Few areas of public policy represent a more spectacular failure of political will in Australia than gambling. Fossil fuels are arguably even worse, but it’s a close call. Australian governments, state and federal, collectively represent a catastrophic failure when it comes to regulating gambling, a failure in which governments have ceded control to powerful interests and allowed the population they are charged with protecting to suffer significant damage.
The recent exposé of the risible nature of online gambling regulation by Steve Cannane for Four Corners — regulation so inadequate it would be laughable except for the tragic consequences — adds to a lengthy list of examples of the point blank refusal of the major parties to bring gambling to heel or establish institutions capable of effectively regulating a sector capable of inflicting so much damage at both an individual and societal level.