Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026, National Self-exclusion Register (Cost Recovery Levy) Amendment Bill 2026

Ms COFFEY (Griffith) (09:58): Gambling has harmed too many Australian families for too long. When I was first elected last year, a mother from my community came to see me in my electorate office in Griffith. She told me that her husband had been gambling behind her back and without her knowledge.

He had lost all their money. Everything they had was gone, and his gambling had left their family deep in debt. She had trusted her husband, with whom she had built a life and a family.

He had hidden his gambling from her, and she discovered the truth after the damage was already done. She had since left the marriage and was raising their children. She now carried the work of rebuilding their lives after gambling had torn through their finances, their home and their sense of security.

She brought something with her to our meeting; out of her bag, she produced the jersey of her young son's favourite football team. On the back was one of the team's sponsors; it was a gambling company. She held up her little boy's jersey and said: 'We can do better than this.

We must do better than this.' That meeting moved me deeply and it has stayed with me. I found this story very hard to speak about then, and I still do. She came with her child's sports jersey and the painful truth of what gambling had done to her family.

She was trying to give her children stability after choices made and hidden by somebody else. Then she saw the gambling industry claim a place on the back of her son's jersey. It represented the industry connected to the loss, debt and betrayal that her family had endured.

No child should grow up thinking gambling is a necessary link to the team or sport they love or behind every sporting hero they may admire as a role model. That mother turned a painful family experience into a call for change. She asked her representative to act so other families face less harm.

I went to Canberra and spoke with my colleagues about her story and about gambling reform more broadly. Many people across Griffith have shared their own experiences with me since that meeting. I've heard from locals in meetings and conversations.

My office has received so many emails about gambling advertising and the harm gambling has caused. I have read all those emails. I have listened to stories of debt secrecy, broken trust and the long work of recovery, grandparents frightened for their grandchildren and adult children scared for their gambling-addicted parents.

Each story is personal but each carries a clear request to us: people want their government to act. Today I am proud to support reforms that answer those calls. These bills are a solid step, shaped by people who spoke up and asked us to do better and to do more.

Australians love playing sport, and watching it and sharing it with our families. Yet gambling promotion now appears during broadcasts around the ground, across the screens, in our hands and, yes, on uniforms. The main bill, the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill, takes direct action to break that connection.

From January next year, wagering ads will be banned during live television coverage of sport between 6 am and 8.30 pm. Broadcasters will face a ban on showing the odds during those events. Outside live sport, television can carry no more than three gambling ads each hour between 6 am and 8.30 pm.

That cap is needed. In 2024, Australians could see as many as eight gambling ads in a single hour. Radio ads will be banned during school drop-off and pick-up times, removing gambling promotions from the daily school run.

The main bill will remove gambling advertising from sporting venues and uniforms. The ban covers players, officials, training, press conferences, amateur competitions and grassroots sports. The reforms will ban athletes, celebrities and social media influencers from promoting gambling.

These promotions often target young Australians, particularly young men, and that is something I have heard through my office again and again. A gambling company cannot pay a familiar face to carry its message into a young person's feed, regardless of the platform or numbers of followers. The main bill will place strong restrictions on online gambling advertising.

The rules will cover social media, news websites, podcasts, streaming services, YouTube and search engines. An online service can show a gambling ad only to logged-in users aged over 18 who have a clear option to opt out. A platform that cannot meet all these conditions cannot show gambling ads at any time or to any person.

This gives Australians a power they currently do not have, ensuring they can prevent gambling ads on their screens. Parents can open a streaming service with their children without gambling promotions appearing between programs. People recovering from harm can use the internet without targeted promotions pursuing them.

Our laws must meet that reality. The purpose is straightforward. Australians should be able to control what gambling advertising they see, where they see it and how it reaches them.

Advertising restrictions form one part of this reform package. The two bills will strengthen practical support for people who want to stop gambling. BetStop is the national self-exclusion register.

It lets a person exclude themself from every Australian licensed online and telephone wagering service through one registration. More than 61,000 Australians have used BetStop since its launch in 2023. The statutory review found that only one in four Australians knew BetStop existed.

Among people who had placed a bet during the previous year, awareness reached only one in three. A service can only help those who know about it. The government will run a national campaign to raise awareness of BetStop.

The National Self-exclusion Register (Cost Recovery Levy) Amendment Bill supports the department to recover the cost of promoting this service. The online wagering industry should meet the cost of telling Australians about a service designed to protect them from gambling harm. The reforms will strengthen the register itself.

A person's choice to stop marketing calls must cover emails, text messages, apps and push notifications. A person who chooses self-exclusion has drawn a clear boundary. Self-exclusion takes courage, and our system must honour that choice.

The bill will give the Australian Communications and Media Authority stronger tools against illegal offshore gambling services. These operators sit outside Australian law and our consumer protections. More than 1,700 illegal gambling websites have been blocked since 2019, but operators can change names, sites and payment methods quickly.

Financial institutions will have to block transfers to accounts linked to illegal operators. The regulator can share information with those institutions for that task. Search engines, app providers and other digital services will have to block access to illegal gambling services and their advertising.

The regulator will gain the power to issue 24-hour takedown notices to digital services and influencers promoting those operators. A legal provider should not reach Australians through a sponsored search result, an app store or a paid social media post. Australians who choose to gamble online deserve the protections set by Australian law.

Offshore businesses cannot avoid those rules that target people here. The bill will ban online Keno. These products have earned the name 'pocket pokies' for good reason.

They combine rapid draws, repeated play and high spending limits on a phone that rarely leaves a person's side. A person can lose $1,000 every three minutes. This is a high-speed gambling product built for repeated losses.

Parliaments have spent years confronting the harm caused by poker machines. We cannot allow a version of that harm to move into every pocket in every home. The ban draws a clear line.

The ban will close loopholes used by foreign matched lotteries. These businesses offer Australians access to overseas lotteries through a middleman. They claim to buy a ticket overseas, collect any prize and pass the winnings to the Australian customer.

The promise carries serious risks. Overseas authorities can refuse these purchases, leaving an Australian customer with no practical path to recover a prize. Foreign matched lotteries take sales from regulated Australian lotteries.

Australian lotteries support newsagents, pharmacies, pubs, RSLs, community clubs and state services. The bill will protect consumers from unclear overseas arrangements and back local small business. The bill will close gaps used by fake trade promotion lotteries.

Genuine trade promotions support real goods and services. Fake models use discounts or membership clubs as a thin cover for selling lottery entries. Some operators lack the licences required under state law.

Winners can discover that the promised prize is out of reach, and the damage reaches beyond those entrants. Charity lotteries estimate that fake lotteries diverted more than $60 million from the charity sector in 2024. That $60 million represents funding taken away from charities and the communities they serve.

Charity fundraising helps pay for health research, disability support, crisis services and local community programs. Every dollar diverted to a fake lottery is money a genuine charity cannot use for that work. For smaller organisations, lost income can mean less community outreach or a program reaching fewer people.

Staff and volunteers must stretch limited funds further, and people seeking help feel the impact. Fake lotteries compete for the same public goodwill and household dollars. They risk weakening trust in the genuine charity fundraising sector.

Closing this loophole will protect income charities used to support people and communities, like my community of Griffith. These reforms build on the action the Albanese government has delivered. We banned the use of credit cards for online wagering.

We launched BetStop. We stopped gambling companies claiming the research and development tax incentive. We put further protections in place through the National Consumer Protection Framework for Online Wagering.

This bill takes the next steps. It reduces advertising, strengthens self-exclusion, disrupts illegal operators and bans harmful new products. No Australian government has brought forward gambling reforms of this breadth.

The scale reflects a clear public expectation that governments must act. The government has listened throughout the legislative process. We will keep working with members and senators in good faith to pass the strongest workable package.

Evidence before last week's Senate inquiry exposed deeply troubling alleged conduct involving inducements. Our government condemns those alleged actions in the strongest terms. We have heard the community concern.

The Prime Minister has flagged government amendments, and we are working to strengthen protections around inducements. Some members believe this bill should go further. We hear that view, and the work continues through the parliament.

These reforms are a strong step in the right direction. They set firm rules and give families more control. The work to reduce gambling harm must continue.

I also want to acknowledge Labor branch members across the country who helped place gambling reform on the ALP national platform for the first time. The platform recognises the heightened risk faced by children and young people. It commits Labor to stronger safeguards around inducements.

I call on every member and senator to work in good faith so these reforms can begin on 1 January 2027. Good public policy begins with listening to people who live with the consequences. I think again of that mother who came into my office.

She trusted me with a deeply painful part of her life and asked her representative to do better. Her advocacy travelled from our community to this parliament, and I thank her. Her voice is present in this debate, and her son's jersey has not been forgotten.

I thank every person in Griffith who has spoken with me or written to my office about gambling harm. I have listened and I will carry their voices into this parliament. I will continue to do that.

I acknowledge the advocates, financial counsellors, researchers and service workers who push for reform. I also pay tribute to the late Peta Murphy, a valued member of this House and a determined advocate for gambling harm reduction. Peta chaired the inquiry into online gambling and its impacts on people experiencing harm.

Her work helped build the case for change. I'm saddened that I never had the opportunity to meet Peta before her passing, but I am grateful for the work she did in this parliament and in our country. From 1 January next year, Australian families should be able to watch their favourite team without a flood of gambling ads.

Children should see their sporting heroes play without a betting company on their jersey. People who do not want gambling promotion should have a clear choice online. People seeking to stop gambling should know where to turn.

Every gambling company must respect the decision, across every marketing channel. These bills will protect children, give families more control and strengthen support for people experiencing gambling harm. They will tackle illegal operators and dangerous products.

They will protect Australian consumers, charities and small businesses. These reforms are a very good step in the right direction. No single law can repair every family harmed by gambling, but this parliament can reduce that harm and prevent more of it.