Parliament Passed Gambling Ad Reforms — But Not the Ones Its Own Inquiry Wanted
Former Liberal MP Jenny Ware has blasted her own former colleagues for backing Labor's gambling legislation, saying "vulnerable Australians have been let down" after parliament failed to impose a full ban on wagering advertising (The Guardian).
The Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill passed the Australian parliament on Wednesday night. It limits TV gambling ads to three per hour between 5am and 8.30pm, requires online gambling ads to be shown only to users over 18 with a mandatory opt-out option, and will eventually ban advertising on players' jerseys and in sporting stadiums. New restrictions on inducements (things like sign-up bonuses and free bets), celebrity endorsements and employee commissions tied to gambling losses are also included (The Guardian; APH Bills).
What the bill does not do is what the parliamentary inquiry led by the late Peta Murphy recommended in 2023: end wagering advertising and inducements entirely. Recommendation 4.142 of that inquiry called on the government to prohibit all online gambling inducements and inducement advertising (APH Committee). The Murphy Report's central conclusion was that partial bans on gambling advertising do not work (PMC). Ware, a member of that inquiry, says the "full suite" of Murphy's recommendations should have been enacted, including a national gambling regulator and a complete advertising ban (The Guardian).
The government's pitch, delivered by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Communications Minister Anika Wells, is that the reforms protect the most vulnerable from harm while balancing the rights of Australians to gamble. That framing, of course, is exactly what a partial ban lets a government say. It does not address the Murphy Report's finding that partial restrictions fail to reduce the harm they claim to target (The Guardian).
The opt-out register at the centre of the deal was announced only on the Monday before the bill passed. Wagering, tech and media industry sources said they were blindsided, and wagering operators are required to fund the register's development. Labor and the Coalition agreed to the single-register model allowing Australians to opt out of wagering ads across online platforms (The Guardian; ABC News).
The crossbench was scathing. The Greens called the Labor-Coalition agreement "cowardly." Senator David Pocock condemned the deal (The Guardian). Ware praised Liberal colleagues Andrew Wallace and Pat Conaghan, who crossed the floor (voted against their own party) to oppose the legislation. She said the federal opposition voted with the government to block stronger protections put forward by crossbenchers (The Guardian).
The Coalition's own policy position proposes a comprehensive ban on gambling ads during live sport, including an hour before and after, to take effect from January 2027 (APH Bills). That is a narrower proposition than Murphy's blanket recommendation. The Coalition voted for Labor's bill while holding a policy that addresses a subset of the advertising ecosystem the inquiry wanted curbed in full.
Rod Glover, Peta Murphy's husband, spoke of his "mixed emotions" at the legislation's passage. He praised some reforms but said the package was "far from everything that is needed" (The Guardian).
The road to this point has been a long one for advocates of a full ban. In January 2025, Labor MPs were worried that the government's election focus on cost-of-living pressures would leave no room to act on gambling ad reform (The Guardian). In April 2025, Ware said she was planning to launch campaign ads on gambling in the coming weeks (The Guardian). She had written in an October 2024 comment piece that online gambling "can now be conducted with a couple of taps on a mobile phone" (The Guardian).
The broader context here is a familiar Canberra pattern. An inquiry produces a clear, evidence-based recommendation. The government of the day adopts the parts that are politically manageable and defers or discards the rest. The opposition criticises the outcome, then votes for the bill. The crossbench pushes for the original recommendation and is voted down by both majors. The industry affected gets minimal notice and a bill lands on the statute books that everyone can point to as "action."
In this case, the evidence base is unusually strong. The Murphy Report's finding that partial bans do not work is not a political opinion; it is the inquiry's documented conclusion. The legislation that passed this week is, by that standard, a partial ban. The government and opposition have agreed on a regime that the parliament's own expert inquiry said would not achieve its stated purpose.
What remains is a set of reforms that do real things: fewer ads per hour on television, age-gating online, an opt-out register, jersey and stadium bans, and restrictions on inducements and endorsements. These are not nothing. They are also not what Murphy recommended, and the parliament that commissioned her report knew it.
