Thursday, 24 March 2022

Bills

Gambling and Liquor Legislation Amendment Bill 2022

Second reading

Debate resumed.

Ms WARD (Eltham) (14:52): This is more terrific legislation coming forward from our government. I find it quite amazing to have heard some commentary talking about the fact that we are not doing exciting legislation at the moment—we are just, you know, getting on with the job. That is exactly what we are doing: we are getting on with the job, and we are still coming forward with important legislation.

These amendments will increase the raffle permit threshold, which directly benefits our community organisations that are running fundraisers. I know I, along with many others in this place, have gone to a lot of community events where there is regularly a raffle, and the raffles are an important part of community organising as well as community fundraising. We are extending the time line for the payment of unclaimed prizes to the Treasurer. That means if you have lost your Tatts ticket or you do not know where you put it, you have actually got a bit of time to find it hidden behind the couch or scrunched up in that coat pocket.

We are helping to reduce the harmful impact of gambling on children by prohibiting online minor gambling activities, and this is really important. We do really need to protect our children from gambling. I can see you nodding your head, member for Mount Waverley, and I know that this is something you are particularly passionate about, especially in terms of online gaming. I share your concerns about how our kids are being saturated with gambling ads, with gambling being such a constant presence in so much of what they do, whether it is online, whether it is on TV, whether it is on radio. I congratulate this government for the legislation that we put in a couple of years ago which prevented advertising, in any form, of gambling within 150 metres of a school fence line.

I have got a petition going—and you, member for Mount Waverley, might be interested in my petition—wanting to see more gambling advertising reform, because I do not want our kids to see this stuff. In fact I do not want to see this stuff. I am tired of watching a footy match or watching the cricket and having betting odds thrown at me what feels like every 5 minutes—‘Bet this way’, ‘Bet that way’, ‘Bet on this’, ‘Bet on that’. It is insane the amount of these gambling ads that we are confronted with.

The Age in February this year reported that more than a third of those surveyed by the grassroots AFL Fans Association said they were concerned about gambling advertising both at stadiums and on television, with 12 per cent naming the ads as their number one issue. And that is just footy fans; that includes people who are probably happy to bet on football. It is not a depiction of the overall community. So if it is 12 per cent of footy fans who have had enough, imagine how much it is of the overall community who are tired of being bombarded with gambling ads.

Last year it was reported that research by the Office of Responsible Gambling revealed 77 per cent of the community believes there is too much gambling advertising and four in five believe advertising increases the risk of developing a problem with gambling—because it completely normalises it. And while it might be normal to go out and have a bet on the races, have a bet on a footy game, it is not normal to be on your phone 24/7 looking for the best odds, always upping your betting amount—and the whole dependence on multis and people pulling out things for you, recommending the way that you should gamble and the way that you should bet. It is completely normalised, not in the sense of a bit of fun on the side, something that might be an addition to your sporting activity, but as almost the focus of your sporting activity—that you should disseminate what is going on on the sporting field so that you can pull out of it various components to bet on. It is real money that you are betting with. It is not Monopoly money. It is not, you know, imaginary points or scores or anything like that. It is money, hard-earned money out of your pocket that you are continually being told you should be spending on gambling ads.

Now, with your indulgence, Speaker, I just want to flip to the federal government, which has overall jurisdiction in this space for gambling ads. In 2015 the then minister, Scott Morrison, announced that there would be a review into gambling advertising. It took a couple of years for them to figure out what they wanted to do, and by the 2017 budget, when now Prime Minister Morrison was Treasurer, gambling advertising on TV and radio during live sport games was to be banned and $130 million in broadcast licence fees abolished. This is when we still had Prime Minister Turnbull. We then had a switch. What was it he said? He put his hand around Turnbull’s shoulders, and what was it he said?

A member: I’m ambitious.

Ms WARD: ‘I’m ambitious for him’. Well, we know where his ambitions were. We know absolutely where his ambitions were. And then he became Prime Minister.

So we go to March 2018 and we have got bans on gambling ads during broadcasts of live sport from 5.00 am to 8.30 pm. Well, as you know, the footy usually starts about 7.30. So if you are sitting down with your kids watching football, it is not unreasonable on a Friday night that your kids will stay up till at least 9.30 watching to see what your game is—unless of course you were an Essendon supporter last week, when you would have turned the footy off at quarter time. But I digress. Kids are still watching sport after 8.30 at night. We, adults, are still watching sport after 8.30 at night. Kids think this is normal. Kids can actually name betting agencies, and it is just wrong.

So I would encourage anybody in my community to please sign my petition, and I am happy to share my petition with anybody in this place who would like to join with me in asking our Minister for Consumer Affairs, Gaming and Liquor Regulation to consider measures to restrict betting advertising, particularly on television, streaming and subscription services, to limit the risk of harm to our community.

We want responsible gambling. I have got an Irish Catholic background. I know that gambling is fun. It can be a thing that we do, I get that. I am not a wowser who is saying, ‘Please don’t bet on anything’. What I am saying is: ‘Can you please not hammer me with it when I’m just trying to watch my football team maybe get a couple of goals in?’. Right, member for Broadmeadows? We just want the Bombers to get a couple of goals in.

In 2016 a study found that 75 per cent of Australian children think that betting is a normal part of sport. They think it is a part of participation in sport, not that you are sitting there watching the game, talking with your family and friends and watching it. I am sure you, member for Broadmeadows, remember, and I know you do, member for Mount Waverley—in fact most of you here—sitting at the footy with your record, writing down the possessions, writing down the handpasses, the points, the goals and paying attention to the game. I had no idea what betting odds were when I was a kid. I had no idea that you could bet on football, because I was too busy watching the game and complaining because we had soggy sandwiches in mum’s bag and I could not go and get some hot chips. I mean, these were the things that you focused on as a kid at the footy, not what the betting ads were, and it is just relentless. It is just relentless.

There was another study in 2016 that collected data from children and parents at community sporting venues in New South Wales and Victoria. Three-quarters of 8- to 16-year-olds interviewed could name at least one gambling brand, and one-quarter could name four or more. Twenty-five per cent of kids, one in four kids, can name four betting brands. That is how pervasive this messaging is. I know that this study was done before the 2018 changes, but they are still watching the footy after 8.30 at night so they are still seeing this online gaming advertising.

Now, in 2011 the gambling industry spent $89.7 million on advertising. In 2020 they spent $271.3 million on betting advertising. That shows you how much money they are actually earning from betting. If you can afford to spend over a quarter of a billion dollars on advertising in a year, you are clearly making a lot of money—a ridiculous amount of money. And you are conditioning children to be a part of that revenue raising so that when they become adults it is an automatic feeder for you to continue to make record profits year after year.

Mr McGuire interjected.

Ms WARD: It can absolutely become an addiction, member for Broadmeadows. People are turning the TV off because the amount of advertising they are getting saturated with is getting so ridiculous. It impacts our enjoyment of sport, it impacts our experience with our family, and we have got to explain to our kids what gambling ads are and why they should not be paying attention to them. Then they have celebrities, they have other sportspeople and they have sports broadcasters who are talking about betting. When I am talking about the revenue that they are spending on gambling advertising, that does not include the in-house stuff. That does not include discussions on The Front Bar, for example, where they are talking about betting odds and mixed multis. It does not include all of the in-kind conversation around betting advertising.

Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) (15:02): The Victorian government is overhauling how we regulate gambling in this state, and it is in this context that I want to make a succinct contribution. I want to address a couple of key issues and in particular acknowledge the member for Buninyong, before she leaves the chamber, for an insightful, courageous and forthright contribution that I would recommend to all members. It is that lived experience of what can happen from gambling that is critical to understand—within personal relationships, within families and in communities. So before the member leaves the chamber, I want to give full acknowledgement for that, because that was an important contribution so that we understand it at this level. Thank you.

Just on community, the point that I want to make is that the Victorian government is looking at how we address the issue of gambling, and what happens with the government’s take from the gambling dollar is critical. I would like to propose that that amount of money goes back to the communities from where it was drawn. This will be critical to help address place-based disadvantage, and if this is done, we can see that this can go into social infrastructure or into different programs in these communities. I say this as the member for Broadmeadows, noting that the Hume City Council area has the fourth-highest number of poker machines. That way it works is that in poor areas that have the highest number, the money is taken out of them. Let us make sure that when the government is looking to reinvest that, it goes back into these communities.

I want to connect this up in repeating my call that within the Department of Treasury and Finance there be a unit that looks at place-based disadvantage and how we address these issues. I think that would be absolutely in the public interest. I know it is in the public interest because it was one of the things we did way back when Steve Bracks was the Premier. That is how we got the first public library in Broadmeadows; it was a contribution out of the Community Support Fund and then putting the two tiers of government together with big business in the Broadmeadows electorate, even getting the late Richard Pratt and Visy and their foundation—everybody—involved. That is how we can do it, and that is really a good way to look, first of all, at how we reduce harms from gambling, how we reduce the excesses of gambling and then where we invest to get the best benefit in return to these communities. I just thought that was a contribution that I should make as the member for Broadmeadows, and I am now happy to—

Mr Fowles interjected.

Mr McGUIRE: Okay. I was going to yield to the member for Burwood, but he is happy for me to continue, so I will keep going. These are the key things. I do want to acknowledge the government has provided the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation with $153 million over four years to deliver on its mandate to reduce the prevalence and severity of gambling-related harm. This represents the nation’s largest commitment to addressing problem gambling. The Victorian government is the national leader on this matter, and I think where we actually target the return is the critical thing that I am asking for now.

Just to put that into context, we got our first public library in Broadmeadows, which is in the global learning centre in Broadmeadows, the next one was in Craigieburn—that ended up being the best community library in the world; it won that title—and then we got another one in Sunbury. So you can see how you can form communities and form hubs that have preschool readings through to postgraduate degrees. That is how you can actually connect up so that people do not get lost. I remember in her contribution the member for Buninyong referenced social isolation. That is how you can get into gambling. It does not matter whether you have got a law degree from Oxford; you can find yourself caught up in this. These are personal tragedies that have huge impacts on families and communities. Connected is connected. You give people the opportunity to be part of something bigger than themselves and also the tools and the connections to do other things. I think that has gone to the points that I wanted to make, so I am happy to yield to my good friend and colleague, who was very generous, the member for Burwood.

Mr FOWLES (Burwood) (15:07): It is my pleasure to make a contribution around a bill that, look, is largely technical. But despite the criticisms of the lead speaker for the opposition, we can actually walk and chew gum at the same time. We are serious about tackling gambling-related harm, we are serious about making sure that the regulatory environment for gambling is fit for purpose and, as we have said over and over and over again—and it continues to fall on deaf ears—we are in the process of completely overhauling how we regulate gambling in this state. There will be more legislation this year in relation to this space. There will be further opportunities for those opposite to wax lyrical, throw barbs and smear members of the government, as indeed the member for Euroa did in her lead speech on this bill, but it remains the case that most of what is before us today is relatively uncontroversial in nature.

I did want to take a moment to thank the member for Buninyong for her contribution. This Parliament is at its best when people speak from personal experience. I know that many members, on a range of issues, over the life of this Parliament have spoken from personal experience—on both sides of the chamber. But I know that the things that have really resonated with me over the course of the last 3½ years have been when people have spoken of the difficult stories in their backgrounds and the challenges they have faced as human beings. Ultimately I think that humanises all of us, and it is an opportunity to demonstrate that we as parliamentarians are human beings first. We do have families, we do have our own friendships and we do have our own challenges. There are certainly many members in this place who have overcome significant challenges in their lives, and we all benefit when they are brave enough and have the courage to share those challenges with us. The member for Buninyong’s contribution to that end was a very, very good one, and I thank her indeed for making it.

The notion that we are just bringing uncontroversial legislation to the house is of course a complete nonsense. The reality is that there are at any one time any number of pieces of legislation working their way through the cabinet processes and through, ultimately, this chamber and then on to the other place. The minister at the table, the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, has had legislation that could fall into either category over the course of the life of this Parliament—stuff that is a bit technical, a bit dull, frankly. Well, we certainly do not draft for excitement; we draft for legislative effect. But importantly, the minister at the table has also had legislation that is really exciting and that goes to some of the outstanding commitments Labor has made in the sustainability space, in the environmental space and, most particularly, with regard to renewable energy.

It is terrific to see this government making a pledge for offshore wind. Offshore wind is one of those classic areas. It is a new part of the universe, certainly in the Australian context; it is very well established particularly in northern Europe. Offshore wind promises to deliver amazing things for the state of Victoria, and that is an example of, I guess, something that is a bit more legislatively ambitious or, from a government’s perspective, a bit more ambitious than perhaps some of the measures we are debating today.

This is all about increasing competition and reducing red tape. One of the changes is increasing the threshold for permit requirements for community organisations to hold raffles. We know, especially I suspect in the political universe and perhaps more so on our side of the chamber, that there are lots of raffles in the world. There are lots that go on at any one time. I think we all as members of this place would receive requests from our local community organisations—everything from primary schools to neighbourhood houses to sporting clubs—to make contributions to their raffles. We know that the law as it sits at the moment means that if the value of your raffle is more than $5000, you need to apply for a permit. The reality is that I do not consider that there is a huge amount of risk attached—in fact I consider it riskless, frankly—to raising that threshold to $20 000. That is an entirely sensible change, and it will have the effect of limiting the licensing regime, if you like, to those raffles that are genuinely large scale. If you are talking about $20 000 or more in prizes, you are at the sort of raffle that is going to reach well beyond, probably, the immediate confines of that organisation, its members and its immediate supporters. Once you are at that level in raffle land you are typically going well beyond your particular organisation in trying to source people to buy tickets in that raffle.

I am reminded of a story. I was at a community group fundraiser. There was a raffle underway, and it had been going pretty well. In fact it had been going so well—it was a pretty informal kind of raffle, one of those sort with one ticket for $2, three for $5; it was at an event, so no-one was writing names down or anything, but the ticket sales had gone particularly well—that someone ducked up to Officeworks to grab another book and came back and sold that book as well. It was something of a chastening moment when, in my role of MCing this particular function and then drawing the raffle, I drew the lucky winner—orange, C27—and sure enough, two people put up their hands. What had happened of course was the procuring of the additional raffle book had not been checked off against the previous raffle books and we had duplicate tickets in the field, which made for some excitement at that function as we determined exactly how to resolve that matter. We know that community organisations organise these things with great intentions. They organise them in order to deliver great things for their communities, and they ought not be encumbered with a whole bunch of regulations for those sorts of efforts.

I did want to take the house’s attention to a particular phrase in both the second-reading speech and elsewhere about bingo fundraising events and lucky envelopes being expressly prohibited from being conducted online. Now, necessarily when you talk about something coming out of the physical domain into the electronic domain, sometimes the language does not have quite the same meaning or it can be interpreted differently. I think we all understand what bingo is, and a lucky envelope I guess could be done electronically with a virtual envelope, but when we are talking about fundraising events in this context, we are talking about fundraising events that have a gambling component. It is important to make that clear. Previously the things that were regulated were these fundraising events which have a casino-like element to them or events at which gambling occurs. I guess an example of that might be a poker night—if you have a poker night down at the local footy club or whatever. Now, what these rules do is make sure that by saying it is an event you cannot just then use that in effect to offer an online poker product by saying, ‘Oh, this is just a poker night at the local football club, but we’re going to let people do it electronically’. Clearly we do not want that happening, and that is what the words in this bill seek to make sure does not happen.

I thought it useful in the context of gambling harm minimisation to talk a bit about the government’s commitment in this space. It has been substantial: $153 million over four years to the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation. It is instructive that, like in so many other areas of social policy, that is the biggest commitment to address problem gambling in the nation. So often we find that the commitments made by the Victorian government to address matters in Victoria are approximate to or even dwarf commitments by the commonwealth where they too have the ability to make contributions in that space. Whether it is public housing or whether it is renewable energy, we typically find that Victoria is doing more than the rest of the nation combined, doing more than the commonwealth government is doing, and that is because this is a government of ambition, a government of progress, a government that is determined to continue to deliver each and every day over the remaining eight-month life of this Parliament.

A bunch of harm minimisation measures are being introduced by this government. They include the very first statewide precommitment system in the nation, getting rid of ATMs in gaming venues altogether, introducing transaction limits—$200 in one go, $500 on any given day—and, importantly, capping the total number of gaming machines in the state until 2042 and making sure there are limits on gaming machines in particular regions and municipalities. That of course is important because we do see a proliferation of gaming machines in areas where there is also significant disadvantage and that is something that every member in this place ought to be alive to. It is of course the reason that Victoria is the jurisdiction with the lowest density of gaming machines, other than of course Western Australia, which has none. It is a good bill, and I commend it to the house.

Ms D’AMBROSIO (Mill Park—Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, Minister for Solar Homes) (15:17): I move:

That the debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.