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Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Page: 2428

Mr CIOBO (Moncrieff) (12:21): I am certainly pleased to rise to speak to the Parliamentary Joint Select Committee on Gambling Reform's second report into interactive and online gambling and gambling advertising as well as a bill, Interactive Gambling and Broadcasting Amendment (Online Transactions and Other Measures) Bill 2011.

I speak to this report from the position where I had the good fortune, some might say, of being the coalition's delegate to the United Nations General Assembly. That impacted upon my opportunity to participate in this inquiry. I had the good fortune of being able to be part of the initial hearings that took place and the preliminary work that was undertaken in the lead up to this inquiry, but I was unable to participate in the public hearings that took place in the latter part of this inquiry. That notwithstanding, this remains an area of particular interest to me. It is an area that deals with regulation on the Commonwealth level as well as a review, to some extent, of state and territory based legislation that deals with interactive gambling and, more broadly, the issue of sports betting and the other forms of gambling.

We know from the inquiry—and I certainly do share common ground with both the committee chair and with Labor members of the committee—that there is a rapidly growing segment of the market that is dealing with online gambling and with sports betting. There is no doubt that this is an area that is growing rapidly. And the work that the committee has undertaken with regard to interactive gambling and online gambling builds upon the work that the committee has undertaken in respect of electronic gaming machines. Indeed, there are references in the chair's draft comments that deal with this particular issue.

There can be no doubt that there is community angst about the level of problem gambling in Australian society. That is understandable and justifiable. There can be no doubt that problem gambling has a very negative and profound impact on the lives of many Australians. To want to deal with the negative externalities that flow from a pathological addiction to gambling is, of course, natural, and something that I completely support and endorse.

The question always, though, is how: how we, as a government—and I use the term in the broadest sense, obviously, as a member of the opposition—deal with people who have a problem controlling their urges when it comes to gambling. It just so happens that the focus of this inquiry dealt with those urges in relation to sports betting and in relation to interactive gambling. Concurrently with the inquiry process that was undertaken by the gambling reform committee, there was of course a separate coalition gambling reform committee which is still looking at this as a policy alternative and an area of policy development for the coalition.

In this respect, the supplementary comments that were made by the coalition committee members highlighted that in many respects we were withholding our judgment until the coalition gambling reform committee completed its work and analysis on problem gambling insofar as it related to this inquiry on online interactive gambling and sports betting. As a personal member of the House, I would highlight some of the concerns that I have in respect of some of the recommendations that were made by the committee in the majority sense, that being Andrew Wilkie, the member for Denison, the Independent Senator Nick Xenophon and, of course, the Labor members of this inquiry. To put some context around this, the Interactive Gambling Act was actually an initiative of the Howard government. This act was put in place in 2001 at the behest of the then coalition government as an attempt to deal with the issues of online gambling and interactive gambling, and it was the precursor to this inquiry in many respects, although it was more than a decade ago. What has changed in that period of time? I have read through the recommendations and in the broader sense there are many aspects of the recommendations that seem reasonable and well-intentioned with regard to trying to reduce the incidence of problem gambling and trying to reduce the inducements that may lead to problem gambling.

However, there are some recommendations in this report that I personally—I am not speaking on behalf of the coalition but as a member of parliament—find bizarre to say the least. Take, for example, recommendation 16. I will not read all of the recommendation because it is a fairly lengthy one, but in summary it says that the committee recommends that the COAG Select Council of Gambling Reform, in consultation with others, look at developing:

… a mandatory national code of conduct for advertising by wagering providers covering:

inducements to bet;

credit betting and third party commissions;

harm minimisation messages on responsible gambling; and—

and it is this fourth one that I find, frankly, bizarre—

other nationally consistent standards to restrict certain forms of sports betting advertising, which at a minimum, should include a ban on the display of gambling companies' logos on sporting players' uniforms and merchandise (such as children's replica sports shirts), as well as restrictions on the giveaways of free merchandise which depict betting companies' logos.

I highlight in particular this recommendation because I think this underscores the way in which this debate is perhaps being a little railroaded.

There is, some would argue—and I suggest the chair and obviously Labor members opposite support this point of view—a precedent for the banning of company logos on sporting players' uniforms as well as restrictions on the giveaways of free merchandise which depict betting companies' logos. The precedent that they would use is of course the prohibition on tobacco company logos at sporting events. That was something that was put forward some time ago and most, if not all, Australians are comfortable with that. But it strikes me as strange that Labor members and zealots like the member for Denison and Senator Xenophon would in some way parallel gambling with cigarette smoking. There is a big and fundamental difference, and it is this: there is not a single cigarette that you can smoke which does not do you harm. If you have a cigarette, it has a negative impact on your health. Plus, nicotine is known to be addictive; it is a statement of medical fact.

Ms Rishworth: Sounds like you're saying gambling is not addictive!

Mr CIOBO: I hear the member opposite interjecting and asking, 'Well, is gambling not addictive?' That is right; gambling is not addictive, and I find it incredible that Labor members are so ignorant of this fact. The reality is that—

Ms Rishworth interjecting—

Mr CIOBO: The member opposite now goes and makes a huge jump to make the statement, 'Oh, so no-one gets addicted to gambling!' No. Some people do get addicted to gambling; absolutely. I would not dispute that for one moment.

This is the crazy, twisted logic of the Australian Labor Party. Some people get addicted to gambling—in the same way that some people get addicted to alcohol, some people get addicted to exercise, some people get addicted to dopamine and some people get addicted to eating poppy seeds—but we do not run around and ban all of those things. I have news for Labor members opposite: some people get addicted to poppy seeds, but we do not ban them on fruit toast, on buns or as a product in stores. The simple reality is that Labor members opposite and the member for Denison and the Independent Senator Nick Xenophon do not understand that because some people unfortunately have a problem controlling impulses it does not mean that we therefore go and regulate an entire industry out of existence. The reality is that the vast majority of people do not struggle with problem gambling. The vast majority of people find gambling a recreational tool. They enjoy it. They go and have a flutter. They go and enjoy themselves, whether it be on the gee-gees, the dogs, or online or in a poker tournament, or on a hand of blackjack or a poker machine. They do it in a responsible way because they are adults. They do not need Labor members of parliament telling them how to live their lives.

To highlight the absolutely crazy way that the Labor Party gets all breathless about being big government is to witness the debate that has just taken place here in the Federation Chamber. We as coalition members understand that in the main Australians are mature enough to make decisions about what they want to do with their money. The notion that in some way you can parallel having a sports betting company logo on a player's uniform as being the equivalent in a moral sense to a cigarette company logo, is farcical—completely and utterly farcical.

There are millions of people that place bets. What next? Should we ban the Melbourne Cup? Should the Australian Labor Party go out there tut-tutting and getting on their moral high horse, saying, 'Gee, do you know what? There are a lot of Australians who place a bet and'—according to the member opposite—'betting is addictive, so therefore the Melbourne Cup should be off limits. Let us ban the Melbourne Cup.' It all started with Phar Lap and those drug pushers that were running Phar Lap around the ring! It is this kind of completely twisted logic that underscores why the Australian Labor Party would support a recommendation like this. They want to ban having a gambling company's logo on sporting players' uniforms.

Mr Neumann: Your side supported as well!

Mr CIOBO: The Labor member does not even understand what is going on. The Labor member is now claiming that as a member of this committee I am supporting this recommendation. I take this opportunity to highlight this page here: 'Coalition committee members additional comments', for the benefit of members opposite. They are clearly quite confused about the reality of what is taking place, which is why I am in Federation Chamber making clear areas of difference between the Labor Party's Big Brother heavy-handed approach and the coalition's approach.

Let us be clear on one particular aspect though. There are Australians who struggle with a pathological addiction to gambling. There are Australians that struggle with problem gambling in the same way that there are Australians who struggle with their eating, with alcohol abuse and with poppy seed abuse. We need to make sure that we equip those people that have the problem with the skills, access to counselling and the ability to control those urges, that they currently do not have.

That is why there are some recommendations that make sense. For example, we do not want to expose children to live odds and to sports betting during peak viewing times for children. But we do want to ensure that we do not take a completely over-the-top, knee-jerk reaction to these kinds of things by implementing some of the restrictions that have been outlined. That is precisely the reason why coalition members made additional comments, to highlight that when it came to each of these reforms we would be looking at it through a coalition process and forming our view subsequent to the coalition policy committee.

In the short time remaining, I would like to touch upon one other aspect. As I said, this was originally a coalition act, the Interactive Gambling Act. I find it passing strange that anybody who has spent longer than 30 seconds on the internet would know that you simply go to Google.com, for example, punch in 'poker' and hit return, and you will be offered and array of websites. You do not know where they are hosted, by and large, but you will be offered, if not thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of websites where you can gamble. We somehow think, because we in Australia have passed a particular piece of legislation—which has now been in existence for a decade—that Australians are going to go, 'Oh, no; I'm not going to go and gamble on Poker.com because I'm not allowed to under the Interactive Gambling Act.' The notion that we can in some way control the internet, that we can somehow pull the curtains down or lift up the drawbridges, so that Australians do not have access to internet gambling sites is utterly farcical. These sites exist now although they are prohibited, and they will continue to exist although they are prohibited under the IGA. They exist because we do not have extra jurisdictional reach. What is the point of having a completely useless bill in place?

What we would be much better off doing is working with industry in a constructive way to provide alternatives that are well-regulated and transparent to Australians. We would be better off working constructively with those that seek to address the concerns of problem gamblers by providing, for example, access to counselling services. With that, I conclude my comments.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms AE Burke ): I thank the member for his entertaining contribution.