DEAR News Of The Area,

LAST week Bill Shorten prosecuted the case against a complete ban on gambling advertising on the grounds that it was the only thing keeping free-to-air television alive.

This is a familiar dishonest argument, trying to link two different issues.

It has been well recognised that gambling advertising, especially the torrent of it that appears on TV and on-line, “is grooming children and young people to gamble and encourages riskier behaviour” and “is manipulating an impressionable and vulnerable audience to gamble online”.

These are quotes from the final report by the parliamentary committee that investigated online gambling chaired by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy.

Note that this is just about reducing social harm by phasing out gambling advertising, not about eliminating gambling. Like the regulation of alcohol, regulating to reduce the social harm of gambling recognises the fact that prohibition, though desired by some, is not practical.

However, the state has an obligation to reduce known harm.

Further research has shown the link between gambling and crime, with many gambling addicts stealing from family and work to continue gambling.

There is also a strong link to family violence and suicide.

Support for sport did not end when cigarette advertising was banned.

There is no reason to think that commercial television will collapse with the end of gambling advertising.

The majority of Australians are cheesed off about the intrusion of gambling advertising into our sport.

It is disappointing to see the Labor government backing away from a phased elimination of gambling advertising. Perhaps they do not want to pick a fight with the gambling industry in the lead up to an election.

I suggest that picking that fight would increase their support and vote in the next election.

Acquiescing at this stage of the game will be interpreted as a sign of weakness and further entrench the idea that governments can, and are, being dictated to by lobby groups of self-interested businesses.

The question is, who is really running this country and who are they running it for?

Regards,
Peter SOBEY,
Valla.