Back in late June, Australian MP Peta Murphy—who recently passed away on December 4 after a battle with cancer—submitted her report on gambling reform, focused primarily on advertising and iGaming.
The inquiry, which has since been dubbed the Murphy Report, encompassed a total of 13 public hearings involving industry representatives, health experts, gambling reform advocates, academic researchers, sports leagues and more. In all, the report gathered a total of 161 submissions.
Murphy and colleagues ultimately outlined a total of 31 recommendations for gambling reform, the biggest among them being a gradual, phased ban on iGaming advertising, which would culminate in an all-out ban within three years. The phased system was meant to give all parties enough time to fall under compliance with the changing framework.
“The torrent of advertising is inescapable,” Murphy asserted in the inquiry. “It is manipulating an impressionable and vulnerable audience to gamble online.”
However, in the six months since the report was released, the federal government has said little about its findings, and a recent investigation from Rex Patrick and Phillip Dorling from Michael West Media has shown that industry lobbying is likely the cause behind the slow progress.
According to the investigation, the normal protocol whenever a parliamentary report is submitted to the government is to refer the findings to a department that is relevant to the subject matter so that it can draft potential legislation, which is then brought forth for consideration and possibly ratification, if approved.
However, according to documents secured via Freedom of Information requests, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has reportedly been involved in several rounds of closed-door meetings with industry representatives—referred to as “key stakeholders”—in what appears to be an attempt to circumvent or downplay the findings and recommendations of the Murphy Report.
The documents state that Rowland has conducted at least 36 of these meetings from June through mid-December, 15 of which were attended by Rowland herself.
The West Media investigation asserted that most of the documents were heavily redacted, on the basis of Cabinet confidentiality and other claims.
Several companies who did not engage with Murphy and colleagues in public hearings have in fact met with Rowland in recent months, including Google, Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, Channel Seven, Channel Nine and others.
Additionally, the National Rugby League (NRL) and the Australian Football League have also had private discussions with Rowland and company, and according to the West Media investigation, the NRL documents were almost completely redacted.
In response to the investigation, Independent MP Zoe Daniel told the outlet that “Anything less than a total ban on gambling advertising on all platforms would be a betrayal of Peta Murphy’s legacy and hard work. It would be giving the gambling sector just what they want – the appearance of action when all it would do would enable them to continue to normalize the intersection between gambling and sport and wreck the lives of thousands more, mainly young people.”
At this point, it is unclear how the federal government will respond to the inquiry, but many feel that its stance on advertising reform will be significantly curtailed.
