Labor’s hand-picked panel of domestic violence experts say the government must pursue a total ban on gambling advertising and introduce stronger pokies regulation if it wants to get serious about protecting women, after community uproar over the spate of female killings earlier this year.
Tougher restrictions on alcohol sales and online delivery hours should also apply to the entire Australian population, not just Indigenous communities, given there is strong evidence that alcohol makes men’s violence against women more frequent and severe.
Dr Anne Summers was on the expert panel that said the government should ban gambling ads, crack down on pokie machines and rein in alcohol promotions. Credit: Danielle Smith
The recommendations from an emergency review that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese commissioned in May deliver Labor a list of responses it can act on in its pledge to end violence against women and children in a generation.
But the report’s backing of the late Labor MP Peta Murphy’s gambling review adds to the political challenge Albanese already confronts in navigating media and sports industry blowback against reforms while backbench MPs push for a total ban on betting promotions rather than the government’s plans for ad caps.
“Industries that are well positioned to reduce harm – particularly alcohol, pornography, and gambling – have not been proactive about addressing the impact that their products and business models have on the rate and severity of violence and abuse against women and children,” the expert review, released on Friday, said.
“In April 2024, the prime minister labelled a rise in homicides of women and children a national crisis. This rise follows a recent upward trend, despite the decline over the previous three decades … The extent of this challenge calls for us to assess our current approaches and ask what more can be done.”
The experts, who included leading feminist Anne Summers, said their recommendations were designed to inject momentum where there was a clear path of action available to governments. Their advice on gambling, in particular, comes at a crucial point as federal cabinet considers a crackdown on advertising.
The report said not enough attention had been given to the links between problem gambling and violence, and policy decisions barely considered it. But evidence showed gambling escalated the frequency or severity of gendered violence, it said.
“Survivor accounts illustrate how men’s gambling harms can create situations that heighten the risk of intimate partner violence, such as men experiencing anger and shame over losses and responding with violence when female partners object to gambling behaviours. Gambling can also be used to perpetuate financial abuse post-separation,” it said.
“There are clear regulatory opportunities for governments to prevent problem gambling both online and through restrictions on electronic gaming machines [or pokies].
“The review supports the recommendations made in the Murphy review, which dealt specifically with online gambling, and reiterates the recommendation for a total ban on gambling advertising … The review also recommends stronger regulation of electronic gaming machines.”
The report was released the same day that the Victorian gambling regulator’s boss, Fran Thorn, told ABC radio she also backed a total ban on gambling ads and cast doubt on the idea that media and sports bodies could not weather their loss.
“Australia has saturation gambling ads compared to most other countries in the world. The review last year went into this very extensively and stepped out the size of this problem and came forward with this as one of the solutions,” Thorn said.
The experts said alcohol had also “long been known to increase both the incidence and severity of physical and sexual violence within intimate relationships and families”.
While alcohol restrictions have mainly been targeted at Indigenous communities, the experts said “regulatory action must now be extended to the broader Australian population” to restrict liquor store density, operating hours and online delivery.
“Evidence indicates that interventions to restrict the hours of sale have resulted in reductions in the number of domestic, family and sexual violence victims presenting to hospital in Australia and a reduction in spousal homicide and domestic assaults,” the report said.
“Additionally, given the statistical increase in [violent] incidents during football grand finals, as well as the high number of children who watch sport on television and mobile apps, the review recommends that alcohol advertising be restricted during sporting events.”
The report also recommends boosting funding for frontline services while improving intervention services for men. It called for domestic violence responses that promoted healthy masculinity and focused on men’s life transitions, including leaving school, new fatherhood, relationship breakdown, recent migration and losing work.
It also recommended governments audit how their systems – such as family law, child support, taxation and immigration – might be weaponised in domestic disputes.
The recommendations around alcohol and gambling reflect a growing push to consider a range of policy levers in tackling family and sexual violence.
“Dinnertime conversations can only take you so far and individual action can only take you so far,” domestic violence commissioner Micaela Cronin said this week.
“We need systemic responses that look at where are the big levers that can be pulled … Gambling, drug and alcohol regulation, I think, are some of the things that we need to be having more of a conversation about.”
Minister for Women Katy Gallagher said the report would help the government build on its national plan and consider further ways it could stop violence and women being killed.
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