This is a question for the minister for Communications. Last year a parliamentary inquiry recommended banning online gambling ads. During the year of that inquiry big gambling companies made political donations of $600,000. You spent seven months meeting with powerful companies that make money from gambling ads. Today new research was released again showing the dangers of social media influences promoting gambling to kids. Will you listen to the community and ban online gambling or will you water-down reform to serve your donors?

Yes. I'm just going to hear from the leader from the house. They have some difficulty with the last part of that question. The Leader of the House. Speaker, or simply ask the last part of the question be considered as being out of order. Imputations of that nature have always been ruled out of order.

I am just going to agree unless the manager has another point of view that the last part of the question not stand as part of the question and remind all members when reflecting on members and imputations on members as well. The call to the minister for Communications. Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the member for her very important question and acknowledge her long-standing advocacy in this area as well as many other members of this house. And like many Australians the government is very concerned about the extent of gambling ads and their impacts, which is one of the reasons why we established the House of Representatives inquiry into online gambling and the impacts on those experiencing gambling harms led by our dear late friend Peta Murphy. Now, since receiving the committee's report we have been consulting with key stakeholders on the committee's recommendations and there are over 30 of them. My department has met with a broad range of stakeholders including broadcasters, sporting codes, digital platforms, and I have met with a number of harm reduction advocates, public health experts, and academics and I am very grateful for the time and their insights, because the perspectives and expertise, particularly as the member notes, the impact that online gambling is having on young people, the concerns over the saturation of gambling advertising the close association even young children have between wagering and live sport and the shame and stigma felt by those experiencing gambling harm. I can see to the member that there is one underlying principle that is guiding us in our approach here and that is harm minimisation. We are conducting this in a very thorough way and to give three points going to that, firstly, we want this response to be comprehensive. It is a broad ranging report, it goes over a large number of areas that not only impact on the Commonwealth but also states and territories where there are already existing laws as well. Secondly, we want to guard against unintended consequences and we know how important it is to take a comprehensive approach here and you look at the last set of gambling ad restrictions that were put in place by the previous government in 2018. I say to the member there was actually a 50 per cent increase in the total volume of gambling spots on TV and radio and there was an 86 per cent increase on regional TV, so we need to ensure that what we are doing is guarding against those perverse outcomes. And lastly, for the benefit of the member in the house, the Prime Minister is running an orderly cabinet government, is a collaborative approach were taken between a number of ministers including Social Security, myself, the Minister for Health and we are conducting this in a way that ensures that we meet our harm minimisation objectives. I would also just highlight for the member, who may be interested in some of the other initiatives that are being done at the moment, there is a very important one would like the member to be aware of and that is the fact that we instigated the last piece of the regime for consumer protection and that is BetStop, the National Self-exclusion Register. Since April, there have been just under 16,000 registrations that remain active and 47 per cent of registrants are 30 years old or younger and I just acknowledge that for the member to highlight the work we are doing.