Tuesday, 3 October 2023

Gambling harm reduction

Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (13:37): One of the reasons that motivated me to get elected was to see better harm reduction across all forms of gambling coming from this Parliament, and in taking up this portfolio for the Victorian Greens I framed it very deliberately. I am not the spokesperson for gambling, a cheerleader for that predatory industry; I am a spokesperson for gambling harm reduction.

Unlike our government approaches to other products that are known to cause harm to the health of our communities, such as tobacco, drugs and alcohol, gambling is – and this is changing, but we are not there yet – still not broadly recognised as a health issue. Therefore we are missing that crucial harm reduction approach that has seen Australia and Victoria as world leaders in response to those other public health ills. I do hope that in this place we will stop hearing references to industry language such as ‘responsible gambling’, ‘problem gambling’ or ‘problem gamblers’. Those will cease to be heard. Instead we will be rightly discussing these matters in terms of harm prevention and gambling harm respectively.

I also hope – and it is great to see the announcement around the opening hours being floated this morning – that we will listen more to those lived-experience voices who have been calling for a closure from midnight until 10 am. We will embrace the steps along the way, but I hope we listen to those voices. As part of that learning journey and for Gambling Harm Awareness Week, which is coming up, I have invited Three Sides of the Coin, a theatre company, to present a short program of lived-experience stories during our next sitting week. It is happening on Thursday 19 October, and the session will include a Q and A with the advocate storytellers. I have invited all members in this place and the other place to join me for this event, and I do hope you can make it. I look forward to seeing you all there.