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

Mr WILKIE (Clark) (18:30): Regrettably, this bill is diametrically opposed to the Murphy report. The Murphy report was the work of a unanimous cross-party parliamentary committee. It made 31 recommendations.

It is, without doubt, the finest blueprint for reform this parliament—in fact, this country—has ever seen. It had flagship recommendations, like a phase-out of gambling advertising over several years. It had a flagship recommendation of a complete ban on inducement, and a flagship recommendation that there be a genuinely independent national regulator.

What have we got instead? We've got this half-baked bill from the government that's going to be supported by the opposition and that almost entirely ineffective—no ban on gambling advertising, no ban on inducements and no independent regulator. In fact, I think the saying is 'putting lipstick on a pig'.

To sit in my office and sometimes sit in this chamber today and to hear speaker after speaker after speaker celebrating this as the best thing that's ever been done in this country for gambling—it's downright misleading. If this bill is the best thing this country's ever seen, then, heavens, this country hasn't seen much! This bill is going to do very little to make gambling safer in this country.

I agree with the Prime Minister. People should be allowed to have a punt. But where I disagree with the Prime Minister is that it should be safe.

We should be focusing on effective harm-minimisation measures. So how do we explain this? How do we explain the fact that we had this fabulous blueprint, yet this bill is diametrically opposed to it?

You might have heard me speculate before in this place about why it is so. Why are governments of either colour so reluctant to implement effective gambling reform? I've offered views on how governments are scared stiff of the gambling industry, scared stiff of the major media outlets and scared stiff of the power of the major sporting codes, and I think that's still in the mix.

I've also speculated that some in the government are, in fact, fellow travellers and best mates with the leadership of gambling companies and media companies and major sporting codes. More recently, I've pondered that there's an element of a lack of humanity among some members in this place and that people don't care enough about the shocking, shocking human toll of gambling addiction.

Sadly—through you, Deputy Speaker, to the opposition—the opposition haven't gone nearly far enough and haven't put enough pressure on the government. I know there are a lot of good people in the opposition who want more effective reform, and I think the leadership of the opposition should have listened to them. Listen to former prime minister John Howard, who, to his credit, has been a leading advocate for reform in this country.

I was delighted to meet with former prime minister John Howard in his office several months ago to discuss gambling reform, and it was clear that the old leadership of the party was right on board to have effective reform. I'm going to add to those reasons for a lack of effective reform something that I raised in question time today, and that is the corruption of good governance by the vested interests in the gambling industry, the media companies and the major sporting codes.

It may not be a criminal corruption, but it's a corruption of proper process. It's a corruption of the imperative on all of us here to listen to public opinion and to formulate evidence based policies in the public interest. Let me just dwell on this for a moment.

Let's talk about money; let's follow the money. There was a very good article in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age on 22 July. The journalists, Natassia Chrysanthos and Paul Sakkal—I hope I've pronounced those correctly—actually went to the trouble of doing the homework.

They tallied up the figures. They've calculated that, in the four years between 2020-21 and 2024-25, according to donor records, the Labor Party received about $5 million in donations from gambling companies. I would add the coalition received about $4.5 million in donations from the gambling companies.

You can't tell me that any organisation—or individual, for that matter—is going to invest that sort of money and not expect a return on that investment. If you donate a modest amount of money, you're supporting a candidate or a party. If you donate what adds up to $9.5 million in just four years, you're not supporting a party; you're buying a party.

It saddens me to say that. It is an argument for much more effective reform in this space. To those thumping big sums of money, you then add all of the lobbying, the hospitality, the tickets to events and so on.

It influences people, but not in the simple way that we accept parties and candidates can be lobbied, can accept donations and can make their own decisions about policies. That's accepted. I'm not disputing that.

But surely there's a line in the sand. Surely there's a point at which those sorts of sums of money are just so big that we would agree they are unacceptable. Today, as a result of my concerns—and I flagged this in my question to the Prime Minister in question time today—I referred this matter to the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

I'll read the letter into the Hansard record. It's only very short. It will only take me a couple of minutes.

I sent this to the NACC today. I wrote: I write to the Commission to express my concern that individuals in the Federal Government, when formulating gambling reform policy, have been improperly influenced by individuals in the private sector, most obviously but not exclusively through donations, gifts, hospitality and personal relationships. This has resulted in policy so clearly at odds with research, public opinion and the public interest, that the implementation of such policy could be characterised, in my opinion, as serious corruption in the Commonwealth public sector.

What finally prompts me to raise this matter with the Commission is an article in … The Sydney Morning Herald … and The Age— which I've already referenced— on 22 July 2026. If this article is accurate, then one or more individuals in the private sector stand accused of affecting the impartial exercise of powers or performance of official duties by one or more public officials, and one or more public officials stand accused of a breach of public trust and an abuse of office.

I acknowledge that the Commission is not empowered to investigate governments, and also that governments have the right to accept donations, be lobbied and make their own policy decisions. Nor do I make any allegation against any specific individual and trust the Commission to investigate the matter thoroughly. However, in my opinion, individuals in the Government are acting so egregiously in response to individuals in the private sector that all reasonable limits on government behaviour have been exceeded.

If this doesn't "cross the line", then I dread to think what would. Senator David Pocock, in effectively summarising this matter last week, described the situation with the lack of effective gambling reform in the face of the tragic human toll of gambling addiction in this country. He used the word 'tragic'.

I think that's a good word, but I'll add another word to what Senator Pocock had to say. That's the word 'betrayed'. The government, with this bill, is betraying all of the people in this country with gambling addiction.

With this bill, the government is betraying all of the people in this country who are judged to be at high risk of developing gambling addiction. With this bill, the government is betraying all of the loved ones of those people. With this bill the government is betraying the thousands of people who have suicided from gambling addiction and the untold number of people who love those people who suicided.

With this bill the government is betraying the people who have had money stolen by gambling addicts. We know from research several years ago that in Victoria gambling addiction is the second-most prevalent cause of crime in that state after drug addiction. There are so many layers to this, and the government, supported by the opposition, is betraying all of those people.

Let's remember, this is an intensely human story. The speeches today—and I'm guilty of this myself—have had lots of facts and figures and dates and numbers and dollars but let's not forget this is an intensely human story. The human tragedy of this is difficult to do justice to.

I'm sure that many of my colleagues have met with the sorts of people I'm describing—the people who are battling addiction, the people who have come out the other side, the families whose loved ones have an addiction; the families, the mums and dads, the brothers, the sister whose son or daughter or brother or sister has suicided. Mr Littleproud: People committed suicide over live export bans—didn't see you over that one.

Mr WILKIE: I'd make the point that I have a right to be heard, and this constant heckling is not adding to the quality of this debate. We've all met with these people. Surely, we all understand we have to do whatever we can to put an end to this, or to at least reduce it and we were given that blueprint in the Murphy report.

Surely, we should have said, 'Hurrah, this is great. This is the blueprint. This is what we'll implement.

The government and the opposition and the crossbench, we will all stare down the gambling companies. We will stare down the media companies. We'll stare down the major sporting codes who profit from gambling.' This was the opportunity for this parliament, all of us, to show real integrity.

But at the last minute we've baulked and that's really, really sad. Probably because I'm quite outspoken about gambling reform, I've become quite a lightning rod for people to tell me their stories, like the family where mum had been gambling, losing all of the housekeeping money and keeping it secret from dad. She was keeping secret even the fact that time and time again she was put on repayment plans by Aurora Energy for the power bill, and eventually Aurora had to cut the power off.

There was a family—mum, dad and a couple of really young kids—living in a house in Hobart with no electricity, no lights, no heating, no hot water. I don't know what became of that family but that's not an unusual story. That's the human side of this.

Gavin Fineff, a former financial adviser, is in prison in New South Wales for stealing millions of dollars from his clients. Now, I don't in any way justify that theft. That was a serious crime.

Gavin, to his credit, acknowledges it's a serious crime and he has to do his time. But think of the effect on Gavin. He had an addiction.

He couldn't help himself. Think of the effect on all of his clients who lost millions of dollars. I mean, again, this is the human face of this.

I will not support this bill. Now, I know there's a line of thinking that some reform is better than no reform, and, to a degree, that's right. To a degree, I would agree that sometimes you just have to suck it up, accept that that's the best you're going to get and not support it.

I notice a number of government speakers said 'this is just the start'. I don't believe them. I think what's going to happen now is the government's going to say 'the job's done', the opposition's going to say 'the job's done' and this will be the end of any sort of meaningful reform—or any reform—for years and years and years, because they will keep saying 'the job's done', and that's going to mean that all of the main parts of the job will not be addressed.

We won't get this ban on these pesky ads. We won't get this national regulator to do a much better job than this nonsense regulator in the Northern Territory that we've got at the moment. We're still going to have inducements.

I'll be delighted if I'm proven wrong. I'll be thrilled if I'm proven wrong and in the rest of this parliament or maybe the next parliament there is strong and effective reform. But I just don't think it's going to happen.

I'm not going to support these bills, and I'm going to keep agitating as loudly as I can. The government and the opposition are yet to get the job done; that's the fact of the matter. I just hope that, over the coming years, the leadership of both sides understand the human imperative of this and the financial imperative.

And, heavens, the political benefit to them—this was a chance for the government or the opposition to stare down these powerful interests and show real character. They would have benefited at the next election, I reckon—but not now. The only reason both sides will get away with it is they're in cahoots.

They're in lockstep, and they agree that very limited reform is all that the community is going to get. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Boyce ): I thank the member for Clark for his contribution—a passionate point of view.