00:01I think the first thing to know is that the government has implemented what we call a
00:06partial ban on gambling ads. So they are implementing a ban of gambling ads in live
00:13sport up to 8.30 at night so that means after 8.30 kids are going to get smashed with
00:18gambling
00:19ads while they're watching live sport. They're implementing a three ads per hour rule again
00:25up to 8.30 at night. That means when people are channel surfing they're much more likely to see
00:31many more ads than that across channels and the third thing is that they're implementing what
00:36they call an opt out from social media platforms. So that means that they are starting from a position
00:42that gambling ads are quite normal for people to see online unless they can find the button on social
00:48media platforms that allows them to opt out from those channels or the programs that they're seeing.
00:54Samantha how much has this legislation already been watered down if you like to get it to this
00:59phase? Yeah it's been significantly watered down. So there was an inquiry so the government has had
01:06its own inquiry into online gambling and that Murphy inquiry came up with 31 recommendations after
01:14reviewing all of the evidence that proposed a number of really important measures to protect
01:19children from being exposed to gambling ads but also to protect people from the harms associated
01:25with the industry. So it proposed a full tobacco style ban on gambling ads but it also proposed some
01:33really important parts of legislation like a ban on inducements. They're those bonus bets or free bets
01:38that we know are some of the most predatory forms of marketing and they proposed a national regulator.
01:44Now the government has chosen not to implement any of those recommendations which is not in line with
01:50the findings of their own inquiry and is not in line with the independent evidence about how we best
01:55protect protect kids. I guess they have to balance as well though other things in that commercial networks,
02:02free to air commercial networks rely heavily on the revenue and in this media landscape the government
02:08doesn't want to see free to air commercial television suffering. No and I think there needs to be some
02:14consultation about how we help broadcast TV wean themselves off of the very small part of their
02:20revenue that comes from gambling ads but the fundamental point still remains how do we best protect kids
02:28from being smashed with gambling ads in their regular everyday viewing patterns. At the moment this legislation
02:35does not protect them we know that kids will see gambling ads after 8 30 at night in family friendly
02:43viewing
02:43programs so they're programs like MasterChef or Lego Masters and again we have to ask whether there has been
02:50some form of regulatory capture of the government around this legislation because the decisions that they've made
02:57are not in line with the independent evidence and seem to be more in line with the vested interests of
03:03the
03:03gambling industry the sporting codes and the broadcasters. It doesn't look like in its current form it will
03:10pass through the whole process in terms of the independent senators the crossbench and the coalition what are
03:19the things that you're hearing they would like introduced in order for them to put their support behind it?
03:24Yeah well I've spent a lot of time talking to many MPs and parliamentarians from across parliament around this issue
03:32and I think there is general concern that the legislation is very weak and it doesn't go far enough to
03:39protect
03:39children and families. Clearly there is a push for a full ban on gambling ads but I think also there
03:48is a real
03:48concern about the lack of ban on inducements and some real drive for some action around that. We know that
03:56these are the
03:57most harmful forms of marketing that encourage people to gamble more than they normally would and on things
04:03that they wouldn't normally gamble on but also teach kids or make kids think that gambling has no risk
04:10attached to it. So I think we need to see much much more action to extend some of those restrictions
04:18on TV
04:18around when kids can and can't see these ads so definitely a complete blackout on G and PG rated
04:26viewing platforms would be appropriate and I think also we want to see definitely that ban on inducements
04:33included in any legislation moving forward as well. Samantha you've used the word ban an awful lot
04:40generally governments don't like banning things the public don't like things being banned wouldn't a better
04:46approach to this be to dealing with the harms you know awareness campaigns I know the bet stop
04:53ads is something that some uh some legislators are looking at. So first of all the public actually does
05:01support a full ban on gambling ads so about 77 percent of the population back a complete ban on gambling
05:08ads and I think that's because the community are just fed up with seeing some pretty predatory marketing
05:14tactics as they sit down uh on an evening to watch sport with their kids um things like bet stop
05:21which
05:21is a self-exclusion program are certainly very very important but they occur after the harm has already
05:29happened so what I think we're arguing for and what all of the evidence showed and the murphy inquiry found
05:35is we need to do as much as we possibly can to prevent that harm from happening in the first
05:41place
05:41and we know that the public supports bans on gambling ads we know also that they support
05:47much tighter restrictions on how this industry can operate we've spoken to thousands of kids across
05:53australia and we also asked them what they would say to the prime minister about what they would like
05:59him to do to protect them from these ads and the message is very very clear from australian children
06:04and young people they want to see these ads removed from their everyday viewing patterns to get sport
06:11back to being sport and to make sure that they're protected from the tactics of this industry
06:15uh
06:16You
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