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 CHISHOLM (Queensland—Assistant Minister for Regional Development, Assistant Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Assistant Minister for Resources and Deputy Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (18:21): Thanks, Senator Hanson-Young, for the question. I'd point to the range of reforms that we've pursued through this legislation as being relevant to this.

As I mentioned when I first spoke, these are the most substantial reforms around gambling harm that any government has ever taken and the strongest action that any government has ever taken. The reforms include the blackout period for live sports restrictions, which will change blackout rules from five minutes before live sport to 15 minutes before live sport between 5 am and 8:30 pm, which is important; the banning of commissions and financial incentives to staff and affiliates based on customer activity, where a wagering service provider must not provide, offer or arrange any commissions to staff or any third party involved in the referral of provision of online gambling to an individual based on customer activity; the banning of direct marketing of inducements to red-flag customers, which goes to the heart of what you're talking about and which prohibits direct marketing of inducements to Australians who are exhibiting indicators of gambling harm; the banning of direct marketing of inducements for 14 days after the opening of an account; the banning of direct marketing of inducements during a cooling-off period for 90 days; the fact that, following BetStop deregistration, customers are required to opt in to receive future marketing inducements; the move of the start time of the frequency cap on live sports rules for children from 6 am to 5 am to align the bill with the commercial television industry code of practice currently in force; the banning of gambling ads in content principally directed at children; the extension of the live sports restrictions to online platforms; the opt-out prominence, which I've mentioned—the opt-out register; the cost recovery expansion, which is obviously significant and which we've been talking about; and then also the illegal ads on social media.

So I think you can see, across a whole range of areas, that this package goes to the issues that you've raised. We believe it's substantial, we believe it gets the balance right and we think it's going to be in the best interests of the country.