The legacy of the late Labor MP Peta Murphy who called for strict gambling advertising reform to protect children has gathered dust a year later in a move David Pocock branded as “disappointing”.
The gambling review, dubbed the Murphy review to honour the late MP, made 31 recommendations.
The centrepiece was a three-year phase out ban on online gambling advertising and sponsorships to give codes times to find replacement revenue.
Ms Murphy didn’t mince words at the time, saying betting ads were “grooming children”.
Senator Pocock remembered Ms Murphy as being “fierce” during committee hearings as she grilled executives.
“She got stuck in, she wanted to get to the bottom of this … and yet we’ve seen the government do nothing,” told AAP ahead of the one-year anniversary of the review being handed down on Friday.
The government was “firmly committed to minimising harms for online wagering”, a spokesman for Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said.
“The status quo of online wagering advertising is untenable,” he said, but gave no timeline for the government’s response.
The spokesman pointed to measures put in place to protect gamblers, including banning the use of credit cards for wagering and introducing a self-exclusion betting register.
But one of the main issues problem gamblers told the inquiry was that consistent advertising during programs made it harder to quit, Senator Pocock said.
“The (review’s) big ticket item was advertising and the effect that’s having on young people,” he said.
“They’ve kind of got the blueprint, it should have been, ‘okay, well, how do we make this happen?’ But clearly, that’s not what’s happening.”
Greens senator Steph Hodgins-May called for gambling to be taken off TV, saying the bombardment of ads during sports a disgrace.
She called for an “end to this revolving door” of sports officials working for betting companies, referencing former AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan heading up Tabcorp.
“What does it tell you about our sports culture when gambling is so deeply embedded in it?”
Senator Pocock, a former rugby star, criticised the intertwining of sports codes and betting companies.
He pointed to Peter V’landys heading up the Australian Rugby League Commission and Racing NSW.
“That sort of business model of aligning yourself with gambling and making it not just a sponsor, but part of your whole business model, that’s really worrying.”
Senator Pocock didn’t buy the argument advertising revenue was needed to prop up codes and clubs, pointing to the end of tobacco sponsorship.
The opposition has committed to banning gambling ads an hour before and after sports games, which was part of the phase out recommended in the Murphy review.
“We fully support that and we’d hoped the government, who had all this time, would lead and put their position forward as a minimum”, Nationals Leader David Littleproud said.
The review’s phase out started with stopping ads on social media, moved to banning them at certain hours and before, after and during sports broadcasts and then to an all out embargo, including all logos in stadiums on a player’s jerseys.