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In Australia, pressure mounts on the Labour government to stick to its principles and enforce a blanket ban on gambling advertising across all media platforms. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is in the crossfire of reformists who demand that he show his hand on gambling advertising reforms as media reports that Labour favours watered-down measures. The voice of reformists grows louder as this weekend. Sixty prominent Australians, including four former prime ministers, signed an open letter demanding that Labour carry out all 31 recommendations of the Murphy Report. A debate that has reached national headlines, opposition accuse Albanese of yielding to media pressures potentially undermining efforts to combat Australia's significant gambling harms. As opposition demands actions to be taken, Has the subject of gambling reforms become a lose-lose scenario for Albanese and the Labour government? I'm Viktor Kayet, Senior Business Journalist at SBC News, and joining me for today's episode is Ted Menmure, Content Director of SBC. But before we go into it, a word from our sponsor, Optimov, the number one CRM marketing solution for the iGaming market. As a special offer, the lovely people at OptiMove are offering a free first month for new clients who purchase their services. For more information and to claim the free month, go to optimove.com slash SBC. Links will also be left in the podcast episode description. So Ted, how are you man? Thank you for coming on the pod today. Oh, very well Victor. And interesting new story we're covering today. It is. On Australia's wacky industry. It is, it is mate. It is. Honestly, I've found it difficult to keep track of everything that's been happening over the last few days even, let alone the last year. So yes, plenty to talk about, plenty to cover. So let's jump straight into it with the first question I have for you. So the story is currently unfolding. Can you, can you brief us through the latest developments from it? Okay. So one thing for audiences to gauge on this, this news story related to gambling advertising reforms in Australia is that it really covers all dynamics of Australian gambling in terms of not only advertising laws, but relationships with sports, relationships with media, the political makeup of Australia, and also the legislative framework of gambling laws in Australia as they stand. So just to recap, last week we saw a Friendsly report in Australia break that the Labour government watered down measures of the Murphy report on gambling advertising. The report forms part of an inquiry commissioned by the Labour government to apply new protected measures and controls to the Interactive Gambling Act of 2021. The report recommends 31 measures. The headline proposal recommended is that the Labour government impose a blanket ban on gambling advertising, taking a phased approach to eliminate gambling ads over a three-year period. However, last week, the Labour government were reported... they wanted to publish instead of a phased gambling ban, new proposals that will endorse a cap of two gambling adverts per hour until 10pm and a further ban applied on adverts one hour before live sports broadcasts. So, the Labour government has essentially been accused of backtracking on an inquiry that they proposed and on measures that they said that would be implemented. And there's also the open letter that was sent to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday. The letter was signed by 60 people, I think, might have been more, including four former prime ministers that are calling for the stricter measures to be implemented from the Murphy the current PM Anthony Albanese for backtracking. So there's been quite a big of an outcry against the reports. Let's say they have just been reports, specifically reported by the Sydney Morning Herald that they will backtrack. So nothing is confirmed yet. But there's been actually a pretty big outcry. against it. So yeah, let's, I want to ask about the, why the reasons behind Albania's being in the crossfire of reforms. You actually mentioned that his plans differ from what has been outlined in the Murphy report. But besides the absence of a phased out ban, what else, how else does it differ from the initial recommendations? The reason why Prime Minister Ghanan Anthony Abediz is in the crossfire is because gambling reforms forms a pledge of kind of his government getting into power in 2022. And from the author commission, the commission... an inquiry into gambling protections and gambling amendments of the Interactive Act of Gambling in Australia. And upon publishing that report, the Labour government said itself that it supported the 31 recommendations made by Labour's senior legal counsel, which was Peter Murphy, who passed away in February. The media criticism that he's now facing is that he has gone against his government's own recommendations on how to apply protections to Australian gambling and that he's kind of caved in to the media pressures or the media networks of Australia who make a lot of money from gambling advertising. I believe that the real reasons are actually kind of more nuanced than that. and that the Labour government are kind of seeking to apply kind of a more realistic or a more kind of enforceable control than just an outright blanket ban that won't impact as many stakeholders as an outright ban. They're trying to find the balance basically. Yes, but it's very difficult in Australia because as we're going to get into, Australia is as... a very, very unique structure of governing gambling laws. Yeah, we're definitely going to get into that in a bit, but why is gambling advertising such a divisive subject matter in Australia in general? Um, for many, and as outlined in the report, we have seen it is believed or it is a common kind of consensus that. gambling advertisers have flooded online and they've flooded the broadcast networks, especially around live sports programming. Also, the independent market studies where they found during prime time hours in Australia, the audience would get bombarded with 300 gambling adverts per hour across media networks. calling for reforms of gambling advertising in Australia is understanding the structure of broadcasting networks in Australia. So, you've got these big broadcast networks, but what they also have is that they have state programming across individual states in Australia. So, you will have Fox subsidiaries, Channel West subsidiaries, Channel 9 subsidiaries for Victoria, New South Wales. these that have kind of their own kind of programming formats in which they will display gambling advertising and their own kind of codes and standards for gambling. Stig Brodersen So it's quite fractured then? Stig Brodersen Yes, that is the correct word. Stig Brodersen And the centralized system is missing. Do you think it's on the agenda with any upcoming resolutions? Murphy report. That is in essence what it calls for. The big measures outlined there, or what the Murphy report wanted to implement was yes, the phased out blanket ban on gambling advertising and also a harms levy replicating the UK for raising money for gambling treatment support and research and education services in Australia. However, the underlying measures that the inquiry wanted was that it advocated for kind of Australian needs to develop kind of centralized applications, centralized processes to understand gambling and gambling's engagement with the public. And to date, I mean, government after government has failed to do that. But there have been some other significant changes to the gambling market. Let's give credit where it's due. Can you tell us a bit more about them? Yeah. So again, Australia is a market that's going through its regulatory transition and it's trying to move away from kind of a state autonomy on gambling or it's trying to apply a... federal rules to kind of harmonize state autonomy and gambling. So, what we've seen in the last two years is, for example, the application of a credit card, a credit wagering ban, which was applied in July across all Australian states. So, now you can no longer wager with credit cards in any Australian state on whether it be land-based or online gambling. The other major factor has been the launch of a national set of exclusion scheme across all Australian states. So all of a sudden Australia is now protected by a player registry for all consumers engaging in gambling. The other thing that we are witnessing or the other dynamic that's coming into play is that... the government is granting kind of more monetary powers or supervisory powers to the Australian Communications and Marketing Agency, the ACMA, which itself is taking kind of greater oversight of gambling and greater reporting on actually what's going on. And those are kind of the needed improvements that the market needed to see or to undertake. gambling problem in Australia is. Uh, no, yeah, no, no. I said a victim and I was speaking to you before. So yeah, I mean, you had a breakdown of this, didn't you? Yeah. Um, so it was mentioned in the Murphy report as well, that Australians, and I quote Australians, I would spend the citizens of every other country on, uh, online gambling, um, A sentence from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare as well, which is a government department says that Australians lose approximately 25 billion on legal forms of gambling each year, representing the largest per capita losses in the world. Sort of backing up the first sentence there. And also what Peter Murphy's report highlighted is that Almost half of Australians that were surveyed in 2022 placed a bid on sports or racing and about two thirds of those people are at risk of harm. So if there have been any questions about why such measures, the measures that you just described are being implemented right now. those sentences kind of back up the need for them. And it makes you expect that more, you know, more strict measures are on the way. It's just that it seems like the government is currently at a crossroad of how to approach that and find the balance, like we earlier said really, which, you know, which is the most difficult task for... any government because they also have to be careful not to drive companies away from the market as much as they need to protect customers. And we know from experience that this could be a very difficult task to achieve. so far have been great in my opinion and they appease all sides of the spectrum. But it seems like Australia is currently in the process of achieving that. And if they're taking example from the UK like you say, I think they're on the right path. But yeah. That was my opinion on it and I appreciate your input on the market as well. There are probably much more news coming up from Australia and for everybody who is listening can visit SBC News for the latest updates on the market and more as well from myself and my colleagues. But for now... Thank you for listening, thank you for being here, Ted, and for your valuable insights. And yeah, see you next time.