The Labor government, alongside One Nation and the Liberal/National opposition has guillotined debate on gambling advertising reform. There was dissent in the ranks of the Liberals and the Nationals but that didn’t get in the way of a piece of legislation that will see the gambling lobby breathing a collective sigh of relief.
Independent ACT senator David Pocock has not lost his passion for physical fitness. The former captain of the Australian rugby team was an active member of the Parliamentary Sports Club, which organised regular sports events for members, senators, their staff and parliamentary employees.
It was a great way to socialise and meet people from many and varied positions within the building that is the seat of our democracy.
On Monday night’s Four Corners program on the ABC, in a clip from 2025, Pocock could be seen playing a game of social soccer with other staff. On the sidelines, however, stood Kai Cantwell the CEO of the gambling industry’s peak lobby group, Responsible Wagering Australia.
As he told Four Corners, much to Pocock’s surprise the sports club was not a social club for its members but it was financed by sponsors who were all major corporations and industry groups.
Pocock objected to gambling lobbyists being allowed to sponsor a parliamentary social club, the club’s response was to kick him out.
Said Pocock, “I got an angry phone call saying, ‘Mate, you’re, you know, you’re causing trouble. You’re out.’”
Usurpingly, Pocock is not just wary of lobbyists he is an outspoken critic of gambling advertising and the way it has permeated so many levels of sport. This from a man who played sport at the very highest level.
Gambling Bill debate guillotined
In less than one sitting week the government, opposition and One Nation rammed through both the House of Representatives and the Senate the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026.
It was a watered-down piece of legislation on gambling advertising that, according to its critics, did nothing to address the harms of gambling. Instead, there’s a hodge podge of restrictions on advertising not the total ban that advocates say was needed to address the problems facing the world’s biggest nation of gamblers.
The new legislation on advertising is the gambling industry equivalent of health warnings on cigarette packs—without the tobacco excise.
Ultimately it won’t be the gambling companies paying for the new regime, it will be gamblers, who will continue to wager despite having a few less gambling ads on television when they watch their favourite sporting events.
In 2023 the parliamentary inquiry into online gambling, formally titled “Inquiry into online gambling and its impacts on those experiencing gambling harm”, produced the landmark report “You win some, you lose more.” It identified gambling as a public health crisis and put forward 31 recommendations in its unanimous report. The main recommendation was a complete ban on gambling advertising.
There was more time spent writing this report than was spent on debate for the legislation which was supposed to come from its recommendations.
In a media release Responsible Wagering Australia’s Kai Cantwell said, “These measures will significantly curtail our ability to advertise a legal product safely to adults.”
Parliamentary dissent
No doubt some Labor members were against the legislation but were forced to vote with the government. However, despite the Bill having been jointly agreed to by the government and opposition, there was dissent in the coalition ranks.
Nationals MP from New South Wales, Pat Conaghan crossed the floor of the House of Representatives and voted against the legislation. He was deputy chair of the “You win some, you lose more” inquiry and said the majority of the inquiry’s recommendations had been abandoned. The other dissenter was Queensland LNP member Andrew Wallace.
That vote was on 18 August 2026, the following day it passed through the Senate.
Three coalition senators, South Australian Liberals Alex Antic and Andrew McLachlan; and the LNP Paul Scarr from Queensland voted against the legislation.
Antic, in particular, is a Liberal outspoken on issues of conscience. It’s been recently reported that the party’s federal executive has moves afoot to dump him from the Liberal’s senate ticket.
The vote also raised the ire of former Liberal member of parliament Jenny Ware who condemned the Liberals. She told The Guardian that “vulnerable Australians have been let down.”
Ware was a member of the 2023 gambling inquiry dismayed that the committee’s recommendations were brushed aside, saying “Australians deserve better on gambling reform that should meet the scale of the harm.”
