MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE

Ms CHANEY (Curtin) (15:53): Since the very first week of my first term, my constituents have told me repeatedly they want gambling ads banned. And, despite the unanimous recommendations of the Murphy report, which I contributed to, that said we should phase out all gambling ads, the Prime Minister refuses to act. Opportunities to gamble are available 24/7.

Whether it's during a footy match, a family TV show or scrolling through social media, Australians, especially young Australians, are being relentlessly targeted by gambling ads, and Australians are outraged. I know it's not just my community. I know that it's communities all over Australia.

I know that many Labor backbenchers are being asked by their constituents to stop the gambling ads, but the Prime Minister won't let them speak up. On this issue, the Prime Minister and Labor's reliance on donations from gambling companies is the problem. When pushed to respond to the Murphy report, he gets mad.

He spouts all the gambling industry talking points. He lists actions—and we've heard them again today, over and over again—that are being taken over by this government, but he doesn't mention that these actions are in response to the coalition government's previous review. The Prime Minister's reforms on gambling are coalition reforms that were already underway when we did this inquiry.

The recommendations in the Murphy report were based on these being implemented already. The Prime Minister and the communications minister say that they need to strike a balance, but a balance between what? Between the big profits being made and the harm being done to everyday Australians.

I have a problem with the gambling debate being framed like this. How much profit to a gambling company, TV station or sports code justifies another life being destroyed by gambling addiction? If it's the viability of the TV stations and sports codes that you want to protect, there is a solution.

Last year, gambling companies spent $130 million on TV ads. The TV stations say they'll go broke or have to pull local news without gambling ad revenue, but we can keep the TV stations in business. If you look closely, gambling ad revenue represents less than four per cent of TV stations' reported ad revenue of $3.3 billion.

This is a problem that we can solve. The sports codes say they won't be able to offer junior sport without their gambling revenue, although they're coy about admitting how much they actually make from gambling companies. If we assume about $50 million for each of the NRL and the AFL, that's $100 million a year.

Combined, we're looking at total ad revenue from TV gambling ads and the sports codes of $230 million a year. If this is genuinely the problem, I have a solution. Let's charge the gambling companies a levy on every bet placed, which we can use to wean our media and our sports codes off their ad revenue, and pay for the industry regulation we desperately need.

In '23-24, Australians placed $254 billion in bets. Now, that's an extraordinary figure. In fact, it's more than a thousand times the amount needed to replace lost revenue for media and sports codes if we banned gambling ads—a thousand times.

Let's say we introduce a 0.5 per cent levy on bets for gambling companies to pay, so for every dollar wagered, half of a cent goes to Treasury. That would deliver $1.2 billion. With that revenue, the government could roll out a national advertising campaign, replacing all the existing gambling ads with public health messages.

Media companies would get their ad revenue and those ads would be doing good, not evil. Replacing all the ads on every platform would cost us less than a quarter of the $1.2 billion. Then, the government could provide the sports codes with transitional funding until they find new, non-gambling partners, or we could provide ongoing funding.

We could also afford to establish a strong, independent gambling regulator, in line with the committee's recommendations, to properly regulate the industry and reduce harm. Right now, the de facto national regulator is the Northern Territory Racing and Wagering Commission, and they have proven they are not up to the task. After solving all of these problems, we would still have hundreds of millions of dollars to support people experiencing gambling harm, and more to fix the hole in the budget.

This solution isn't radical. A levy was proposed under recommendation nine of the Murphy report. A levy cannot be used as an excuse not to further regulate the gambling industry, but it can neutralise the financial obstacles.

A generation ago, we banned tobacco ads when we realised the damage they were doing. The Prime Minister needs to listen to Australians, and the members in this place, including in his own party, and tell his gambling company mates that their winning streak— (Time expired)