Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has secured enough political support to push his government’s landmark gambling reform bill through parliament’s lower house.
The bill, which centres on marketing and advertising restrictions, has been a long time coming and required support from either the Liberal-National Coalition or the Greens to become law.
Opposition parties and independents had lobbied the government to strengthen the measures before the bill reached its recent approval stage.
Prolonged negotiations with Coalition leader Angus Taylor ultimately delivered Albanese the support his bill required to progress.
One of the significant additions to emerge from those negotiations is a mandate for a national register allowing consumers to opt out of online gambling advertising.
Beyond that new measure, several existing provisions within the bill have also been amended and toughened up as part of the deal.
A key broadcasting restriction in the original bill allowed operators to run just three ads on radio and television between 6am and 8.30pm each day.
Taylor successfully pushed that window back by one hour, meaning the restriction will now apply from 5am rather than 6am.
Plans for a comprehensive advertising ban during live sport broadcasts were already part of the bill, but the prohibition window has been extended from five minutes before matches to 15 minutes before and five minutes after.
Inducements have featured heavily in Australia’s gambling reform debate, particularly following high-profile stories about illegal inducement practices across the country.
An industry levy established to fund the marketing opt-out system will now also be directed toward enforcement action against illicit inducements under the amended bill.
Not every Coalition member was satisfied with the concessions negotiated by Taylor, with MPs Pat Conaghan and Andrew Wallace voting against the proposals on the grounds they did not go far enough.
The Greens and several independents have remained outspoken critics of the bill throughout the entire reform process.
Satisfying the Green Party would likely have required Albanese to commit to a phased total ban on all gambling advertisements, as recommended in the Murphy Review of 2023.
Independent senator David Pocock has described the deal struck between Labor and the Coalition as a “betrayal of all Australians,” signalling his intention to vote against the bill in the senate.
However, as long as the amendments retain the support of the majority of Labor and Coalition members, opposition from Pocock and others will not be sufficient to block the legislation from passing into law.
