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

Mr NEUMANN (Blair) (10:18): Dr Louise Francis, in a paper she wrote on 5 March 2026, said that, when she started her research into gambling and its adverse effects in 2014, the annual gambling losses in Australia were $21 billion. Today, she said, it was $31.5 billion. A decade ago, it was $1,200 per adult, and she made the point that it had jumped per capita to more than $1,500.

The Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, of which I was a member, published a report in June 2023, ably chaired by Peta Murphy, the former member for Dunkley. The report was titled You win some, you lose more. I want to quote from the first paragraph of the foreword: 'You win some, you lose more.' This government tagline on gambling advertising, adopted as part of the National Consumer Protection Framework, aptly sums up the evidence received during this inquiry.

If the status quo of online gambling regulation, including but not limited to advertising, was to continue Australians would continue to lose more—more money, more relationships, more love of sport for the game rather than the odds. Later on in the foreword, it says this: Australians outspend the citizens of every other country on online gambling. This is wreaking havoc in our communities.

Saturation advertising ensures our future losses. In addition—and Peta Murphy made the point—it says: I am proud to say this Committee has delivered a unanimous report that says, "enough is enough". The Committee has made 31 recommendations that apply a public health lens to online gambling to reduce harm across the whole Australian population.

I was a member of that committee. I support the 31 recommendations and don't resile for one minute from those recommendations, but I'm pleased to say I'm pleased to speak on the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026 and the related National Self-exclusion Register (Cost Recovery Levy) Amendment Bill 2026. Through these bills, we are taking action in relation to the harm of online gambling.

We have put forward a detailed package of significant reforms in terms of gambling. We focus on passing and implementing with the support of other members and senators. We hope to get this legislation through, having had and being in the process of negotiations and discussions, and we are taking seriously our responsibility to protect Australians, particularly children and young people, from the harms of online gambling.

We know Australians love their sport, and we're a sporting nation. You see that from world cups to the Olympics and Paralympics. Indeed, my community of Ipswich is a famous sporting nursery.

Whether it's rugby league, football, hockey, AFL, cricket or athletics, we're sports mad in Ipswich. What started as having an occasional punt has, over time, grown to be an industry that's taken over our sport, our TVs and our lives, and it's got to stop. People in my electorate want to be able to sit down and watch sport and their favourite show without being hammered with gambling ads and betting odds, either on TV or online.

They should be able to sit down and enjoy a program with their families without being bombarded by betting odds. Gambling should not be normalised for children. Children should not be taught gambling is integral to sport, and, just as we've introduced world-leading minimum-age social media restrictions for children, parents want to know that their kids aren't being exposed to gambling ads online.

Sadly, gambling touches too many Australian families and individuals. Its impact doesn't stop with the person who's addicted to gambling. The reality is, for every person experiencing gambling harm, around six others—family, friends, workmates and loved ones—can also feel the effects through financial pressure, stress and strained relationships.

I've seen the devastating impact on families and have personally witnessed it in my own family. Behind every statistic is a person and a family. It's clear the advertising restrictions haven't kept pace with the community expectations, so these reforms are about attempting to fix this by reducing gambling harm and making sure our children grow to love sport for the game and don't see gambling as an essential part of it.

The reforms have a couple of pieces of legislation. As I said, there are a couple of bills. The Albanese government is delivering protections from the harms of gambling for Australians, particularly for children and young people.

The Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill contains some of the strongest measures ever brought in by any government. It delivers our commitment in relation to severing that connection between wagering and sport, minimising children's exposure to gambling advertising and stopping saturation of wagering ads on TV, radio and online. There are restrictions on gambling advertising on TV to no more than three ads each hour from six am to 8.30 pm, with a complete ban across and during live sport broadcasting during those hours, and restrictions on gambling ads from online platforms, unless people have logged on in account and are over 18 and have the option to opt out of gambling advertising.

We're banning gambling ads on radio during school drop offs and pick-up times and banning the use of athletes, celebrities or influencers to promote wagering. We're banning the broadcasting of ads promoting sporting odds and banning gambling ads in sporting venues and on players' and officials' uniforms, and we're cracking down on illegal gambling operators by allowing banks and payment systems to block transactions and give the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA, more powers to block these websites and to act faster to do so.

As part of these reforms, online keno pocket pokies and foreign matching lotteries will be banned. The bill also defines and regulates trade promotion services, to protect Australians from dodgy operators and to protect small businesses like newsagencies, and genuine lotteries, and charities who give back to the local community. We're acting to protect people from the iniquitous practices that get people towards addiction.

These changes would enhance sport integrity and reduce financial crime risks, as well as addressing harm. These reforms are about getting the balance right. We want Australians to be in control of what gambling ads they see and where and how they see them.

The changes are proposed to come in on 1 January next year. From then, Australians will be able to sit down with their families and cheer on their favourite team without being bombarded by gambling advertising. As for kids, we want them to grow up without thinking that you have a punt when you watch the Broncos play on TV.

In addition, the legislation introduces reforms to strengthen BetStop, the National Self-Exclusion Register, recognising the critical role it plays in vulnerable Australians' self-exclusion from gambling. To that end, this bill, along with the National Self-exclusion Register (Cost Recovery Levy) Amendment Bill 2026, ensures that the government can recover the costs of strengthening BetStop.

That was a key recommendation of the statutory review of BetStop, helping to drive uptake of this essential service which has already seen 64,500 registrations by the end of June. It's worth noting that the measures in this bill complement and build on the reforms the government has previously introduced. As part of these, we've launched BetStop, the National Self-Exclusion Register, which has been used by more than 59,000 Australians, with 38 per cent of those opting for a self-imposed lifetime ban.

We've legislated a ban on the use of credit cards in online wagering, because people shouldn't be able to bet with money they don't have and get themselves into hock. We've also established a mandatory pre-verification process to prevent children and people who have self-excluded from placing an online bet. On top of this, the May budget included some funding for financial counselling for gambling and a new public awareness campaign.

The budget will double the number of people who can get help through gambling financial counselling, while the new information campaign will mean more Australians will know about the gambling harms and where to get help. I've seen the benefit of this funding in my own electorate, with a number of organisations receiving Albanese government funding to help people in Ipswich to access financial counselling, including people facing financial hardship due to gambling.

In fact, last year these providers received a total of $98.4 million over five years for financial wellbeing support. For example, I met with the financial counsellors from the Ipswich Salvos Moneycare financial counselling service, who received funding to continue the valuable work they do in assisting locals with debts and gambling problems. Each Ipswich is another local provider which provides targeted support with gambling, and they deliver high quality financial services to people experiencing gambling harm and link them to addiction and mental health support when they need it.

As a government, we're funding these local services, like Salvos Moneycare and Each Ipswich, to try to address and support people through their recovery and in taking back control of their lives. Ideally, we want to prevent gambling harm from happening in the first place, and that's what the reforms in the bills are about. We've had constructive discussions with the coalition, the Greens and the crossbenchers, and those discussions will continue in good faith.

At the same time, we've consulted widely, and wisely, I think, in listening to a range of views across the community. We've sat down and worked constructively with the antigambling sector and with commercial broadcasters and with sporting organisations, to make sure that we can minimise harm and that these reforms are practical and can be implemented. That's what good governments do.

Based on those consultations, we're looking to strengthen the reforms and there will be government amendments to these bills. We're making sure that all these issues are dealt with in a constructive way. Last week's Senate inquiry into the bills included some damning evidence around some of the worst forms of inducement, and the government condemns those alleged actions in the strongest possible terms.

This particular legislation is really critical. That's why listening to the community is vital as well. We acknowledge the contribution of rank-and-file Labor Party members to the national platform, which, for the first time, recognised our significant efforts on gambling reform.

Our national platform is almost a spiritual thing in the Labor Party. Quite rightly, it recognised that children and young people have a heightened risk of being exposed to gambling harm and made a commitment to strengthen measures around inducements. Again, we thank Labor Party branch members for their valuable input into these important reforms.

I also thank all those people in my electorate who've consulted me about them. We keep negotiating and hope that they'll say more about this and have some practical amendments to these bills, including curbing advertising, particularly to children. In the meantime, I call on members in this place to work constructively with us.

These reforms are good. It represents the most significant reforms to online gambling in Australia's history and will continue to minimise children's exposure and break that link between sporting and wagering. It's a major step forward, and I think the parliament should vote for it.

On a practical level, many of the reforms have a 1 January start date next year, so it's important that we pass these measures this year. Finally, I want to acknowledge someone who's not here with us but looms large over this legislation. That's the late former member for Dunkley, Peta Murphy.

Peta was a very decent and hugely intelligent and powerful advocate, both for her community and on important national issues like gambling harm reduction. She was a hard-working local member but a brilliant parliamentarian as well and would have served, I have no doubt, as a cabinet minister in a future Labor government. I had the privilege of working with her in a number of parliamentary inquiries, including the 2023 inquiry of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs into online gambling and its impact, and she chaired that brilliantly.

As someone whose father was an alcoholic—my dad was an alcoholic and had a terrible gambling addiction—I personally experienced the horrors of online and gambling addiction. I've been through a number of gambling inquiries. I remember Bill Shorten and Jenny Macklin both ringing me up when I was in Toogoolawah one day and asking me to be on inquiries that have been chaired by crossbenchers in relation to gambling in a variety of different forms.

I've been on those inquiries, and I can say that the outcomes of those inquiries have varied in terms of the recommendations and the government's implementation, but not this one. Peta was incredibly inquisitive, investigative and forensic during the inquiry and right across the detail. She took it very seriously and worked assiduously and patiently to get everyone together on the final report, You win some, you lose more.

It has a very strong public-health focus rather than a personal choice focus, and she got it right. We got it right in that inquiry. That's why the package of reforms in this bill have been carefully developed, with harm minimisation front of mind and with a health focus as well.

It's clear Peta's report has had a significant impact, including the strong measures we've put together today. These are meaningful reforms which I support and hope we will go further. Some of the strongest actions to date we've ever seen a government do has been done by this government, and I commend the Prime Minister and the various ministers who've been involved in it.

We are tackling the scourge of online gambling, but we can do much more. One of the best things we should do in terms of honouring Peta Murphy's legacy would be to pass these bills now, and I commend them to the House.