A ban on gambling advertising would help lift millions of Australians out of future poverty. But free-to-air TV stations, other commercial media, and sporting codes, lobby hard that the loss of the ill-gotten revenue they make from the current situation is too financially painful to bear.
The major political parties appear to be paralysed by the prospect of a backlash from the media and the sporting codes. It's political gridlock, while Australians suffer, losing an average more than $1,500 a year for every person in the country.
Here's the solution:
- A comprehensive ban on gambling advertising.
- Impose a 1% levy on gambling companies' gross revenue.
- Distribute that revenue among the media and the sporting codes, for the next three years, during the transition to an Australia without gambling advertising revenue.
- Both Labor and the Coalition must support the deal, so that neither of them gets targeted by media or sporting organisations at the next election.
"It's a rational transition plan out of the present deadlock, and better still, neither the punters nor taxpayers have to pay for it," PHAA CEO Adj Prof Terry Slevin says.
"This plan shifts 1% of the nation's current gambling revenue from a predatory, mostly transnational, industry sector over to two other business sectors which serve a variety of other purposes.
"Where's the downside?
"We've seen in Parliament this fortnight that sudden bipartisan agreements are possible, when the parties have the will for it.
"We call on Mr Albanese and Mr Dutton, to together agree to this plan. We ask that all major political parties commit in writing prior to the federal election their solution to the gambling crisis which exports billions of dollars from Australia's most vulnerable people to multinational gambling conglomerates."
GAMBLING NUMBERS IN AUSTRALIA
TOTAL AMOUNT OF MONEY BET EACH YEAR (2022/23) $244.3 B
TOTAL AMOUNT OF MONEY LOST THROUGH GAMBLING (2022/23) $31.46 B
TOTAL Tax take from Gambling (all govt: state, territory, federal) $9 B
Source: https://www.qgso.qld.gov.au/statistics/theme/society/gambling/australian-gambling-statistics
Australian Gambling Statistics, 39th edition, 1997–98 to 2022–23, Queensland Government Statistician's Office, Queensland Treasury
In Australia, a hefty amount of each state's tax revenue is sourced from resident gamblers' windfalls — with a total tax take by the states of around $5 billion annually. Victoria has the highest tax dependence on gambling, at 13%, and Western Australia has the lowest, at 4%, according to a report on gambling by the Productivity Commission.
Advertising revenue to free to air TV $240 M
