems—stations are free to show as many ads as they would like. I've got to say: three an hour outside of live sport is still a lot. That is still normalising the culture of gambling in this country which is exactly what these gambling companies want.
We have seen partial bans before. We've actually seen partial bans in relation to gambling. What you end up with is greater saturation at other times of the day. We know it doesn't work; I don't know why this bill is contemplating it. There's a ban on celebrity, influencer and athlete endorsements of gambling sites and apps. This is backed by the community, with Ad Standards research finding 50 to 55 per cent of Australians are the most concerned about influencer marketing. Again, I think that's a good element of this bill, and there's also a ban on radio ads during school pick-up and school drop-off. But, again, if this bill was really trying to protect kids, they'd recognise that kids listen to radio more than just during school pick-up and drop-off.
If you're serious about this, go the whole hog because the normalisation of gambling in this country is increasing, and that's deliberate. I remember one of my constituents saying, 'My seven-year-old has just asked me, "What is a same-game multi?"' Why on earth does a seven-year-old have that question? It's because it is pervasive, and it is everywhere. As a parent, if you're trying to protect your kids, it is very difficult.
At a recent school forum I had where I gathered year 10 students together, I talked to and asked them about this. One of them said, 'The gambling ads are the funniest ads on TV.' I will say there are some that are very funny, but that's the problem: they're really good because they've got the cash behind them to make them as creative and enticing as possible. They're making it about socialising; they're telling people that, if you want to be part of the gang, you gamble with your friends. That's the culture they're trying to make. What they are taking—and this is what a year 10 student said—is that Australians are really proud of our sports. We really care about sports, we love our teams, and we back them. The gambling companies and the sporting codes are making gambling and sporting the same thing. They're just trying to tie them together. This is the oldest trick in the book—take something that everybody loves and try and associate your brands with it. That's what gambling's done to sport, and it's absolutely effective.
Online, the government is saying: 'Look, we're trying to restrict some of this. We've got this triple lock in place.' A lot of people are watching sport these days. Online, you can only be shown ads if you're over 18, logged in and you haven't opted out. But it places enormous onus on the individual to login to every platform and hunt down the settings, which we know people don't find very easy, and to log themselves out. In fact, a football match on free-to-air TV won't have the gambling ads, while the same match streamed on TV can carry unlimited gambling ads at every quarter time or half-time break unless the viewer has actively sought to close these off.
SBS actually has this function already—good on SBS—except only 0.1 per cent of users have been using this, because, again, you don't always get to choose who's setting the settings. It's something that you are asking people to opt out of, and some people don't have the wherewithal. We're not making it easy for people to avoid these ads. We're saying that the onus is on you.
I support elements of the bill: the prohibition of the promotion of odds, the strengthening of BetStop, the protections it provides to those who choose to self-exclude and the stronger regulation of illegal gambling services. Those are useful changes. I want to be clear because there is some confusion here. I think there are some people in the parliament who have said, 'We don't want to ban gambling.' I'm not trying to ban gambling either. I never have. I think that is up to people to choose, but I also think that we should recognise that the advertising that we currently have is harming our community and is harming our kids. We can do that piece of removing those advertisements. Then, if people want to keep on gambling, it's up to them. Those are the choices we could make as a community, and the government, at the moment, is choosing not to.
Beyond advertising, two of Peta Murphy's central recommendations are simply missing from this bill. There is no national regulator and no ban on predatory inducements. Inducements really matter. The government says, 'We really care about problem gambling.' I heard the PM say recently that they're trying to protect kids and protect people who are really problem-gambling. Well, if you cared about problem gambling, the first thing you would do is ban inducements, but this is what the government hasn't chosen to do. They may or may not be being talked into doing this by the coalition, but it's not, as far as we can tell, a full ban.
That is a real problem. Why is the government so reluctant to lead in this area? Why is the government so reluctant to listen to the community in this area? I do not know. I will be putting forward amendments on inducements. I urge every government member and every opposition member who has said they care about inducements and see that as a real problem to stand alongside me and vote for a complete ban on inducements. It's simple. It's what the Murphy report recommended. It's what the experts recommend. It's one of the most predatory aspects of gambling reform. Please vote with me if you say that you really care about this. This is how you can turn your care into action.
Before I end this speech, I want to talk about the human cost. We're talking about gambling in the abstract, but this is about the impact it has on people. People's fathers, people's sons, someone's sister—lying awake at 2 am refreshing an app. Each clause that we debate here has an impact on people's lives. The impact of this is really serious. I was speaking to one group of people today who were saying that, in their school, an estimated 25 per cent of young people are gambling. Another person was telling me about family violence and some of the challenges of this single dad who is too ashamed to see his kids because he's betting his entire wage online. These are some of the issues that people are facing in our country. We've got to give people the choice to gamble or not, but we don't have to rub it in their faces time-in and time-out, and this is what this bill could do.
