National party MPs Barnaby Joyce and Keith Pitt have warned against a total ban on online gambling ads, arguing it is a “legitimate industry” that can be managed with less extensive measures.
The pair are the first federal MPs to caution against the plan proposed by a parliamentary inquiry, which has raised concerns from television broadcasters about loss of gambling ad revenue.
Crossbench MPs have called for the three-year phase-in period to be shortened, but Labor MPs are satisfied the inquiry, chaired by Peta Murphy, has struck the right balance despite widespread community anger about the proliferation of ads.
In May the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, proposed a ban on ads during sports matches and an hour either side, but has so far refused to say whether he would endorse a more extensive ban.
Joyce, the shadow veterans affairs minister and former deputy prime minister, told Guardian Australia: “I think you have to be careful that you don’t go on a program of banning all ads – you won’t have any commercial TV stations left or the Guardian for that matter.”
In June, Guardian Australia announced it would no longer display gambling ads.
“You can moralise to an extent but I’d need some convincing [on a total ban],” Joyce said. “Next it will be fast foods, then sugary drinks. Everyone knows you shouldn’t be living on Coke – but which journalists are you going to let go [if ads are banned]?
“If you give the horse its head it creates a precedent … For commercial stations to exist they have to have advertising revenue.”
Joyce said he had “sympathy” for the need for some regulation because Australians “don’t want to see the odds while watching a game with their kids”.
Pitt said he hasn’t seen the full recommendations of the House of Representatives social policy and legal affairs committee but he had “fundamental issues with banning everything that people don’t like”.
“I have concerns when a six-year-old is more concerned with who the first try scorer is than who wins the game,” Pitt said, endorsing the Dutton game-time ban alternative as “quite sensible”.
“We shouldn’t absolutely prohibit it, because there are some people who quite like a punt, it’s a legitimate industry. But it needs to be managed appropriately so people are not hooked at an early age.”
On Wednesday Dutton said the opposition will “wait and see the response from the government” before deciding its stance.
“I have said before that we would support the government in relation to steps that they would take to restrict the gambling ads, which I think are completely invasive, into … Friday or Saturday night, that is footy time and family time and we shouldn’t disrupt that with the culture of introducing young adults into gambling on every game for and against their team.”
In May Albanese told Guardian Australia he finds the barrage of betting advertisements during sporting matches “annoying”, while the communications minister, Michelle Rowland, has agreed that the “status quo isn’t good enough”.
Many Labor MPs, including Canberra’s Alicia Payne and Redi MP Sally Sitou, support the plan.
The Labor MP for Macarthur, Mike Freelander, said it was: “About time we put a bomb under them and stop this insidious marketing to kids and adolescents.”
Three years was the right amount of time to give the gambling and broadcast industries time to adjust “but they will adjust”, he said. “I’ve been around since cigarette advertising was banned – they thought the sky would fall in but it didn’t make much difference.”
The Labor MP for Moreton, Graham Perrett, said gambling ads were “clearly out of control”. “As someone who watches footy with younger children, it has permeated the culture in a way that cannot be healthy.”
