This article is an instalment in a new series, Punted, on the government’s failure to reform gambling advertising.
John Howard would like Anthony Albanese to do something he never did himself as prime minister: take on Australia’s big media companies.
That’s the inevitable consequence of what Howard and others have urged the government to do in an open letter on the need to implement the late Peta Murphy’s recommendations on banning gambling advertising.
Howard signed the letter alongside Liberal successor Malcolm Turnbull, and luminaries on both sides of the political aisle — Dominic Perrottet, Steve Bracks, Jeff Kennett, along with Lucy Turnbull, Greens and independent MPs, and a who’s who of the anti-gambling lobby.
Of the major political figures signing up, only Perrottet has walked the walk on gambling. He took on the most powerful gambling lobby of all, the hotels and clubs industry in NSW, and paid the price for it; his defeat in 2023 ensured the poker machine lobby would retain its malignant grip on public policy in that state via the rotten Minns government.
Howard himself “banned” online casinos, foreign betting companies and in-play betting way back in 2001, but that has never prevented the emergence of what is now a $7 billion locally licensed online gambling industry.
Perrottet should be singled out because, in comparison to the poker machine heavyweights, the online gambling lobby is minuscule — and one of its biggest members, Tabcorp, actually wants a ban. It’s the online gambling industry’s friends at court that are the problem — the big media companies and the big sporting codes. Both are addicted to gambling revenue. And while no politician is overly keen to have a blue with sporting codes, it’s the media companies that put the frighteners on politicians.
Howard certainly never picked a fight with the free-to-air television broadcasters. For all the seamless union between the Liberals and News Corp, the Murdochs never got any regulatory favours from Howard’s government, because Seven, Nine and Ten, and particularly Kerry Stokes and James Packer, didn’t like it.
The free-to-airs didn’t want digital TV to be used by new broadcasters or even used for multichannelling, so Howard stopped that (“Mr Wishy-Washy flexes his muscles”, News Corp tabloids angrily responded at the time). They didn’t want any changes to anti-siphoning, so Howard stopped that. And when they wanted a watering down of the media ownership and foreign ownership rules, Howard obliged them in 2006, with News Corp fobbed off with a half-baked “use it or lose” anti-siphoning scheme.
So while the free-to-airs are now dying, it remains a bit rich for Howard to encourage any successor to pick a fight with them — assuming that he signed the letter in good faith and not out of a desire to see Labor mired in a war with Nine and Seven six months out from an election. The example of Perrottet will be fresh in Labor minds: Perrottet didn’t lose the 2023 election because of his support for cashless gambling, but it didn’t help having the most powerful lobby group in the state attacking his government and backing his opponents.
This being the most risk-averse Labor government in history, the chances of it taking on the networks, at least without some impressively large form of compensation for them, look slim. Perhaps, in 10 years’ time, in that form of l’esprit de l’escalier that afflicts former politicians who find in retirement the courage that eluded them while in office, Prime Minister Albanese might be a signatory to an open letter calling for further gambling regulation.
But by then the free-to-airs will probably be dead, too, gone the way of the printed newspaper with the horse-racing form guide tucked in the middle.
Anyone affected by problem gambling can get immediate assistance by calling the National Gambling Helpline on 1800 858 858 for free, professional and confidential support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Is Howard being a hypocrite, or does he have a point? Should the government introduce a total ban on gambling ads Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
