MEDIA STATEMENT
18 August 2026
Today, for the first time in my decade in the Federal Parliament, I crossed the floor.
I did not make that decision lightly, but there are moments in this place when you have to stand up for what you believe is right, even when doing so is difficult. This was one of those moments.
Let me make one thing absolutely clear. I did not vote against gambling reform. I voted against settling for gambling reform that does not go far enough when we have a rare opportunity to get it right.
Australians are losing around $36 billion every year to gambling. Behind that staggering figure are families, marriages, children, homes and lives being damaged by gambling harm. Australians have been calling for stronger action for years, and people with lived experience have told parliamentary inquiries in heartbreaking detail what this harm has done to them.
The legislation voted on today contains worthwhile improvements, and I welcome them. But worthwhile is not the same as sufficient.
Changing the restriction on gambling advertising around sport from five minutes before a game to 15 minutes before a game is simply not good enough. I believe gambling advertising should be banned one hour before live and replayed sport, throughout the broadcast and for one hour afterwards. We have to break the nexus between gambling and sport so our kids can watch their favourite team without being bombarded with betting odds and gambling advertising.
I also argued for a much stronger approach to inducements. I wanted an opt-in model, where Australians would have to actively choose to receive bonus bets and other inducements rather than having them pushed at people by default. It has been reported that around 30 per cent of gambling company revenue comes from inducements, which should tell us how powerful they are in driving gambling behaviour.
Instead, these reforms rely in part on gambling companies identifying and “red-flagging” customers showing signs of gambling harm before stopping inducements. That is like putting Dracula in charge of the blood bank. The industry profiting from gambling should not be solely responsible for deciding when somebody has suffered enough harm to warrant protection.
The proposed 14-day ban on inducements for new customers is also inadequate. A person can open accounts with multiple wagering companies, wait two weeks and then begin receiving inducements again. That is hardly the strong protection Australians were promised.
I remain deeply concerned about putting the onus on the public who don’t want to receive gambling ads on an opt-out approach. When SBS trialled an opt-out approach, they recorded that only 0.4 per cent of customers took advantage of it. The Government now says Australians will be able to opt out once through ACMA and have that preference applied across gambling advertising online, but there are still serious questions about how that will work in practice, what information Australians will have to provide and how effectively it can be enforced.
Now that Parliament has the final draft of legislation before it, the evidence has been heard and there is clear public support for stronger action, I cannot accept the argument that we should knowingly settle for less because we might fix it later.
History tells us otherwise.
This Labor Government has already had more than three years since the landmark You win some, you lose more report was handed down. That bipartisan report, led by the late Peta Murphy, made 31 recommendations and went substantially further than what was before the Parliament today, including a phased comprehensive ban on online gambling advertising and stronger action against inducements.
Peta Murphy and that committee did the hard work. Australians experiencing gambling harm told their stories, the evidence was gathered and the recommendations were made. More than three years later, we are finally debating reform and being told there will be another opportunity to strengthen it later.
I hope there is. I would be delighted to be proven wrong. But I am not prepared to gamble on it.
If not now, when?
For more than a decade I have fought for stronger protections against gambling harm. I fought against the building of a casino on the Sunshine Coast, I fought to stop Australians gambling with credit cards, and I have fought for stronger reforms through this legislation because I believe we can and should do better.
I respect my Coalition colleagues and I respect the decision reached by the party room, but ultimately I have to be able to look the people I represent in the eye and explain the vote I cast. I also have to be able to look myself in the mirror.
I could not vote for a package that I believe leaves significant reforms on the table when this may be our best opportunity to secure them.
Crossing the floor is not something I ever wanted to do, but neither did I come to Parliament simply to make up the numbers. We are here to make a difference and to do good, and sometimes that means being prepared to say that good reform is still not good enough when better reform is within reach.
Today, I stood by what I believe, by the evidence presented to this Parliament and, most importantly, by the Australians who have been asking us for years to finally get serious about gambling harm.
[ENDS]
Media Contact: Brendan West – 0402 556 646 – Brendan.west@aph.gov.au
