Half a dozen Liberals spoke up in their party room meeting on Tuesday, calling for tougher action on gambling. Simon Kennedy, the member for Cook, recounted a personal story about his former school teacher battling wagering harm, including attending Gamblers Anonymous meetings with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen first-hand how gambling has shifted from entertainment to industrial-scale harm for too many Australians. Labor\u2019s legislation is a capitulation to the gambling lobby,\u201d he told Guardian Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt falls short on advertising restrictions, inducements and protections for children and young people. The prime minister should be standing with Australian families, not protecting vested interests.\u201d<\/p>\n
It comes weeks after 17 Coalition MPs alongside Liberal luminaries John Howard, Jeff Kennett and Nick Greiner signed an open letter, published in newspapers, calling for stronger gambling action.<\/p>\n
Andrew Wallace, among Liberal MPs who spoke for stronger laws, noted the former opposition leader Peter Dutton\u2019s policy of banning TV ads one hour before and after a sporting match<\/a> was stronger than the corresponding part of Labor\u2019s policy. He claimed Labor\u2019s plan had \u201cso many holes through it\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat they\u2019ve produced is a half-arsed way of dealing with some of the damage that gambling causes Australians,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n Labor\u2019s changes, proposed to come into effect from 1 January 2027<\/a>, will likely face another Senate inquiry over parliament\u2019s winter break, after concerns from both the gambling industry and harm reduction advocates that the government\u2019s consultation process over the legislation was rushed.<\/p>\n The government proposes to restrict gambling ads on TV to no more than three an hour between 6am and 8.30pm, with a ban during live sport during those hours; bans on radio ads during school pickup and drop-off times; banning gambling ads online unless users are over 18 and have an opt-out option; and banning the use of celebrity or influencer endorsements, as well as ads inside sporting venues and on player uniforms.<\/p>\n The draft reforms were subject to a consultation process, but both the gambling industry and harm reduction advocates were unhappy the process only ran for a few weeks and claimed they only got a short time to discuss the changes directly with government.<\/p>\n The communications minister, Anika Wells, said the reforms were \u201csignificant\u201d, and while not opposing a Senate inquiry, she said it could delay the reforms coming into effect.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are now focused on getting that done, and I would say every day that gambling harm reduction advocates and their supporters in the Parliament argue for an extended Senate inquiry, further public inquiry, the other side of the fence uses that as a reason to delay implementation,\u201d she told a press conference.<\/p>\n \u201cDelaying actual reform and actual implementation isn\u2019t worth further consultation on a piece that has been very publicly and prolifically discussed for three years.\u201d<\/p>\n But Kennedy claimed the government\u2019s response \u201csimply doesn\u2019t match the scale of the harm\u201d.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | When needed<\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve sat in Gambling<\/a> Anonymous meetings and spoken directly with victims. I\u2019ve heard about the debt, the shame, the broken families, the suicides and the relentless targeting by gambling companies. Labor\u2019s legislation falls short of what Australians deserve and must be strengthened.\u201d<\/p>\n Sarah Henderson, the shadow communications minister, said the Coalition wanted a Senate inquiry to ensure \u201cmeaningful and workable reform and not just headlines\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile we are continuing to work through the details in good faith, it\u2019s no surprise we have concerns about the government\u2019s bill which should be referred to a Senate inquiry,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young also called the reforms \u201chalf-arsed\u201d, demanding a parliamentary inquiry.<\/p>\n \u201cWe all know kids don\u2019t go to bed at 8.30pm while in the middle of watching their favourite football team. We all know that young people are being bombarded online by the gambling industry with gambling ads. The government\u2019s bill fails to look at those things,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe government needs to grow a spine here. Stare down the gambling lobby, stare down the big online media companies that are reaping the benefits of their advertising.\u201d<\/p>\n Wells also revealed the reform package would include a levy on wagering companies to pay for a new public ad campaign for BetStop, the national self-exclusion register<\/a> for gamblers. She called the program \u201cthe most effective thing\u201d to help reduce gambling harm.<\/p>\n A statutory review of the program found that, while it was often effective in helping reduce gambling harms, some people on BetStop were still able to place bets, open accounts or receive wagering ads.<\/p>\n In Australia, Gambling Help Online<\/a> is available on 1800 858 858. The National Debt Helpline<\/a> is at 1800 007 007. In the UK, support for problem gambling can be found via the NHS National Problem Gambling Clinic<\/a> on 020 7381 7722, or GamCare<\/a> on 0808 8020 133. In the US, call the National Council on Problem Gambling<\/a> on 1-800-MY-RESET<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labor\u2019s reforms to gambling advertising have been branded a \u201ccapitulation\u201d and \u201chalf-arsed\u201d by opponents, as the Liberals and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-769957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2998.jpg\")
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