ABC RN Breakfast - Gambling Advertising (5 Aug 2024)

Steve (Interviewer): The Federal Government's long-awaited response to a parliamentary inquiry into online gambling harms looks like it will soon be released. Over a year after the report was tabled, the inquiry made 31 recommendations, including a ban on gambling advertising, the introduction of a national regulator, and a ban on online gambling inducements such as so-called free bets.

Over the weekend, the Nine newspapers suggested the proposed ban on gambling ads would be watered down, with a cap on two gambling ads per hour on TV until 10 p.m. We've contacted the office of the Communications Minister, Michelle Rowland, but a spokesperson said she wouldn't be commenting on the speculation. Federal Member for Curtin, Independent MP Kate Chaney, was a member of the parliamentary committee and she's with us now. Good morning, Kate.

Kate Chaney: Good morning, Steve.

Steve: As a member of that key committee, have you been given any indication when the government will respond and how they might respond?

Kate Chaney: Not really. The committee wrote to the minister not that long ago, just asking if she could let us know what's happening. I don't believe we've had an official response to that. We have had the same message, which is that the minister is engaging with and consulting stakeholders. It seems like a lot of those stakeholders are sports codes, gambling companies, and media companies—the ones likely to lose out if there's a ban on gambling ads. There hasn’t been as much consultation on the other side with all the people experiencing problems with gambling or who are sick of seeing ads everywhere they look.

Steve: I'll come to the so-called stakeholders in a moment, but if what's reported in the papers over the weekend is true, what would that mean for gambling advertising in this country?

Kate Chaney: As you say, it's a rumour at the moment. The rumour is that it would be banned online, but there would still be gambling ads on TV, just fewer of them. The evidence from the hearings showed that partial bans don't work—they just move ads around from one spot to another. So, it would mean we would continue to see ads. Apparently, there would be an hour block-out before and after sporting events instead of the current five minutes, and a limitation to two ads per hour during other hours of the day. But that's still a lot of gambling ads. When you speak to parents of young kids who can quote the odds and know a lot about gambling, I think it wouldn't address the normalisation of gambling in sport, which is a massive problem I'm hearing from constituents.

Steve: I understand that the NRL and the AFL, along with certain media companies, have been intensely lobbying the government not to adopt all the recommendations of the committee that you sat on. I imagine that comes as no surprise to you.

Kate Chaney: It really doesn't because they make a lot of money out of gambling, and we have to decide how we feel about that as a country. The AFL, for example, gets three separate revenue streams from gambling. They get a cut every time someone makes a bet, direct sponsorships, and inflated broadcast rights because TV stations can sell slots to gambling companies. They're deeply embedded in it. When we hear threats like, "We won't be able to put as much money into junior sport if we can't have the gambling revenue," we've got to decide whether kids can be held to ransom like that and what compromises we're prepared to make.

Steve: So you don't think that's a reasonable argument? They're saying that to properly fund the clubs and also junior sport, they need this revenue.

Kate Chaney: That's exactly what we heard from the tobacco companies a few decades ago. We've got to decide whether that's okay or not and whether it's a real threat. We used to have the Benson & Hedges Cup and saw tobacco everywhere in sport. The same arguments were made, but we decided we didn't like it as a country, and the sky didn't fall in. I think we can decide that we don't want to promote gambling to kids, separate gambling from sport, and the world won't end.

Steve: The late Peta Murphy, who chaired this committee, was very passionate about this issue. She spoke in Parliament about integrity in sport and the important role sport plays in our communities. She was an elite athlete herself, in squash and softball, and was also a coach and an administrator. She'd been a vice president of Squash Australia, and her father was the director of elite sports at the Australian Institute of Sport. I wonder what you think she would think of the role these sporting bodies and their administrators are now playing behind the scenes trying to prevent these changes from coming in.

Kate Chaney: Peta did a great job as the chair of that committee, and unusually, we had unanimous recommendations. People on the committee from all parts of politics backed all 31 recommendations with no additional comments or different opinions. Peter's passion for sport and the need to remove gambling as a normalized part of sport really came through and was reflected by the rest of the committee as well. I don't think she'd be thrilled to see that the resistance to keeping gambling out of sport was coming from our sports codes.

Steve: Do you think Labor is at risk here of betraying her legacy if they do not follow the recommendations of the committee that she chaired?

Kate Chaney: There has been speculation that the long delay in responding to the report—because it should have been responded to within six months and it's now well over a year—is because what they were going to say would be a slap in the face to Peta's legacy. I hope that's not the case. I hope the long consultation is because the government is actually going to do the right thing and make gambling ads history, just like we did with tobacco. We live in hope it's not too late, but the rumours are not encouraging.

Steve: Media companies have been lobbying the government as well. They say they will cut down on local content if they lose revenue because of gambling ads being banned. Is gambling advertising worth preserving to help support journalism and TV production in this country?

Kate Chaney: We've got to decide what we are prepared to compromise on and how credible that threat is. These are the same arguments we got from tobacco companies. In the hearings, when we heard evidence from media companies, we heard these threats but didn't see a lot of data to back them up. The media companies were not prepared to explain how much of their business model is linked to gambling revenue, and I suspect that's because it wasn't a good story either way. Either it wasn't that much of a threat, making the threat hollow, or our media companies are hugely dependent on gambling revenue, and we've got to think about what that means. Do we want our news sources to be driven by gambling companies?

Steve: Were those same questions asked of the NRL and the AFL about the degree to which they rely on gambling advertising revenue to fund junior sport?

Kate Chaney: Those questions were asked, and I suspect a lot of the consultation since the report was put out has been around those topics with the sporting codes and the media companies. I don't know how public that information will be, but it's certainly questions that I will be asking when we see the government's response.

Steve: I also wanted to ask you about the donations from gambling companies to certain members of the government. Do you think that's designed to try and influence gambling policy?

Kate Chaney: Gambling companies have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars every year to both major parties, and I think that's absolutely shocking. It's extraordinary that these companies, which governments are meant to regulate and which commit social harms in our community, are propping up election campaigns. We don't find out how much these companies have donated until well after the election. At the last election, Sportsbet hosted a fundraising dinner for the Minister for Communications just before the election and made a direct donation as well. Repeated hospitality from gambling companies to the Minister for Communications doesn't pass the pub test. I don't think Australians like that, and we shouldn't have social harm industries making political donations in this country.

Steve: We'll have to leave it there. Kate Chaney, thanks for talking to us this morning.

Kate Chaney: Thanks very much, Steve.

Related article: It's time to stop pitching ads for online gambling (23 July 2024)