Concerns on the gambling sector influencing Australian politics have been raised by The Greens, who called out the Labor government and Liberal opposition for accepting donations.
The Greens comments come amid mounting pressure on the Labor government to move ahead with reforms to the country’s gambling regulation, driven by widespread concerns about societal impact and player protection.
In a post on the Tasmanian Greens website, party leader Dr Rosalie Woodruff MP, a member of the Tasmanian state assembly, accused Labor and Liberal parties of benefiting from gambling industry funding ahead of the state election on 19 July.
Woodruff also claims that ‘thousands of dollars’ have been donated by what she calls ‘vested interest’ groups, including gaming firms, after the donations disclosure date of 1 July. Under Australian law, political donations above a certain threshold must be disclosed by 1 July each year, with the threshold varying each year.
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) set the 2024/25 threshold at $16,900. Woodruff and the Tasmanian Greens, a prominent group within the nationwide Australian Greens and which traces its origins back to the world’s first green political movement, are arguing that Labor and LIberal politicians continue to benefit from gaming funds beyond 1 July.
“The influence of the pokies lobby over the major parties has been clear again in recent times, with both abandoning the desperately needed pokies pre-commitment card,” her statement read.
“Once again, we are seeing the Liberals and Labor raking in donations from this damaging industry. It’s appalling. Tasmanians deserve better than politicians accepting cash in return for policy outcomes. Far better.
“This is exactly why we need to ban political donations from vested interests like the gambling industry, property developers, and liquor and tobacco companies.”
For those unfamiliar with Australian betting and gaming, the ‘pokies’ referred to by Woodruff are e-gaming machines found in pubs, clubs and hotels throughout the country. They are colloquially referred to as ‘poker machines’, shortened to ‘pokies’.
The extent of these machines, their widespread use and the fact that they are often located in venues serving alcohol has caused a lot of social concern in recent years. This has built on similar worries about player protection standards in betting and gaming, and the visibility of betting in sports.
In 2022 parliament commissioned a study into gambling in Australia and its potential societal impacts. The resulting report, penned by the late MP Peta Murphy and widely referred to as the ‘Murphy report’, made a number of recommendations for gambling reform and was critical of current practices.
Murphy was quoted as saying: “Australians are the biggest losers in the world when it comes to gambling. We have a culture where sport and gambling are intrinsically linked. These behaviours are causing increasingly widespread and serious harm to individuals, families and communities.”
The Labor government is now facing more and more calls to implement the 31 recommendations of the Murphy report. Most prominent among these was a phased ban on advertising over a three-year period.
However, planned reforms were shelved late last year amid opposition from media and sports, both of which generate huge revenues from betting advertising, sponsorship, and other avenues. PM Anthony Albanese subsequently faced claims that he wanted to avoid a public showdown with these stakeholders ahead of the May 2025 general election.
With Albanese firmly in the political driving seat after Labor cruised to victory in the election, his government is now facing pressure to make good on the Murphy report. Sports organisations too are facing criticism for ongoing links to the gambling sector, though some leagues like the National Rugby League (NRL) have been distancing themselves from betting for some time.
The Australian Football League (AFL), one of the country’s most widely followed leagues, is facing a lot of criticism in particular. Speaking to the media this week, Charles Livisngtone, Associate Professor in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University, accused the AFL of having a massive ‘vested interest’ in gaming.
“The AFL doesn’t have a blindspot, it has a massive vested interest problem, it has a conflict of interest going through the roof, and until they recognise that and act on it this is just going to continue. It’s inevitable, I’m afraid.”
Australia and the UK have a lot of cultural similarities, with enthusiasm for sport being one of them – and the betting industry is heavily connected to this, building a foundation for very valuable industries in both.
In the microcosm that is the gambling industry, it seems that both countries now sharing calls for gambling to be framed as a public health issue, as seen by Australia’s Murphy report and the UK’s recent parliamentary hearings, as well as long-standing calls for the relationship between sports and betting to be re-assessed.
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