Government Plans For Partial Gambling Ad Ban Amid Calls For Comprehensive Reform

Despite calls for a total ban on gambling ads and promotions during television programs, it looks like the government is planning to respond with a partial ban.

This could potentially lead to an internal dissent in the Labor Party, as it moves to weaken the proposed gambling laws suggested by the late MP Peta Murphy, ABC reported.

The government is in a dilemma on how to respond to Murphy's 2023 report, which suggested gambling ads and promotions should be banned at all costs as a necessary step to protect people's health.

However, despite sweeping support for the reforms, the government is planning on a partial ban for the time being, which critics argue would fall short of addressing the issue effectively.

The government's proposal may comprise a cap for two gambling ads per hour until 10 pm, apart from a ban on ads an hour after and before live sports broadcasts.

Meanwhile, Labor backbencher Mike Freelander said a total ban was "the only possible answer... from a public health perspective."

Former Liberal prime ministers John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull, former Labor premier Steve Bracks and former Liberal premiers Dominic Perrottet and Jeff Kennett also sent an open letter Saturday backing Murphy's recommendations for a total ban.

Tim Costello, chief advocate for the Alliance for Gambling Reform, has drawn a parallel between the proposed partial ban on gambling ads and the incomplete tobacco ad bans of the 1970s. "Partial bans, as we saw when we tried with tobacco, simply don't work," he told reporters in Canberra on Monday, per The Canberra Times.

"The push for reform was coming from the left, because it was PM Albanese who set up the inquiry that made these recommendations," Costello said. "With John Howard, the spiritual leader of the right [endorsing the cause], I have never seen such deep cross-party support to protect our young people."

Australians reportedly lose AU$25 billion annually on legal gambling, worsening social issues like health problems, domestic violence, and suicides.

According to Samantha Thomas, a professor at Deakin University, children are influenced in their beliefs and behaviors toward gambling by the eye-catching images that are presented to them in gambling advertisements.

"We need the government to act in the best interests of children, not in the interests of the corporations who make money from this predatory industry," Thomas told reporters in Canberra. "Partial bans only lead to partial solutions."

Meanwhile, Nationals leader David Littleproud proposed different treatments for different types of ads, possibly with stricter rules for the "push" ads that directly encourage gambling. "People have the right to be able to gamble, but we've got to be careful about that advertising," he said.