Albanese government ministers have given contradictory reasons for not advancing the long-promised gambling advertising restrictions, with one saying consultations continued, while another claimed the policy was settled but blamed a lack of Senate support for not introducing it.
The sports minister, Anika Wells, conceded that sporting codes’ financial viability was a factor in Labor concluding its proposed gambling ad cap “wasn’t ready to go”.
But Andrew Leigh, the assistant minister for Treasury, claimed the government “aren’t able to find the numbers in the Senate at the moment” for a proposal he said would see an advertising “blackout period before and after sporting events”.
Wells told reporters in Canberra on Monday that not all sporting stakeholders accepted the Albanese government’s proposal, contributing to its conclusion the bill was not ready to present to parliament.
The independent MP Andrew Wilkie has accused Labor of being “scared stiff” of gambling companies, broadcasters and major sporting codes “who are paid every time someone lays a bet on one of their games”. Senator David Pocock called the government “gutless”.
Almost 18 months since an inquiry, led by former Labor MP Peta Murphy, recommended a three-year phase-in period for a total ban on gambling ads, the Albanese government is under fire this week for not having legislation ready in the final sitting week of the year.
The communications minister, Michelle Rowland, has been consulting on a proposal for gambling ads to 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. Labor’s backbench MPs have been lobbying for a total ban.
On Monday Wells was asked if the reason for delay was that the government had caved to lobbying from sporting codes or failed to win over its own MPs.
“As both a friend of Peta [Murphy] and the minister of the sport, I’m in a good position to tell you that this wasn’t reform that was ready to go,” she told reporters in Canberra.
“I’ve got concerns about how [gambling] is impacting sport integrity and how this is impacting our athletes who are being targeted by people because of this …
“On the flip side I have national sporting organisations, professional codes worried about how this will impact the viability of their financial models.
“So, on both sides that I need to look at, I think it needs more nuanced work and I’m looking forward to continuing to work with Minister Rowland on the 31 recommendations.”
But Leigh suggested on ABC Canberra radio that the government’s proposal was finalised, and that the government could “put it to the parliament immediately” if it felt it had the required support.
“It’s quite clear at the moment the numbers aren’t there to progress the reforms the government has put through which would significantly curtail gambling ads around major sporting events so there would be a blackout period before and after sporting events. It would massively reduce the number of gambling adds that people see on TV,” he said.
“We have worked incredibly hard to progress gambling reform. The fact that we aren’t able to find the numbers in the Senate at the moment to pursue sensible reforms the Minister has put up is disappointing.”
The government has not formally outlined what it proposes to do on gambling ads.
Asked why it wasn’t ready to go, Wells said: “I guess there has been a lot of consultation on this but … it wasn’t ready to go.
“More work needed to be done. We hadn’t landed on a model where all different people and all different stakeholders from all different parts of the sporting sphere were able to accept it and able to, I guess, enact it as quickly as I think what you’re looking for.”
Wells said she was “not confident” issues had been resolved “in a way that we were ready to present to the parliament, which we would then need to negotiate through both the House and the Senate”.
In a statement, Wilkie said the Albanese government’s decision “not to proceed with any sort of ban on gambling advertising is one of the most shocking betrayals of the community I’ve seen in my 14 years in parliament”.
Rowland said as recently as last Tuesday that the government was “aiming to have it done this year”.
On Monday morning, the housing minister, Clare O’Neil, told Radio National that the government’s plans to tackle gambling ads would come “early next year”.
O’Neil said that Rowland was “diligently working through what the proposals will look like”. She said the government’s delay was “not about lobbying, it’s about making sure we get this right”.
In August the government services minister, Bill Shorten, revealed Labor had also been influenced by its view that free-to-air TV broadcasters are in “diabolical trouble” and many need gambling ad revenue to stay afloat.
