A total of 21 parliamentarians, including Liberal MP Bridget Archer and former Labor senator Fatima Payman, have joined a push for the government to ban all gambling ads, as independent MPs push for a free vote on a total ban.
The first letter is signed by a group of Greens, the teal MPs and other lower house independents, senators Jacqui Lambie, David Pocock and Lidia Thorpe. It calls for a “blanket ban on advertisements for online gambling”.
The letter notes concern about the “financial challenges” of media companies but calls for a “broader discussion” about supporting journalism, warning that a partial ban on gambling ads is “a trade-off that Australians are unlikely to support”.
The letter puts Archer at odds with the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, who has called for a ban on gambling ads during sports matches and an hour on either side but has been non-committal about calls for a total ban.
Separately, the MPs Andrew Wilkie and Rebekha Sharkie wrote to the prime minister and the opposition leader calling for a free vote on a total gambling ad ban, arguing that gambling was an issue of “faith and morality” for some.
Independent MP Kate Chaney, a member of the parliamentary inquiry that recommended a total ban, said she has “reason to believe members of the government would like a conscience vote” on the issue.
The communications minister, Michelle Rowland, has been consulting on a proposal to ban gambling ads online, in children’s programming, during live sports broadcasts and an hour on either side, but to limit them to two an hour in general TV programming. The policy is yet to be approved by cabinet or caucus.
The Albanese government is facing a revolt from backbench MPs who want it to enact a total ban, with some including Louise Miller-Frost, Mike Freelander and Jodie Belyea going public with concerns.
Sharkie told reporters in Canberra the proposal “will sit well with many Labor MPs” who face being “banished” from their party if they cross the floor.
Wilkie said: “I have spoken to numerous backbenchers in both the government and the opposition who are very uncomfortable with the direction this is taking and want to have their say.”
The government claims it wants a balanced package to avoid unintended consequences, including the loss of revenue by media companies and gambling going offshore via the internet.
Sharkie accused Labor of echoing “talking points” from gambling companies, while Wilkie accused it of prioritising the financial viability of media companies over the safety of children.
Chaney said the system of major party discipline would lock MPs into “outcomes that don’t respect what their communities want” because they were “too scared of broadcast media”.
Chaney said there was “no evidence” that had come to light since the bipartisan recommendations of the Murphy inquiry “to suggest that a partial ban would be effective”. “We already have a partial ban – they don’t work.”
She said there was “no sense of urgency” in the government and the reform direction was “very disappointing”.
Chaney added that the package had become “complicated” because it was designed to protect the viability of broadcast media, when decisions should be made “through the frame of public health”.
“I hope the government uses this opportunity to show strong leadership,” she said, warning that squandering it would be viewed as “another sign of weakness” from Labor.
On Tuesday the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians threw their support behind a total ban.
Stewart Kenny, the co-founder and former chief executive of gambling company Paddy Power, told ABC Radio National on Tuesday morning: “If you want to protect the children, you go ahead with a total ban.
“If you want to protect bookmakers’ profits, you go ahead with a partial ban.”
Asked about this in question time, Rowland told the lower house that Labor “is standing up to a number of very well resourced vested interests who do not want change”.
She said the government was working in an “orderly, consultative manner” to achieve three aims: to break the normalisation between gambling and sport; to protect children and to prevent ‘the saturation of ads’ targeted at ‘one of the most vulnerable cohorts in Australia … men aged 18 to 35’”.
Despite the cross-bench call for a conscience vote, most Labor MPs contacted on Tuesday had not heard the option pushed internally and even those in favour of a total ban doubted the efficacy of a free vote.
Freelander said he did not think a conscience vote would be the “best solution”.
“The best solution is that we have a position on a total ban as suggested by the committee – the only tenable solution is a total ban,” he said.
