Interactive Gambling Amendment (Credit and Other Measures)

“Thirdly, Deputy Speaker, you may be alarmed to know that, amongst the harms of online gambling, the really significant losses the committee heard about were of the 15 to 20 per cent of Australian gamblers who are gambling not only with money they can't afford to lose, but actually with money they don't have in the first place—15 to 20 per cent of online gamblers are gambling with credit cards. Importantly, the Albanese Labor government is legislating to ban the use of credit cards for online gambling. Credit card gambling is already banned in physical settings like casinos and poker machines, and the legislation to ban credit card betting for online gambling is an important part of limiting the damage.”

Australian Labor Party • MP • 18 Oct 2023

“This legislation is also in line with community views on gambling. Most Australians expressed concern about the availability of gambling and its impacts on our community, believing—to quote from the report—that there are 'too many opportunities for gambling nowadays' and that gambling is 'dangerous for family life' and 'should be discouraged'. In June of this year, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs released the recommendations from its inquiry into online gambling and its impacts on those experiencing harm. I thank the member for Dunkley, Peta Murphy, for chairing that inquiry. The government is considering all 30 recommendations from this inquiry and will continue to work with stakeholders to implement further actions to further protect Australians from gambling. I commend this legislation to the House.”

Australian Labor Party • MP • 18 Oct 2023

“This bill is a really important step to both support and protect Australians when it comes to interactive gambling and the increasing consequences we see from those activities that are very harmful to our communities.”

Australian Labor Party • MP • 19 Oct 2023

“I am very pleased to rise to support the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Credit and Other Measures) Bill 2023. Through this bill, the Albanese government is banning the use of credit cards and credit-like products on online gambling. We take seriously our responsibility to prevent and reduce harm from online gambling.”

Australian Labor Party • MP • 19 Oct 2023

“The proposed legislation introduces a ban on the use of credit cards for Australian licensed interactive wagering services and the use of credit cards linked to a digital wallet, such as Apple Pay or Google Play. This will bring online wagering into line with land based gambling laws, where credit cards have been banned from TAB outlets, casinos and poker machine venues for more than a decade. Australian consumers deserve the same protections whether they are wagering on land or online. Australians should not be able to gamble with money they don't have, especially in a system that is stacked against them.”

Australian Labor Party • MP • 19 Oct 2023

“Given the havoc that online gambling is creating in our community, I fully support the bill and look forward to further deliberations by the government on other recommendations handed down by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs in its inquiry into online gambling and its impact on those experiencing gambling harm. We have to act in this way. I commend the bill to the House.”

Australian Labor Party • MP • 18 Oct 2023

“This is an important piece of legislation to continue us down the track of harm minimisation by putting in place a prohibition on using credit cards for gambling—because that is the very definition of gambling with money that you don't have.”

Australian Labor Party • MP • 19 Oct 2023

“The bill is long overdue. Wagering with credit cards was banned from TAB outlets, casinos and poker machine venues in the early 2000s. So it's only natural for this measure, in the form of this bill, to come before us now. The bill will amend the Interactive Gambling Act in three ways. It will prohibit the use of credit cards, credit related products and digital currency as payment methods for interactive wagering services. It will create a new criminal offence and civil provision related to the ban. And it will give the Australian Communications and Media Authority enhanced powers to enforce the ban.”

Australian Labor Party • MP • 18 Oct 2023

“In April 2023, the Government committed to introduce legislation to ban the use of credit cards for online wagering by the end of this year. This Bill delivers on this promise.”

Australian Labor Party • Senator • 15 Nov 2023

“There is no disagreement that this bill is necessary and overdue. And the minister who's sitting here is absolutely right to bring it forward to the House, for it to be a government bill, to ban the use of credit cards for online gambling.”

Australian Labor Party • MP • 19 Oct 2023

“In summary, this is legislation that is good and worthwhile. There are elements of it that could be improved. I know there have been amendments put forward. Often that is the case. The inquiry report's findings were backed up by the results of a recent review into this bill by the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee. I want to note a couple of things there. The Senate inquiry report, which was tabled recently, identified that 30 per cent or nearly a third of Australian online gamblers—that's around a million people—were at risk of, or experiencing, a degree of gambling harm. That is a tragic figure. The report cited research by the Gambling Treatment and Research Clinic at the University of Sydney, which found that 54 per cent of surveyed participants who reported using their credit card for online gambling met criteria for problem gambling. Gambling using credit cards is already banned at land based sites. This issue now is about the use of credit cards for online gambling.”

National Party • MP • 19 Oct 2023

“While I support this bill, there is, however, one inclusion made by the Labor government that I take issue with. I am talking about the Labor government's patterns in the chamber all the time, and of course the pattern of the Albanese Labor government—getting too excited and taking things too far—continues. My issue is that the Labor government wants to give the minister the keys to the bank. They want to give the minister all the power to ban other payment mechanisms for online gambling whenever the minister wants, by way of a legislative instrument. This is giving way too much power to one person. In line with our democratic system, one person should not have all the power to make decisions such as this.”

Liberal National Party • MP • 19 Oct 2023

“The coalition, in principle, supports this bill. The government has picked up the findings of the Wallace inquiry recommendations from late in the last term of government and put them into the bill. In banning the use of credit cards for online gambling, the bill brings online gambling into line with offline gambling. But, as is often the case with Labor, as we've seen in many cases, such as their extraordinary and appalling misinformation bill, they can go too far. I want to flag that we do have some concerns regarding some of the detail in this bill, while supporting it in principle, and I'll have more to say about that when this bill goes into consideration in detail.”

Liberal Party • MP • 17 Oct 2023

“This bill is really about closing an issue that's arisen through the adjacency of technology. It's all too easy to pick up your telephone and access a gambling app online and to simultaneously use your Apple Wallet, with a credit card, to pay for it. It's the adjacency of technology which means that legislation and change of legislation must continue to evolve in this space. Noting the delicate balance between protecting individual freedoms and the net benefit to the community of minimising problem gambling, I do intend to support this bill.”

Liberal National Party • MP • 19 Oct 2023

“This bill puts some necessary guardrails around online gambling, making it slightly more difficult to fall into debt through the ease of online gambling with a credit card. The bill amends the Interactive Gambling Act to prohibit credit cards, digital currency and digital wallets, making it a little harder for problem gamblers to overspend and send themselves into a debt trap.”

Liberal Party • MP • 19 Oct 2023

“As I said, the Greens welcome the introduction of this bill and the ban on online gambling companies using credit. We believe this is an important step towards ending gambling harm in Australia, but we also know that these measures are just fiddling around the edges of a rotten system. We need a strong, coordinated approach to ensure that gambling companies can no longer inflict pain on our communities. That's why the Greens will continue to push for a national independent gambling regulator, a total ban on all gambling ads, an end to dirty donations and to close any loopholes or exemptions where gambling companies can dodge responsibility.”

Australian Greens • MP • 18 Oct 2023

“We need a bold and brave approach that stands up to vested interests across this industry—to the media, to sporting codes and to money and power. Gambling is a public health issue. I support this bill, but I again call for the government to commit to the development of an effective national gambling strategy with a central purpose of reducing social and other harms, one that addresses not only the pressing issues relating to all forms of gambling advertising but other significant priorities as well, including a consistent regulatory framework across the country, a coordinated public education campaign, a mechanism to monitor and develop consumer protection for interactive gaming and simulated gambling, and the banning of all political donations from gambling companies.”

Independent • MP • 19 Oct 2023

“Whilst this bill is welcome in seeking to prevent people from gambling money on credit—money they do not have—it fails to close all loopholes, thus undermining its efficacy. We need to keep in mind that young men are the population group that is most at risk of this. With access to online gambling so readily available, we need to make sure all loopholes are closed so that we really don't let this get a hold on people.”

Independent • MP • 18 Oct 2023

“So I welcome this bill, because I think it will help make a difference and protect some people from ruining their lives with gambling. The bill will prevent Australians from being able to use their credit cards for online gambling, in the same way they cannot use their credit cards for offline gambling.”

Independent • MP • 18 Oct 2023

“I rise to support the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Credit and Other Measures) Bill 2023. It's an easy decision. It pretty much mirrors a bill I introduced in March this year. It's just a great shame that we've wasted seven months—we've seen harm over the last seven months—because of the lack of action on this very issue. It's a very simple bill in the sense that it recognises credit is really bad when it comes to gambling, and that preventing the use of credit reduces gambling harm because people have to use their savings; they're not using money that's not yet theirs. As well as banning the use of credit cards for interactive gambling services, my private member's bill required gambling companies to ensure people expressly acknowledged their losses, and that is something I would really like to see the government do.”

Centre Alliance • MP • 18 Oct 2023