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

Senator WALKER (South Australia) (11:49): I'd like to begin with something that will be very familiar to pretty much everyone my age or younger. Gambling ads are literally everywhere. When you watch the footy, they're there.

When you scroll on Instagram, they're there. When you listen to a podcast or open a streaming service, there they are. Sometimes it feels like you can't engage with sport in this country without someone, somewhere, trying to get you to put money on it.

For a lot of young Australians that has been the case for, basically, our whole lives. We have grown up with betting companies as sponsors, with odds appearing during sports coverage, with celebrities and athletes promoting betting companies and with gambling apps sitting on the same phone we use to message friends, check our bank account, order dinner and watch the footy.

It has all become incredibly normal, so now there's a whole generation of Australians who have never known sport without gambling advertising attached to it. This is something many of the young Australians I meet say over and over again. It comes up nearly as frequently as issues like housing and cost of living.

Most young people understand perfectly well that adults are allowed to gamble. What they question is why gambling has to be pushed at us relentlessly. Why does watching a game mean we need to hear the odds?

Why should betting companies be able to follow people across the internet? Why should celebrities and influencers be selling gambling products? And why have we allowed gambling to become so deeply embedded in Australian sport that sometimes it's difficult to tell where one ends and where the other begins?

We should be able to love sport without being constantly encouraged to gamble on it. A kid watching their first AFL game should be thinking about whether they want to play footy themselves one day, who their favourite player is or whether their team can come back in the final quarter. They do not need to know the odds.

They don't need to understand a multi. They do not need betting to become part of what following a sport looks like. This is something that the Labor Party has recognised.

At the national conference our platform specifically acknowledged that children and young people face a heightened risk of gambling harm and committed us to strengthening inducement protections. The research backs up what young people are telling us, which is that exposure to wagering advertising has been associated with more positive attitudes to gambling, greater intentions to gamble and increased gambling activity.

There is also evidence of a dose-response relationship, where, the more gambling advertising people are exposed to, the greater the risk of participation and harm. We're talking about the repeated exposure of gambling advertising across different platforms for years. You see betting advertising on TV and then you open your phone and you see it again.

You see a betting company associated with your favourite team, your favourite competition, a celebrity you like or an influencer you follow, and the product being advertised is available instantly. There's no need to go anywhere. You can place a bet while sitting on your couch, waiting for a bus or lying in bed.

That is a very different gambling environment from the one our laws were originally designed around. We have also heard from people and groups working on the front line of gambling harm. Their experience of gambling looks very different from the one we see in ads.

These ads are usually fun. There are mates, there's sport, there's excitement, and someone is having a laugh. You don't see somebody staring at their bank account after losing the money they needed for rent.

You don't see someone trying to work out how to tell their partner about a debt they've been hiding. You don't see the argument with family, the anxiety, the shame or the stress. You definitely don't see the people working in support services, trying to help someone put their life back together when their gambling has gotten completely out of control.

Frontline advocates see those consequences every day and, a lot of the time, by the time somebody reaches out for help, a lot of harm has already happened. There may be debt, financial stress or relationships under enormous pressure. That is also why inducements are such an important part of these reforms.

For someone who has a bet occasionally, an inducement may look fairly chill, but for someone whose gambling is becoming a problem, being offered another incentive to bet can be incredibly harmful. Betting companies have enormous amounts of information about their customers. They know who's betting, how often they are betting and how their behaviour is changing.

These reforms will require that information to be used to help protect people who may be vulnerable, rather than on encouraging them to bet more. This government's amendments will ban inducements for the first 14 days after somebody signs up with a gambling company. They will ban the direct marketing of inducements to customers who have been identified as at risk of gambling harm.

They will ban direct marketing of inducements for 90 days after someone deregisters from BetStop. They will also ban commissions to staff or affiliates that are based on customer gambling activity. These are important protections at exactly the moments when somebody may be particularly vulnerable.

For a long time, conversations about gambling harm focused heavily on individual responsibility. We were told to gamble responsibly. Of course, people make their own choices, but government also makes choices about the environment in which industry operates.

We decide what can be advertised and where, we decide what protections companies have to put in place, and we decide what happens when companies break those rules. These bills make significant changes to the way wagering advertising and online gambling are regulated in Australia. One of the central objectives is to break down the connection between wagering and sport.

The bill will prohibit wagering advertising in conjunction with live sporting events, with restrictions applying across television, radio and online services. The government's amendments strengthen this further by extending the blackout period before live sport from five minutes to 15 minutes. They also bring forward the commencement of the wagering advertising frequency cap and live sport restrictions from 6 am to 5 am.

That means no more than three wagering ads each hour on broadcast television between 5 am and 8.30 pm, with a complete ban during live sport broadcasting during those hours. Wagering advertising on radio will also be prohibited during school drop-off and pick-up times. Importantly, what Australians see on television should broadly match their experience online.

The current protections in the Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice will be enshrined in law and extended to online streaming services. The rules applying to gambling advertising during children's programming will also be enshrined in legislation. Online services will only be able to provide wagering ads when they take reasonable steps to ensure they are not being shown to restricted users.

Users will need to be logged into a registered account, confirmed as over 18 years old and given a clear way to opt out of gambling advertising. The government is strengthening that further through a new wagering advertising opt out register, a one-stop shop where Australians can choose not to see gambling ads and have that choice applied across their online services.

For services operating under the triple lock system, that opt-out choice will also have to be prominently displayed. People should not have to dig through five menus and a page of fine print just to tell platforms they do not want to see gambling ads. The gambling industry will pay for the operation of that register through a levy.

I think that this is entirely reasonable. The cost of protections introduced in response to a gambling harm should not simply be shifted onto taxpayers while the companies profiting from gambling walk away from the bill. This is particularly relevant to young Australians because TV is only one part of how we consume media now.

We're watching videos on YouTube, we're using streaming services, we're listening to podcasts and music, and we're scrolling on social media—sometimes all at the same time. There would be little point in having restrictions on the TV in the living room while the same advertising simply migrates to the phone in your hand. Another part of this bill I particularly welcome is the restriction on using notable people to promote wagering.

That includes professional athletes, celebrities, influencers and other prominent people. This is very relevant to younger audiences. The way influence works has changed enormously in the past 10 years.

A young person might barely notice someone appearing in a traditional TV ad, but they might spend hours every week watching a particular creator online. They might have followed that person for years on Instagram or TikTok, or listen to their podcasts, so when that person recommends a product, the message can land very differently from a traditional TV ad. This bill also prohibits the promotion of odds in wagering advertising.

For too long odds have been treated like another sport statistic: 'Here is the injury list. Here is the ladder. Here is the weather.

And here are the odds.' We have become so used to hearing it that it barely registers anymore, but we can enjoy sport perfectly well without gambling odds being woven through the experience. This legislation will also prohibit wagering advertising on sporting uniforms and sporting venues. Sport occupies a pretty special place in Australian life.

For young people, local sporting clubs are places where friendships are made, communities are built and people spend enormous amounts of their childhood and teenage years. Reducing the pressure of gambling advertising in those spaces is a good thing. This bill also strengthens BetStop, Australia’s national self-exclusion register.

Since BetStop launched in August 2023, more than 54,000 people have registered to exclude themselves from licensed online and phone wagering services. Behind those numbers are tens of thousands of Australians who have decided they need to put some distance between themselves and gambling. Making that decision can be incredibly difficult.

Once somebody has taken that step, the system should help them stick with it. And we should recognise that the period immediately after somebody leaves BetStop can also be a vulnerable one. That is why the government’s amendments will prevent wagering providers from directly marketing inducements to a customer for 90 days after they deregister.

If somebody has taken the step of saying, 'I need to stop gambling,' the last thing they need is a gambling company immediately trying to pull them back in. These reforms also deal with illegal offshore gambling. Whenever stronger gambling regulation is proposed, we hear the argument that people will simply move to illegal operators.

I do not accept that as an argument for keeping weaker protections around licensed gambling. These reforms strengthen enforcement against illegal offshore providers, including stronger powers for ACMA. Social media services will also be required to ensure they only serve advertisements from licensed wagering providers in Australia.

This bill also responds to newer forms of online gambling. Gambling products evolve quickly and our regulation needs to keep pace. There will, of course, continue to be debate about whether this package goes far enough.

We know the 2023 parliamentary inquiry recommended a comprehensive phase-out of online gambling advertising. We know many public health experts and gambling harm advocates continue to support a complete advertising ban, and I've heard from other young people who would happily see gambling advertising disappear altogether, and I think those views should be taken seriously.

And, importantly, this government has continued listening throughout this process. Following the introduction of the bill, concerns raised through the Senate inquiry and by parliamentarians have resulted in further changes to strengthen these reforms. That is how this process should work.

These amendments give us stronger protections around inducements. They extend the live sport blackout. They strengthen protections for children watching streaming services.

They give Australians a clearer and more comprehensive way to opt out of wagering advertising. They strengthen action against illegal operators and they made the gambling industry contribute to the cost of the protections we're putting in place. These are worthwhile reforms, and I support the bills.