MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Ms URQUHART (Braddon) (15:38): I rise today to speak on the matter of public importance brought to the chamber by the member for Calare, regarding the need to ban gambling advertising. Since 2022, the Albanese Labor government has delivered the most significant online wagering harm reduction initiatives of the past decade, including launching, as we heard from the previous speaker on this side, BetStop and banning the use of credit cards for online wagering.
The Albanese government has taken decisive action to protect Australians, especially young people and especially our vulnerable communities, from the risks and harms of online wagering. The Albanese government has delivered the most significant gambling harm reduction reforms in more than a decade, just since we came into government in 2022. In less than four years, we've done more than was done over a decade.
We've banned the use of credit cards for online wagering, because no-one should be able to gamble with money that they don't have. We've launched BetStop the National Self-Exclusion Register, an initiative that allows people to block themselves from all licensed online wagering services in Australia. As of 30 September this year—which is almost a month ago—according to the ACMA, BetStop had recorded 49,382 registrations.
Of those 49,382 registrations—that is a staggering number; it is a brilliant number of people who have self-registered—31,838 are active exclusions. Seventy-nine per cent of current registrations are aged 40 or under, and 39 per cent of current registrants have chosen a lifetime ban. People have made decisions with the help of our legislation.
BetStop is clearly providing a mechanism for people to register or choose a lifetime ban. That tells us two things. That tells us that people want help and that people want lasting change.
They are making those decisions to do that. According to Queensland Treasury, Australians lost $32.2 billion to the gambling industry in 2023-24. In the same year, 2023-24, wagering losses accounted for 26 per cent of all gambling losses.
That equates to $8.4 billion. Sixty-two per cent of losses included gaming, including poker machines, and 12 per cent were from lotteries. In 2024, 65.1 per cent of Australian adults participated in at least one form of gambling, with lotteries—at 52.7 per cent of Australian adults—being the most popular.
Race betting, at 17.8 per cent, and sports betting, at 12.5 per cent, were in the top five. In 2025, 19.4 per cent of Australian adults reported gambling at risky levels in the past year. Research tells us that one person's gambling can affect up to six others.
That's around three million Australians impacted by someone else's gambling. That is not just a personal issue; it's a community issue. Through the actions of the Albanese Labor government, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA, has now got the tools to block illegal gambling websites.
Since 2019, over 13,000 sites have been shut down, protecting Australians from unregulated and unsafe platforms. On 21 August 2023, BetStop was launched. This allows Australians to exclude themselves.
The choice is theirs. They can exclude themselves for periods of three months up to a lifetime from all Australian licensed interactive wagering services. BetStop is subject to statutory review after one year of operation and a statutory evaluation after three years of operation.
The independent reviewer, Mr Richard Eccles, was appointed by the former minister for communications to conduct the review. He's supported by a secretariat from the department of communications. A public consultation period was held from December 2024 to April 2025, and a final report for the review must be delivered to the minister by the end of February 2026—which is 18 months from the end of the first 12 months of operation—and then tabled in parliament.
The Albanese government take seriously our responsibility to protect Australians, particularly young and vulnerable people, from the harms of online gambling, and we are getting on with the job.