Free-to-air TV broadcasters are in “diabolical trouble” and many need gambling ad revenue to stay afloat, Bill Shorten has said while arguing against a total prohibition of gambling advertising on television.
On Monday evening, the government services minister laid bare the rationale for Labor proposing to cap gambling ads during general TV broadcasting, a position short of a total ban that has angered health advocates, the cross-bench and its own backbench MPs.
Under the Labor proposal, gambling ads would be banned online, in children’s programming, during live sports broadcasts and an hour either side, but limited to two an hour in general TV programming.
Shorten told ABC’s Q+A that he was “not convinced that complete prohibition works”.
Shorten said the problems the government is trying to solve is “we don’t want to normalise gambling to our kids [and] you don’t want to be deluged in sport”.
Shorten suggested the Liberals are “in a similar place to us” – since Peter Dutton proposed a ban on gambling ads during sports broadcasts and an hour either side in 2023 – but said the government can “do better than one hour before, during and after” matches.
“I think there is no reason why gambling ads should be on when kids’ shows are on, or they should be infiltrating the digital markets, where there’s video games which encourage people to gamble,” he said.
Shorten argued against a total ban, saying “free-to-air media is under massive attack by Facebook [and is] completely disrupted by the internet”.
“We got ourselves in this wicked situation where now some of the free-to-air media need gambling ad revenue … in order just to stay afloat,” he said.
“Now, some of you might say, well, bugger them, just don’t worry. We don’t need free-to-air media. It’s fair to say a lot of us don’t watch it much … but free-to-air media is in diabolical trouble.”
Shorten accepted this position “won’t please” those advocating “complete abolition” because it “sounds a bit moderate … and not tough enough”. He promised further work “on the other forms of the promotion of gambling” including on guernseys and in stadiums.
On Monday, a Labor backbench committee discussed the gambling ad restrictions, with several MPs expressing the view the government had not gone far enough.
After the meeting, MPs Mike Freelander and Jodie Belyea, who won the late Peta Murphy’s seat in the Dunkley byelection, publicly called on the government to enact the recommendations of a bipartisan parliamentary inquiry chaired by Murphy, which called for a total ban.
Labor is under pressure from lower house independent MPs and the Senate cross-bench, including the Greens, Lidia Thorpe, David Pocock and Jacqui Lambie, to enact a total ban.
In question time the communications minister, Michelle Rowland, said the government is still consulting in “a mature and orderly manner consistent with a proper cabinet process”.
Rowland said the government wanted to address “normalisation of wagering in sport, reducing the exposure of children to wagering advertising, and tackling the saturation and targeting of advertisements, especially in the online space, and especially to vulnerable groups such as young men aged 18 to 45”.
Rowland rejected “imputations” she was favouring gambling companies, telling the House of Representatives she had not met executives from these companies in the last six months.
Earlier on Tuesday, Pocock told Radio National a partial ban would be “a betrayal of Australians”.
“Eighty per cent of Australians want this, and we have a government that doesn’t have the guts to actually stand up to the gambling industry, doesn’t have the imagination to actually work with TV to find a way to ensure that they are viable,” he said.
On Monday evening, Lambie told the ABC’s Q+A: “I think that there is no reason for gambling to be on TV.” She claimed that the only reason major parties didn’t want a total ban was “because there is an election and they don’t want those broadcasters smashing them”.
“I know it, they know it, and they don’t have the courage to stand up against them for the sake of our kids, and that’s all it comes down to.”
Shorten denied Labor’s policy was motivated by the election. He said he believed “in having a free-to-air media sector” and did not want “Mark Zuckerberg or Facebook in charge of my news feeds … He’s not even paying the Australian media.”
On Thursday, Anthony Albanese confirmed the government was also considering a social media levy to compensate traditional media companies for loss of revenue from Facebook’s parent company, Meta, not renewing deals with media companies for showing news in social media feeds.
