The government – with the support of the opposition – has buckled in the face of ‘big gambling’. Image: Sportsbet.
It is now clear the Federal Parliament has lost its moral compass.
After being handed the perfect opportunity to make a real difference to the lives of some of Australia’s most vulnerable; to protect children from the harms of an insidious and predatory industry; and to help raise a healthier generation, both houses of parliament instead decided this week to side with vested interests and big money.
Labor’s gambling advertising bill passed the Senate late on Wednesday night (19 August), unamended from what had sailed through the Lower House the day before.
It is a pathetic piece of legislation that is barely recognisable from the recommendations of the late Peta Murphy’s 2023 report Labor said it would adopt.
Anthony Albanese regularly pats himself on the back for protecting children with his government’s world-leading social media ban for under-16s.
But the Prime Minister has now undone any claim to having the best interests of the nation’s children at heart.
In one fell swoop, the PM has changed his legacy from a protector of children to that of having the backs of corporate donors instead.
The gambling lobby pushed hard to have the government dilute the Murphy Report beyond recognition, and it won the day.
Money talks.
Australia woke on Thursday in a country where children will remain far too exposed to gambling advertising; where gambling addicts can still be relentlessly preyed upon; and where little has been done to stop this cycle of destruction and devastation continuing.
It could have been a completely different outcome.
Nothing has been more clearly obvious than the overwhelming public sentiment that the nation’s gambling addiction needs addressing.
What the parliament has agreed to barely even tinkers at the edges.
So appalling is this legislation that Coalition MPs and senators crossed the floor against the weak deal the Federal Opposition struck with the government.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor and shadow communications minister Sarah Henderson forced Labor into a few tweaks, making the bill marginally better than it was.
But there can be no mistaking that in the end, Labor and the Coalition have teamed up to ensure the gambling industry retains its free pass into the lives of far too many Australians.
Just after 9:30 pm on Wednesday, the Senate sealed the deal by shutting down debate and forcing a vote on the bill. It came, however, after amendments were attempted but ultimately unsuccessful.
ACT independent senator David Pocock called it “a very sombre day” when he put forward a string of amendments that could have brought some respectability to the bill.
“This is a missed opportunity to change the country for generations of Australians,” he said Wednesday morning.
“This is a victory for vested interests over the community and over the people we are here to serve.
“Today, those vested interests have won. They managed to get to the Prime Minister, and it seems like he has single-handedly stopped the Labor Party from doing what 80 per cent of Australians wanted it to do and assumed it would do.”
Liberal senator Paul Scarr crossed the floor to vote with Senator Pocock’s ultimately unsuccessful amendments.
Senator Scarr described the bill that eventually passed as “an absurdity” that he would not be a part of.
“This legislation doesn’t go far enough in terms of protecting our kids from advertising, in terms of protecting people from inducements, and in terms of having strong statutory reviews of the outcomes of these laws,” he said.
“I’ll be supporting a range of amendments that are being put forward by Senator David Pocock, and I can’t support the bill in its current form … This is such a flawed piece of legislation that I have no choice but to do so.”
By Wednesday evening, Liberal senator Andrew McLachlan also made it clear he couldn’t support the bill.
“I don’t see anything in the bill that really diminishes the rivers of gold that the corporates are earning, and sufficient restraints on their abilities to prey on the most vulnerable, particularly our children,” Senator McLachlan said.
“I’ve listened to the charities who have to respond to the carnage caused by addiction. It’s their voices we should be acting on, not those that are making them money.”
Earlier on Wednesday, the Greens leader put it bluntly when she told the Senate chamber: “Labor bends the knee to its corporate donors … corporate donations are the fatal flaw of the Labor Party.”
Earlier in the week, Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young used Senate Question Time to simply ask of Labor’s Penny Wong: “Minister, what would Peta Murphy say?” to which Senator Wong could only silently shake her head.
Original Article published by Chris Johnson on Region Canberra.
