In Australia, comments made by PM Anthony Albanese have raised doubts over whether the Labor government will fulfil its pledge to impose a federal ban on gambling advertising as a federal measure.
Yet to announce a date for the next General Election, PM Albanese appeared on ABC Australia, where he was questioned by audiences on a wide range of pressing national issues.
Among them was the question of whether his government would adopt the recommendations of a Senate inquiry on domestic violence, which recommended a ban on gambling advertising viewed as a measure to reduce family risks.
Albanese gave a hesitant response, stating: “What’s in our mind is the practicalities of whether people just go offshore. Then there’s no revenue at all. They engage in gambling with no revenue coming back at all. And it doesn’t solve the problem.”
The PM emphasised the technological complexity of enforcing such restrictions: “These things are complex with technology today, and we have been examining a range of areas. We have made changes, such as not being able to use your credit card online.”
While the Labor government has taken some steps, including the rollout of the national self-exclusion register BetStop and restrictions on credit card use for online gambling, measures fall short of the more sweeping reforms sought by reformists, who have pinpointed the PM for blame.
In 2022, Albanese campaigned on the pledge to implement reforms to “an out of control gambling industry” as public health studies detailed that Australia had the highest per capita losses on gambling of $800, well above other Western economies.
In his campaign, Albanese pledged to implement the recommendations of the parliamentary inquiry into gambling reforms led by late Labor minister Peta Murphy.
Titled “You win some, you lose more”, the Murphy Report proposed 31 reforms to apply a “public health response to reduce gambling harms in Australia”.
The headline measure called for the Labor government to begin a ‘phased approach’ to ban online gambling advertising across all media platforms within a three-year timeframe.
As the government’s chief adviser on gambling harms, Peta Murphy backed the measure, which would allow Australian sports and media ample time to “find alternative advertisers and sponsors, while preventing another generation from experiencing escalating gambling harms”.
Yet in 2023, as measures were to be approved, Albanese halted proceedings by showing support for a watered-down version of the Murphy Report’s key recommendations on gambling advertising.
Instead of the phased-ban, new proposals will endorse a cap of two gambling adverts per hour until 10pm, and a further ban applied on gambling adverts one hour before and after live sports broadcasts.
The PM was instantly criticised. This weekend, the Alliance for Gambling Reform—a non-profit organisation comprised of former ministers, academics, and sports figures—urged the government to implement the outright ban as originally recommended in the Murphy Report.
Campaigners argue that failure to deliver a federal ban would betray public trust, pointing to research showing that gambling adverts disproportionately influence children and vulnerable people. “The longer the government drags its feet, the more families are exposed to harm,” said one reform group.
With Labor’s election timetable unclear, the future of a gambling ad ban remains politically fraught. Reformists are warning that without decisive federal action, Australia risks cementing its status as the Western economy with the highest gambling losses per head.
