Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026

Ms WELLS (Lilley—Minister for Sport and Minister for Communications) (17:10): I thank the member for Mackellar for moving these amendments. The government will not support these amendments. The government shares the objective of reducing gambling harm and limiting exposure to wagering advertising, particularly for children and young people.

The gambling reform bill takes strong action to limit exposure to wagering advertising from the times and places that children are watching. It bans wagering advertising during live sports, it sets a frequency cap to ensure audiences aren't saturated with wagering advertising, and it makes a family trip to the footy a wagering ad free space by banning ads on sporting uniforms and at sporting venues.

The frequency cap and live sport restrictions are in place until 8.30 pm, which reflects the data mentioned that shows child audiences drop significantly after this time. In response to calls for more distance between wagering ads and sport events, the government has moved an amendment to extend the blackout period before a live sporting event to 15 minutes. This amendment, along with the measures I have just outlined, will break the link between wagering and sport.

With regard to the amendment prescribing the health minister as the general administrator of the Interactive Gambling Act 2001, I would note that it is not convention for legislation to prescribe which portfolios should have responsibility for specific acts. Machinery of government arrangements have long been decided by the Prime Minister as the head of government through established processes.

Question negatived.