Australia politics live: parliament returns as Labor seeks deals on NDIS, gambling ads and news bargaining reforms

Government listening to ‘money and power’ on gambling says independent MP

Kate Chaney , who was on the inquiry with the late Labor MP Peta Murphy that handed down the landmark ‘you win some, you lose more’ report on gambling harm, says so far it seems the talks between the Coalition and Labor on a gambling reform package are “disappointing”.

Speaking to the ABC’s RN Breakfast a little earlier, the independent MP says the government has listened to the gambling lobby instead of the evidence.

Part of the government’s proposed reforms limit online gambling ads on television to three per hour between 6am and 8:30pm.

But Chaney says the last time ads were partially banned the ads didn’t slow down, they just moved to different time slots.

double quotation mark In 2017, when the last round of partial restrictions came in, the money just moved around. And for example, gambling ads after 8:30 more than doubled, increased 131%. And I suspect that that’s what we’re going to see here too: is the money moving around.

I think it is about the government listening to the money and the power, not the people. The gambling companies make big political donations. They are present lobbyists in this building. We’re hearing their talking points coming out of the Prime Minister’s mouth. And the media companies and the sports codes make a lot of money out of gambling too. Unfortunately, Australians pay the cost for that. And the average Australian household loses more in gambling than they pay for in electricity. So this is our blind spot.