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) (19:36): You're completely wrong, Senator Hanson-Young. I've listened to your commentary on this matter for a couple of hours now, which has been dripping in cynicism the whole time and full of innuendo about the motivations of a government that's trying to do the right thing in this matter.

We absolutely stand by these laws that are before the parliament now as being laws that will work and make a meaningful difference to the Australian people. We know that for a lot of years there have been a lot of Australians who've wanted to see action. They don't want to see the proliferation of ads from the gambling industry that we've seen on TV.

This deals with that. They don't want to see children impacted by these ads at the same time. We've reduced the risk that they will go before children at the same time.

So you can add all the cynicism that you want, but this is an important bit of reform that will make a meaningful difference for many Australians, and it does hold the gambling companies to account at the same time. We absolutely stand by these laws. We know that they will make a meaningful difference.

We've done the hard work of ensuring that we get the details right so that we get the balance right between reducing harm for those people that are going to be impacted while ensuring that the industry can continue at the same time. We think that's important. We think we've got that.

We've also got the ability for ACMA to ensure that they can enforce these provisions and have a strong hand in terms of determining fines that help hold those gambling companies to account.