‘I mean, people can draw the dots’: Hanson-Young says gambling donations behind soft stance on betting ads
Greens spokesperson for communications, Sarah Hanson-Young, has questioned whether the government’s failure to implement gambling advertising restrictions is due to political donations received from the industry.
The Greens offered to support a partial ban on sports betting advertisements, after the Labor Government dragged its feet on its commitment to restrict gambling advertising.
The Greens have previously pushed for an outright ban — in line with the recommendations from the 2023 bipartisan parliamentary committee — but Hanson-Young wrote to Communications Minister Michelle Rowland offering to soften their Ban Gambling Ads bill, in order to reach a compromise.
“I propose we could work together to pass at least some gambling reform measures and significantly curtail the harm caused by advertisements,” the letter reads.
This morning, on ABC News Breakfast, Hanson-Young said the minister told her “they’re still too busy consulting.”
“What I did do, over the last number of days, was reach out to the government to say, ‘Look, if you are not going to do what the experts want, in terms of a full ban, could we at least come to a compromise and implement some restrictions on a ban on online advertising?’ Because we know that’s where kids are targeted increasingly and it’s very damaging and harmful.”
Hanson-Young was rebuffed.
“I’m worried, that the government, the Labor Party and the Liberal Party, don’t have the guts to take on the gambling lobby because of the hundreds of thousands of dollars they’re getting from the gambling lobby in political donations,” she continued.
“You’d think that, in a year you were meant to implement gambling reform; you promised to do it, you told the electorate you would, and then you take $350,000 worth of gambling donations.
“I mean, people can draw the dots why Labor and Liberal are going weak.”
On Wednesday, the Senate will debate and vote on the Greens’ bill for an outright ban, but it is unlikely to pass, given the “busy consulting”.
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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