Latest / The Morning Edition / Albanese’s gambling reform – big money versus the 'nanny state'

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Albanese’s gambling reform – big money versus the 'nanny state' · The Morning Edition

0:04
S1: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been slammed over the course
0:08
S1: of years for failing to crack down on the more
0:10
S1: than 1 million gambling ads broadcast every year on Australia's
0:15
S1: free to air TV and radio, not to mention the
0:18
S1: rest of our gambling industry, which has driven some families
0:21
S1: to financial ruin. Then finally came the Prime Minister's announcement
0:26
S1: of a gambling overhaul just over a week ago. I'm
0:31
S1: Samantha Selinger Morris, and you're listening to the Morning Edition
0:34
S1: from The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald today. Business
0:38
S1: reporter Keishaw Napier Rahmanh on just how much so-called filthy
0:42
S1: money our government is taking away from stakeholders. And if
0:46
S1: there's any chance these reforms might break the link between
0:50
S1: children and sports wagering. It's April the 13th. Keishaw, welcome
0:58
S1: back to the podcast.
0:59
S2: Hey, Sam, great to be here.
1:00
S1: Okay. I can't wait to delve into this because the
1:03
S1: government has finally announced a long delayed crackdown on gambling advertising.
1:08
S1: So can you just tell us what changes has Prime
1:10
S1: Minister Anthony Albanese announced that he is going to bring in?
1:14
S2: Yes, finally. It was a long time coming. So a
1:16
S2: couple of hours before the Easter break at the National
1:18
S2: Press Club, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a long awaited
1:22
S2: suite of reforms on gambling advertising.
1:27
S3: Today, I announce we will build on the reforms that
1:31
S3: we've already delivered to combat gambling harm.
1:36
S2: So from July, gambling ads will be capped at a
1:38
S2: maximum of three per hour between 6 a.m. and 8:30 p.m..
1:42
S2: There's not going to be any gambling ads during live
1:44
S2: sports broadcasts in these hours. A crackdown on radio and
1:47
S2: gambling ads during school drop off and pick up times. Importantly,
1:51
S2: no more celebrities and sports stars featuring in gambling ads.
1:54
S2: That was a big thing. Online gambling ads banned unless
1:57
S2: the user is verified as over 18, there is obviously
2:00
S2: going to be a few wrinkles in terms of how
2:01
S2: that's going to work out. Also, a crackdown on ads
2:04
S2: specifically aimed at sports fans telling you things like you
2:07
S2: can beat the odds, and also uniforms and sports venues
2:10
S2: are no longer allowed to be splattered with gambling ads.
2:12
S2: You're not going to see those ads inside the stadium.
2:14
S2: You're not going to see them. On the NRL team's jersey.
2:18
S3: We are getting the balance right. Letting adults have a
2:23
S3: punt if they want to, but making sure that our
2:26
S3: children don't see betting ads everywhere they look because we
2:30
S3: don't want kids growing up thinking that footy and gambling
2:33
S3: are inextricably linked.
2:35
S2: All of that is part of the package that the
2:37
S2: government is going to introduce. Obviously, they haven't actually brought
2:40
S2: the legislation forward, so we're a bit thin on the
2:42
S2: real specific detail right now, but that's supposed to be
2:45
S2: introduced next month.
2:46
S1: Okay. Wow, that's pretty sweeping. So I guess tell us
2:49
S1: the lay of the land. I mean, why did something
2:51
S1: need to change? Why had there been discussion over this
2:55
S1: for really years?
2:56
S2: Well, there's a few things. The first is that Australia
2:59
S2: historically has just a well documented Problem with gambling? I mean,
3:03
S2: we lose something like $330 billion a year. Sorry, I
3:07
S2: said $330 billion a year in gambling. And that obviously
3:11
S2: comes from a lot of different sources. The pokie machines
3:14
S2: that are ubiquitous in clubs and pubs, particularly in Sydney,
3:16
S2: are a big source of that. But the saturation of
3:19
S2: gambling advertising during live sport is, I think, a big
3:22
S2: part of that problem. I think it's sort of also
3:24
S2: normalizes gambling in a way that maybe drives people to
3:27
S2: later go and play the pokies. And obviously because sport
3:30
S2: is such a big part of Australian culture with with
3:33
S2: the NRL and the AFL, because gambling advertisements are sort
3:36
S2: of such a big cornerstone of that, it does become
3:38
S2: really normalised. And I think it is kind of entwined
3:41
S2: with the fact that we have such high gambling losses
3:44
S2: compared to other countries in the world. We also don't
3:46
S2: have something like a national gambling regulator as well to
3:49
S2: to kind of crack down on that. So there is
3:51
S2: a kind of regulatory thinness around how we tackle it.
3:55
S2: And I think the other part of this as well
3:56
S2: is that for a lot of people, those ads have
3:59
S2: just become super annoying. I mean, you can't watch a
4:02
S2: game without getting bombarded with these really goofy little whatever
4:06
S2: animated figures or just AI slop or even like celebrities
4:10
S2: the likes of even people like Samuel L Jackson.
4:14
S4: Hello, I'd like to tell you about bet365, the world's
4:19
S4: biggest online sports betting company.
4:22
S2: So you've just got so many ads every time you
4:25
S2: watch anything. And I think that that was actually part
4:28
S2: of sort of moving the community and creating an environment
4:31
S2: where the government could feel comfortable making this change, because
4:33
S2: I think that a lot of people watching games are
4:36
S2: just like, I've had enough of this. I mean, I
4:38
S2: even had people in the industry saying that maybe, you know,
4:41
S2: groups like Sportsbet had just gone way too far in
4:43
S2: terms of just plastering themselves all over the AFL and
4:46
S2: the NRL. And I think punters are starting to just
4:49
S2: find it a bit irritating. So you've got, on the
4:51
S2: one hand, well documented harms of gambling. I think lots
4:55
S2: of people know people who have been in the throes
4:57
S2: of gambling addiction. It's very socially destructive. You've got this
5:00
S2: widespread normalisation of sports betting, and you've got this widespread
5:04
S2: normalisation to the extent that it's starting to piss people off.
5:07
S2: And there you go.
5:08
S1: And in terms of the destruction, just just a bit
5:10
S1: on that. I mean, it's I mean, how bad is it,
5:13
S1: I guess. I mean, we do hear of people losing
5:14
S1: their homes, losing their families means of supporting themselves. Does
5:18
S1: it does it go further than that in terms of
5:19
S1: the documented harm in our community?
5:21
S2: Well, look, I mean, we do have that kind of
5:24
S2: larger data about how much people are kind of losing
5:27
S2: through gambling. And I mean, on the anecdotal level, yeah,
5:30
S2: you do hear these stories, particularly from gambling advocates of
5:33
S2: people who did, you know, decimate their finances because they
5:36
S2: became addicted to sports betting, to pokies. I mean, at
5:39
S2: the end of the day, these are highly addictive products, right?
5:42
S2: They're designed to be addictive because they want you to
5:44
S2: keep coming back, even though a lot of them are
5:45
S2: whacked with that little disclaimer about how, you know, you
5:48
S2: lose more than you win. And of course, there are
5:50
S2: lots of people who have a pretty healthy relationship with gambling.
5:53
S2: But I think at the point at which you've got
5:54
S2: something that is addictive and you're showing those ads in
5:57
S2: places where impressionable young people without their frontal cortex fully
6:01
S2: developed yet are likely to encounter it. That's when you start,
6:04
S2: you know, really encountering a problem.
6:06
S1: Now, you sort of alluded to it a little bit
6:08
S1: beforehand in terms of perhaps the wider community being in
6:11
S1: support of a crackdown on gambling ads. But let's get
6:15
S1: into the timing a little bit more, because, of course,
6:17
S1: a lot of us will remember in the lead up
6:19
S1: to the federal election last year that this was a
6:22
S1: massive political issue, and there was strong public support back then,
6:26
S1: and yet no action from the government. So what has changed? Like,
6:30
S1: why is the government acting now?
6:32
S2: Well, I mean, there are a couple of things to
6:34
S2: tease out there. Firstly, you had the report put together
6:38
S2: by the late Labour MP Peter Murphy. This was a
6:40
S2: bipartisan report that was released in 2023. Peter Murphy died
6:44
S2: six months later of cancer, and her final political act
6:47
S2: was this large report. You win some, you lose more.
6:50
S5: You win some, you lose more. For free and confidential support,
6:54
S5: call the number on the screen or visit the website.
6:56
S2: Which had 31 recommendations, including a total ban on online
7:00
S2: gambling advertising and. That report was really picked up on
7:03
S2: by advocates as as sort of the impetus for the
7:06
S2: labor government to do something between now and then. Obviously,
7:09
S2: you had a federal election. And even after the report,
7:12
S2: there was a sense that the Albanese government wasn't going
7:14
S2: to do anything until after the election. Then last year,
7:17
S2: they win a very large majority. So there is really
7:20
S2: a kind of mandate for them to do a lot
7:22
S2: of the things that they've said they're going to do.
7:24
S2: I would say Albanese's prime ministership, both before and even
7:27
S2: after that big landslide election win, has been characterised by
7:30
S2: a real sense of, I would say, risk aversion. He
7:33
S2: often seems like he doesn't want to make too many enemies.
7:36
S2: I think that's a reasonable analysis. But I think that
7:39
S2: for the government, you know, they did feel like they
7:42
S2: had to do something. The moral case for doing something
7:46
S2: has been really strong. Peter Murphy, before her death, did
7:49
S2: articulate that moral case very clearly, and it clearly reflects
7:53
S2: the wishes of a huge amount of the labor rank
7:55
S2: and file. It also reflects the wishes of the crossbench.
7:58
S2: And you even had the Liberals coming out after Albaneses
8:01
S2: announcement last week saying this was long overdue. So at
8:03
S2: this point, you have a fair degree of political willpower
8:07
S2: in favor of making the change. You have the community
8:09
S2: on board. It's pretty low risk for the Albanese government
8:13
S2: to move now, and I think that's probably a big
8:15
S2: reason why they did it when they did it.
8:16
S1: Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, I know there was so
8:18
S1: much backlash against him not acting. I actually interviewed the
8:22
S1: author Michael Lewis last year. He wrote that book, Moneyball,
8:25
S1: and of course is completely across baseball gambling in particular.
8:28
S1: And when I asked him whether he thought our prime
8:30
S1: minister was gutless, if he hadn't enacted these reforms, which
8:33
S1: he'd said he was going to, he said, yes, he
8:35
S1: was gutless. Why let these people advertise? And he was
8:38
S1: sort of saying that, you know, they've seen it go
8:41
S1: off the rails in the United States and that it's,
8:43
S1: you know, causing huge, huge sort of health problems there,
8:47
S1: especially with with all the gambling addiction. But tell us,
8:50
S1: I guess, about the other side of the coin. And
8:52
S1: by that I mean the gambling lobby. How powerful is
8:56
S1: it in Australia and how does that power play out?
8:59
S1: You know, with regards to donations or other factors that
9:03
S1: are sort of, I guess, involved in this space.
9:06
S2: Well, it's hard to really identify one gambling lobby, per se.
9:10
S2: And that's because gambling is so closely entwined with sports
9:14
S2: and entertainment in Australia. So, for example, the free to
9:19
S2: air TV companies derive a huge amount of revenue from
9:22
S2: gambling advertising. At one point it was, I think, $30
9:25
S2: million a year for each of the main free to
9:27
S2: air networks. And that was cut down a little bit
9:29
S2: after the Murphy report. And obviously, those free to air
9:32
S2: networks are likely to, you know, consider that they might
9:35
S2: feel some future pain because of the government's reforms. At
9:39
S2: the same time, the big sporting codes, you know, obviously
9:42
S2: also get a lot of revenue out of TV deals
9:45
S2: with those free to air networks. So they also have
9:48
S2: an incentive to not have kind of a crackdown on
9:51
S2: gambling advertising. So you've got the betting companies who are
9:54
S2: obviously very wealthy. You've got the free to air TV
9:58
S2: networks who are quite influential as well. And then you've
10:00
S2: got the sporting codes who are also quite influential and
10:03
S2: wealthy and flex their muscle in all kinds of different ways.
10:06
S2: So you've got this kind of trifecta of influence groups
10:09
S2: who are very good at getting their way. And you
10:11
S2: saw that when the government was kind of considering how
10:14
S2: it was going to respond to the recommendations. In the
10:16
S2: Murphy report, you saw aggressive lobbying from the AFL boss,
10:20
S2: Andrew Dillon, from Peter V'landys from the NRL to kind
10:23
S2: of push the government behind closed doors to kind of
10:25
S2: get their way. I mean, Peter V'landys, you know, a
10:28
S2: character who is good at getting what he wants, who
10:30
S2: came out and called a reform on gambling, advertising, nanny
10:33
S2: state ideology, didn't really kind of hide his views on
10:37
S2: these things. So look, most of those groups are at
10:39
S2: the moment, they're sort of still monitoring the situation and
10:42
S2: assessing their response. But, you know, behind closed doors, they
10:44
S2: have lobbied the government very ferociously and really have exerted
10:49
S2: their influence in terms of ensuring that we don't have
10:51
S2: a complete ban on advertising.
10:58
S1: After the break.
10:59
S2: I think protecting the future generation from kind of like
11:03
S2: feeling that betting is just a normal part of the
11:04
S2: of a sporting experience which for anyone growing up in
11:07
S2: Australia watching sport, it kind of is because every broadcast
11:10
S2: is so saturated with gambling. But on the other hand,
11:12
S2: I worry as well whether it's a bit of a
11:14
S2: kind of band aid.
11:20
S1: Anti-Gambling advocates are actually saying that change hasn't gone far
11:23
S1: enough with this announcement, because it does not touch online
11:27
S1: gambling advertising. That was, of course, a key recommendation in
11:31
S1: the late Peter Murphy's gambling reform report that you spoke
11:33
S1: about before. So how much backlash, I guess, is there
11:36
S1: already perhaps to Albaneses announcement in terms of it not
11:40
S1: going far enough?
11:42
S2: Yeah. Look, anti-gambling advocates are disappointed with the reforms that
11:46
S2: have been announced. And I would say anti-gambling advocates probably
11:50
S2: always going to be disappointed because I don't think at
11:53
S2: any point in the last few years, if you'd been
11:55
S2: watching the situation unfold, if you'd been watching the lobbying
11:58
S2: and watching how the politics has played out and watching
12:00
S2: how the government had been handling this with extreme caution,
12:03
S2: it was clear that they weren't going to go as
12:05
S2: far as that report ever wanted. So I think those
12:08
S2: advocates were always going to be disappointed. The second thing
12:11
S2: to note here is that there is still a little
12:13
S2: bit of, I guess, fuzziness around the details of this,
12:16
S2: like how does this affect like streaming? How does that
12:18
S2: play into it? I mean, obviously a lot of people
12:20
S2: now watch the footy through like Kayo or watch like
12:24
S2: sports and stuff like that to watch this sport. So
12:26
S2: how does that work? Also the 8:30 p.m. cut off time.
12:29
S2: I mean, State of Origin kicks off at 8:00, right? Yeah.
12:31
S2: You've got a few more hours where you can saturate
12:34
S2: it with with ads and that. So, you know, you
12:36
S2: can see why anti-gambling advocates are probably a little bit disappointed. Um,
12:40
S2: but I think everyone at this point, the big codes
12:43
S2: are also saying we want to wait and see and
12:45
S2: wait for more detail. But you know, I also think
12:47
S2: once something's introduced to the parliament, often there are kind
12:50
S2: of amendments that get introduced. There's a bit of wheeling
12:52
S2: and dealing when it goes to the Senate. But I
12:54
S2: think on this, on this one, there's a lot of
12:56
S2: support across both sides of politics for it. So I
13:00
S2: think Albanese's introducing it because he thinks it's relatively risk
13:04
S2: free at the moment.
13:05
S1: Interesting. I just wanted to ask you about two recommendations
13:08
S1: that were in the Peter Murphy report that are not covered,
13:11
S1: as far as we know, with Albaneses announcement. So one
13:14
S1: is to create a national gambling regulator. You said that. Well,
13:18
S1: we obviously don't have one and other countries do. And
13:21
S1: of course, she also barracked for. And the report recommended
13:24
S1: a phasing in of a total ad blackout. Now the
13:28
S1: total ad blackout, you could argue, okay, that's full on,
13:31
S1: but a national gambling regulator, I would have thought that
13:33
S1: that was just common sense. Like, is it crazy that
13:37
S1: we don't have a national gambling regulator?
13:40
S2: Yeah. Look, the United Kingdom, I believe, has something like that.
13:43
S2: We don't we have far greater gambling losses than the
13:46
S2: UK does. And I think we have a far greater
13:48
S2: social problem with gambling than the United Kingdom does. On
13:51
S2: the other hand, maybe to play devil's advocate, I know
13:54
S2: another regulator, another body, another sort of bit of chunk
13:58
S2: of red tape can be difficult to implement. But, you know,
14:02
S2: I yeah, I think that was a big thing that
14:04
S2: advocates are disappointed by and probably an opportunity. But sometimes
14:07
S2: even just like setting up and staffing those kinds of
14:10
S2: agencies can be quite difficult. But yeah, I think in
14:12
S2: terms of just aligning every different state, that would have
14:15
S2: been quite beneficial potentially. Yeah.
14:17
S1: Tell us about the implications on media companies and sporting
14:20
S1: clubs once advertising drops off. Like how much money will
14:24
S1: they lose and what might the consequences be?
14:27
S2: Yeah. So media companies obviously are operating in an environment
14:31
S2: where the advertising market is challenged. But gambling advertising is
14:35
S2: pretty lucrative for free to air television. As I said before,
14:38
S2: it was about 30 million each year. That's seven, ten
14:40
S2: and nine used to receive in terms of gambling advertising revenue.
14:43
S2: That's a sort of industry insider estimate. So, you know,
14:46
S2: it's not a nail down figure, but that's a kind
14:49
S2: of sense of how the kind of sums that we're
14:51
S2: talking about. Media companies have already said they want some
14:54
S2: kind of compensation from the government. So moves around like
14:57
S2: kind of lobbying social media giants for payments and things
15:01
S2: like that, that they've been talking to the government about.
15:03
S2: I think a lot of those companies were a little
15:05
S2: bit blindsided that Albanese made the announcement without any sort
15:09
S2: of sense of what they were going to do to
15:11
S2: help those companies fill that black hole. Obviously, those discussions
15:14
S2: will be ongoing behind closed doors and we will likely
15:16
S2: see something in the future. But that was something that
15:18
S2: I think made big media companies a little bit irritated.
15:22
S2: Once that announcement was made onto the sporting side of things,
15:25
S2: I mean, we talked about Peter V'landys before. He is
15:27
S2: currently seeking a new TV rights deal for the NRL.
15:30
S2: He wants $4 billion over five years. One of Peter
15:34
S2: V'landys great motivators is beating the Victorians, whether in his racing, um,
15:39
S2: whether he's wearing his racing hat or his rugby league hat.
15:42
S2: The AFL got a $4.5 billion deal over seven years.
15:45
S2: So V'landys obviously would like to beat that deal. He's
15:47
S2: talked a big game about the prospect of doing that.
15:50
S2: The question now is that when the media companies are
15:53
S2: now facing sort of a potential revenue decline, whether he'll
15:57
S2: be able to get that deal. I mean you know
15:59
S2: V'landys is always an optimistic sort. So we'll see what
16:02
S2: that means for the NRL deal. But obviously the current
16:04
S2: deal expires at the end of next year. So that
16:06
S2: is kind of the more pressing one for them, and
16:08
S2: it'll be really interesting to see what kind of agreement
16:10
S2: the NRL can reach with the media companies.
16:12
S1: And I mean, do you think that people listening who,
16:14
S1: you know, aren't members of a media company and they're
16:16
S1: not you know, they're not Peter V'landys do you think
16:18
S1: they're thinking well, so what you know, surely that, you know,
16:21
S1: these people can make money from other streams of revenue
16:23
S1: and not off the back of gambling? You know, something
16:26
S1: that our colleague Peter Fitzsimons calls filthy money. So like,
16:30
S1: is it a cry me a river sort of situation
16:32
S1: or am I just being brutal here? Kishore?
16:33
S2: Oh, I mean, look, it's. Yeah, maybe it's a situation
16:35
S2: of playing the world's tiniest violin. I mean. I mean,
16:38
S2: people have talked about the analogies between this and, like,
16:41
S2: tobacco advertising, right? So, look, you know what? Maybe this
16:44
S2: is pushing companies into the future. It's definitely true that
16:47
S2: the rate of gambling, advertising on our screens was unsustainable.
16:51
S2: And there was always going to have to be a
16:52
S2: point at which we cut down on that. So I
16:55
S2: don't think the average punter feels a great deal of
16:57
S2: sympathy for these very wealthy sporting codes, and feels much
17:01
S2: sympathy for the gambling companies at the end of the day,
17:04
S2: are making a lot of money on the back of
17:06
S2: something that is causing a huge amount of social harm. So,
17:09
S2: you know. Yeah, it's hard to feel too much sympathy
17:12
S2: for them.
17:13
S1: And I guess just to wrap up, Keishaw is the implication,
17:15
S1: like if we don't do something is sort of the,
17:19
S1: the real sharp end of this, that there'll be this
17:21
S1: ongoing link between children in particular and sports wagering, because
17:24
S1: I know that we've seen some analysis that that's what
17:27
S1: this crackdown at the end of the day, is really
17:29
S1: about breaking the link between children and sports wagering. So
17:33
S1: is that what's kind of up for grabs here?
17:35
S2: Absolutely. I think protecting the future generation from kind of
17:39
S2: like feeling that betting is just a normal part of
17:41
S2: the sporting experience, which for anyone growing up in Australia
17:44
S2: watching sport, it kind of is because every broadcast is
17:47
S2: so saturated with gambling. But on the other hand, I
17:49
S2: worry as well if whether it's a bit of a
17:52
S2: kind of band aid because, you know, the way children,
17:55
S2: young people are engaging with any form of entertainment, it's
17:58
S2: not through a free to air television broadcast. Right. And
18:01
S2: even watching sport over streaming is probably just like a
18:05
S2: fraction of how they're consuming media. And I think that
18:09
S2: there are obviously ways that gambling is promoted online that
18:13
S2: is probably going to go directly to them. You know,
18:15
S2: in a way that bypasses regulators. Look, I think getting
18:18
S2: fewer ads on television is probably a good way to start.
18:21
S2: And trying to kind of cut down on that is something,
18:24
S2: but it's going to take a hell of a lot more.
18:26
S1: So cutting ads on social media, that's the gambling ads
18:28
S1: on social media. That's the next, uh, the next phase.
18:31
S2: Maybe, but it's a lot harder to do.
18:33
S1: It is. Well, it's an important topic. So thanks so much. Kishore,
18:38
S1: for your time.
18:38
S2: Thanks, Sam. My pleasure.
18:49
S1: Today's episode was produced by Josh towers. Our executive producer
18:53
S1: is Tammy Mills, and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa
18:57
S1: Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. If you like our show, follow
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