Crossbenchers are calling for Communications Minister Michelle Rowland to quit or be sacked following reports she accepted donations from a major gambling company ahead of the federal election.
The Greens and Independent MP Andrew Wilkie have described Ms Rowland's position in charge of a portfolio which is in part responsible for online gambling policy as "untenable".
According to Nine Newspapers, gambling giant Sportsbet paid $8,960 for a dinner to support Ms Rowland's election campaign in March, and made another donation of $10,000 in the days before the May poll.
Donations for 2021-2022 did not need to be disclosed to the Australian Electoral Commission if they were below $14,500, and the revelations have reinvigorated calls for real-time political donation disclosures and a lower threshold for mandatory disclosures.
A spokesperson for Ms Rowland said all donations she received were compliant with the disclosure requirements of the AEC and the government was "committed to reducing harms from online gambling".
At the time the donations were made, Ms Rowland was shadow communications minister.
She was appointed communications minister following the May election and holds responsibility for the Interactive Gambling Act and the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie, who has long campaigned for tougher gambling reforms, said Ms Rowland must be stood down for "shocking errors of judgement".
He said it was "unfathomable" Ms Rowland accepted donations from an online gambling company while vying to become the minister for communications.
"If the media reports are accurate, Minister Rowland is now deeply conflicted and it is patently untenable for her to remain in her position," Mr Wilkie said.
"The prime minister must sack her today if he is fair dinkum about restoring integrity in politics, and direct the ALP to immediately return the donation to Sportsbet."
Mr Wilkie also called on the parliament to support amendments to political donations laws that he will introduce next week, which would require real-time disclosures, lower the donation threshold to $1,000 and prohibit political donations from some industries including gambling, fossil fuels, liquor and tobacco companies.
The AEC's Transparency Register shows Sportsbet made numerous donations to the Liberal Party, National Party and Australian Labor Party totalling more than $278,000 in 2021-2022.
The Coalition received $143,000 while $135,000 went to Labor.
Greens spokesperson on democracy Larissa Waters described the donations to Ms Rowland as an "insult to voters and gambling reform advocates" and accused Sportsbet of making the donations to gain "access and to influence policy".
"It is clearly untenable for the minister to remain as gambling regulator when she has such a cosy relationship with betting agencies, despite our donations laws being so weak that they have not been broken," Senator Waters said.
"Both the major parties accept huge sums of money from big industries, and their policies show it."
Senator Waters called on Labor to support changes that would "clean up our democracy".
"We urgently need to ban donations from dirty industries like the gambling sector, and tighten disclosure laws so people can see in real-time exactly who is pulling the strings of the parties they are voting for."
A parliamentary inquiry into online gambling and its impacts on problem gamblers was launched late last year to examine whether current laws, regulations and consumer protections were sufficient.
Labor last year announced gambling companies would be forced to include new warnings on their advertisements about the risks of online wagering which will apply to Ladbrokes, Sportsbet, bet365 and Neds.
The government is also working to implement a national self-exclusion register called BetStop to allow consumers to exclude themselves from all interactive gambling services and marketing through one single step.
"The government strongly supports the implementation of the national self-exclusion register, called BetStop, and the minister is committed to getting it done," a spokesperson for Ms Rowland said.
