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

Mr FRENCH (Moore) (11:13): I rise to support the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026, and the related national self-exclusion register legislation. There is no point pretending that this bill is easy. It is controversial.

Some believe the government have gone too far; others believe we have not gone nearly far enough. Broadcasters are concerned about revenue. Sporting organisations are concerned about sponsorship.

Wagering companies point out that gambling is a lawful activity undertaken by adults. On the other side, many Australians look at the sheer volume of gambling advertising, particularly around sport, and ask how we allowed it to get this far. Parliament, ultimately, has to draw a line.

The question is not whether an adult Australian should be allowed to have a bet. They should. The question is whether we are comfortable with the place gambling has come to occupy in Australian life, particularly in the lives of our children.

I am not. There is a generation of Australian kids growing up at a time when the odds can sometimes feel almost as much a part of watching sport as the score. They know the teams, they know the players, they know the ladder and, increasingly, they know which side is paying $2.10.

Sport should not be an introductory course into wagering. A kid watching the footy should be thinking about the mark, the goal, the tackle and the player they want to be like when they run onto the oval on a Saturday. They should not be learning that every contest needs a price attached to it.

That is at the heart of these bills. The legislation restricts wagering advertising, strengthens action against illegal offshore gambling, improves BetStop and deals with emerging products like online Keno, foreign match lotteries and fake trade promotion lotteries. Its objectives are straightforward: break the connection between wagering and sport, reduce children's exposure to gambling advertising and reduce its saturation across television, radio and the internet.

But there is a broader lesson here for corporate Australia: just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. Every major company operating in this country relies, to some extent, on a social licence. Parliament sets the law, regulators set the rules but the community decides what conduct it will tolerate.

Businesses that ignore those expectations for long enough should not be surprised when Australians eventually demand change. We see that beyond gambling. Right now, in the Pilbara, electricians and signal workers from the Electrical Trades Union are taking action against BHP after a system developed where contractors and labour hire were used to compete against the direct workforce, putting downward pressure on wages and creating divisions between workers—all while the company was making enormous profits.

A company can comply with the law and still lose the confidence of its workforce. It can make enormous profits while still losing the confidence of the community. It can win an argument with its lawyers and lose the much bigger argument with the Australian public.

That is why there is considerable community support for the workers and unions taking action, and the gambling industry should understand exactly the same lesson. I do not approach this debate as someone who believes gambling should be prohibited. My family owned hotels.

We had poker machines. We operated the TAB. We had Keno.

I grew up around licensed venues. I understand gambling has long been a part of the business model of pubs, clubs and other venues. Those businesses employ people.

They support local organisations. They provide places where communities come together. I'm not going to pretend somebody putting a few dollars on the footy is automatically experiencing gambling harm.

Adults can make choices themselves, but freedom of choice does not require us to give gambling companies unrestricted access to children and does not require Australians to accept gambling advertising being woven into sport. For too long, parts of the wagering industry have pushed further and further—onto jerseys, around the grounds, through broadcasts, into social media and into the phones that people carry everywhere.

Too many companies assumed that, because they were legally permitted to do it, Australians would continue accepting it. That was a mistake. They have been very good at returning money to shareholders, but they have been much less successful at explaining why Australians should accept gambling advertising being a constant part of Australian life.

Social licence is not permanent; it has to be earned and maintained. Once it is lost, rebuilding it is considerably harder. That brings us to what the main bill does.

On television, wagering advertising will be prohibited during live sport between 6 am and 8.30 pm. Outside live sport, gambling advertising will be capped at three advertisements per hour during those times. On radio, wagering advertising will be banned during school drop-off and pick-up periods.

The bill also tackles the connection between gambling and sporting culture itself. Wagering advertising will be banned from sporting uniforms and sporting venues. Athletes, celebrities and influencers will be prohibited from promoting wagering products.

Broadcast promotion of odds will also be prohibited. That is important because advertising has changed. Young Australians do not consume media in the same way previous generations did.

They are on social media, streaming services, YouTube, podcasts and whatever platform comes next. An influencer speaking into a phone can reach hundreds of thousands of young Australians. The law needs to reflect that.

The online rules are therefore particularly important. The starting point is that gambling advertising online is prohibited. The exception is where a user is logged in, verified as an adult and given a genuine ability to opt out.

If a platform cannot meet those requirements, it cannot show gambling advertising. Large technology companies tell advertisers that they can identify what we like, what we buy, what we watch and what we might want next. They cannot suddenly become technologically helpless when parliament asks them to protect children.

There is a limitation that we do need to acknowledge. We know that an adult account does not necessarily mean that an adult is the person watching. Kids use family streaming accounts.

They sit beside their parents. They use shared televisions, tablets and phones. An adult account alone cannot guarantee that a child will never see gambling advertising.

We should recognise that, and we should test these reforms against what actually happens after they commence. If the protections prove inadequate, parliament should be prepared to strengthen them. I also acknowledge that some members believe the government should adopt a complete ban on online gambling advertising.

The 2003 parliamentary inquiry recommended a comprehensive prohibition phased in over three years. The government has taken a different position. Gambling remains a lawful activity for adults, but the amount, location and method of advertising will be significantly restricted.

People can disagree about precisely where that line should sit, but this bill represents substantial change. It removes gambling advertising from sporting uniforms and venues. It restricts television and radio advertising.

It regulates advertising online. It stops athletes and influencers promoting wagering. It prohibits the promotion of odds and it backs those provisions with substantially stronger penalties.

The bill also strengthens action against illegal offshore gambling. Australian licensed wagering companies operate under Australian law. Illegal offshore operators do not.

They can avoid Australian consumer protections and harm-minimisation requirements. This bill makes it harder for them to reach Australians and harder for Australians to pay them. Financial institutions will be required to take steps to block payments to designated illegal gambling services.

The ACMA will be able to share information with financial institutions. Digital services will be required to block access to designated illegal services, and the ACMA will have stronger removal powers. If an offshore gambling company wants Australian customers but does not want Australian laws, we should make it difficult for them to find them, to access them and to pay them.

The internet cannot become a jurisdiction-free casino. The next part of the legislation strengthens BetStop. BetStop allows Australians to exclude themselves from all licensed online and telephone wagering providers through one registration.

More than 63,000 registrations had been made by early June, with more than 39,000 active exclusions at that time. Those numbers tell us something extremely important: tens of thousands of Australians have actively said, 'I do not want access to this anymore.' We should respect that decision and make it effective. The changes will strengthen BetStop so protections extend beyond email and text messages to apps, push notifications and emerging technology.

Self-exclusion should mean self-exclusion, not, 'We stopped emailing you, but here's a push notification instead.' The related levy legislation will also support greater promotion of BetStop. That is important because a service cannot help someone who does not know it exists. The bill also prohibits online Keno.

The concern here is easy to understand. Traditional lotteries involve buying a ticket and waiting for a draw. Online Keno can involve rapid repeated draws, high-frequency play and high spending limits.

Under some products, a person can lose as much as $1,000 every three minutes. A rapid play gambling product available every minute of every day on somebody's phone presents a very different risk from buying an occasional lottery ticket. The legislation also bans foreign-match lotteries.

These businesses effectively operate as middlemen for overseas lotteries. Australians pay an operator, somebody overseas supposedly acquires a ticket, and, if that ticket wins, the Australian relies on that chain of arrangements ultimately delivering the prize. There are obvious risks to that model.

Overseas authorities have taken action against some of these arrangements, and, if something goes wrong, an Australian consumer may have limited practical ability to recover a major prize. There is also an effect here at home. Australian lotteries support newsagents, clubs and other small businesses.

Charity lotteries fund community organisations. That brings me to the fake trade promotion lotteries. There is nothing wrong with genuine promotion.

Buy your groceries and enter a competition; purchase a product and go into a draw. That is different from designing a business where the lottery is effectively the product, and they call it a membership scheme or trade promotion to avoid regulation. Some charge recurring membership fees.

Some make it extremely difficult for customers to leave. Charity lotteries estimate that these operations diverted more than $60 million from the charitable sector in 2024. The bill closes that loophole while preserving genuine trade promotions.

There will continue to be debate about how far gambling regulation should go, and there should be. We are balancing personal freedom, business interests, sport, media, technology and public health. Some principles should be clear.

Adults may choose to gamble, but children should not be recruited into gambling culture. Australians who do not want gambling advertising should have greater control over where they see it. People who choose to exclude themselves should be protected, and companies seeking Australian customers should obey Australian laws.

There is also a lesson here that reaches beyond gambling. Do not confuse what you are legally entitled to do with what Australians will indefinitely accept. Do not take your customers for granted.

Do not take your workers for granted. Do not take the communities that allow you to operate for granted. The gambling industry has had years to see where public opinion was heading.

Too much of it continued pushing—more advertising, more integration with sport, more targeted online, more ways to reach people wherever they happen to be—and then some wondered why Australians demanded change. If an industry continually pushes right up against the boundary of what the law allows, eventually the community may decide to move that boundary, and that is what this parliament is doing.

From 1 January, families watching sport will see fewer gambling ads. Kids will not see wagering brands on their sporting heroes uniforms or around the grounds. Influencers will not be paid to push betting products to their followers, and Australians will have greater control over gambling advertising online.

Illegal operators will face stronger barriers, BetStop will be strengthened, online Keno will be banned, and loopholes around foreign-match and fake lotteries will be closed. Some will argue we should go further. That debate will continue, but the existence of an argument for going further is not an argument for doing nothing.

This legislation substantially changes the relationship between gambling advertising and Australian sport. Most importantly, it gives our kids more room to simply enjoy the game. The siren should mean the game is starting and not that it is time to place a bet.

I commend the bill to the House.