Free drugs, escorts and other high-roller hospitality to keep problem gamblers betting what they can’t afford. Former rugby league player and compulsive gambler Luke Bateman’s sensational Senate testimony hurled him into the news on Monday, accusing unnamed industry officials of unconscionable conduct and eliciting strenuous corporate denials.
But the two-day inquiry into the Albanese government’s new gambling-ad legislation was at least as revealing for who didn’t turn up. And for what wasn’t, and isn’t, being said.
The Australian Football League and the National Rugby League refused to appear. That the powerful custodians of domestic football codes knew they didn’t need to suggests confidence that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese won’t make changes that hurt them.
Reform advocates were there, likewise Free TV Australia, continuing to press the need for ad revenue. Gambling companies fronted to counter calls to rein them in.
Reform advocate Tim Costello labelled it “Groundhog Day”, a truncated re-run of the longer inquiry Labor MP Peta Murphy led in 2023.
Murphy’s committee recommended a gambling ad ban, a national regulator and restrictions on inducements among measures to protect vulnerable Australians, especially children, from the industry’s more predatory practices. She died from breast cancer six months after tabling the report. Three years and one election later, the government produced a much tamer set of proposals. A dissatisfied Senate sent the legislation to an inquiry in protest and was given two days. Costello’s exasperation is understandable.
Some things have changed in three years. In early July, the NSW Labor Party conference urged the state government to act on problem gambling, especially poker machines and online sites. It vowed to lobby the federal government to “prohibit all online gambling inducements and inducement advertising” as per Murphy’s recommendations.
What hasn’t changed is the prime minister’s resistance to wholesale reform. Ahead of national Labor’s conference three weeks later, Unions NSW led a cross-factional push for a greater commitment. Following a pattern, negotiations prioritised private compromise over public brawl. A resolution was agreed before anyone arrived in Adelaide.
Change advocates wanted more advertising restrictions and a national regulator, among other proposals. Albanese accepted just one: a reference to inducements. “We recognise the impact that inducements can have on vulnerable people, and we will strengthen measures to minimise that harm,” the key paragraph said.
Many Labor people want more … Then there’s Peta Murphy’s legacy.
It didn’t specify what inducements were, nor what strengthening looked like. But it was a curious concession. An actual commitment.
Many Labor people want more. Some see working people lose their wages to pokies, bookies and easy-access apps. Others believe multinational gambling companies should pay more tax.
For some it’s the principle: the party of social justice is morally obliged to protect the vulnerable. Then there’s Peta Murphy’s legacy.
A handful of MPs are voicing their desire for change. They don’t talk about the prime minister’s role in blocking it.
Albanese paid tribute to Murphy when she died. A few engaged in the gambling issue mutter privately that his loyalty to NRL chairman Peter V’Landys seems stronger. Independent Australian Capital Territory senator and Labor nemesis David Pocock said it out loud.
“We’ve got a prime minister who listens to the gambling lobby instead, who puts Peter V’landys ahead of Peta Murphy,” Pocock said.
Change advocates face a brutal political reality. Although Australians care about gambling’s downside, pollsters find it doesn’t drive how they vote.
Albanese has a matrix of considerations. He is accused of not wanting to antagonise the TV networks for political reasons, but it goes beyond that. Struggling in the digital age, free-to-air TV is the last frontier for large-scale shared experience. He doesn’t want to hasten its demise.
He believes in footy’s cohesive power, but he’s also a direct investor in its success via an eye-watering federal subsidy for the NRL’s expansion into Papua New Guinea. For Albanese, it’s a soft-diplomacy bulwark to China’s influence. For V’landy’s, it’s growing the commercial empire. It costs a lot and both have a stake.
Albanese has also spoken about pubs and clubs’ central role in Australian cultural life. Many depend on gambling revenue.
There’s another potential factor. Luke Bateman highlighted gambling’s impact on a particular cohort: young men. Focus group participants tell pollsters their sons are amassing gambling debts before they’re out of high school. Disillusioned young men are a One Nation target.
Against this complicated backdrop, Albanese has set up a showdown with the Senate. The Coalition, Greens and some crossbenchers won’t pass his legislation as is. He won’t do what they demand.
But there’s that pledge in the ALP platform. Bateman’s testimony focused on inducements. Depending on the definition, they’re also the most profitable part of the gambling industry’s business model.
The industry definition is limited to behaviour that’s already unlawful. Other tempting offers tailored to individual punters are called “promotions”. That’s where the real money is.
What’s emerging looks like a divide-and-conquer strategy from Albanese, who likely would worry more for the sectors dependent on gambling revenue than the industry itself.
Gambling companies see where this is headed. They’re reportedly willing to accept further advertising restrictions if promotions are left alone. The networks and sporting codes may have a different view.
Albanese has said if the Senate won’t compromise he’ll walk away and let the Coalition, Greens and Pocock wear the blame.
The corporate stakeholders would be happy. His Labor colleagues would not. It will likely suit him better politically to design amendments, maybe around curbing inducements but narrowly defined to target the worst but spare the lucrative bulk of “promotions”.
That way, the gambling industry alone takes a modest hit.
The Senate might go for it over nothing. It would give his concerned colleagues something to point to. And if it also happens to help him pitch a message of concern for young men and claim Labor action over One Nation grievance, he’d probably call that a win.
Karen Middleton is a political journalist and author.
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