Labor delegates voted unanimously on Friday to strengthen the party's national platform on gambling, at the party's national conference in Adelaide, without adopting the national gambling regulator that branch members had campaigned for.
The platform now commits Labor to strengthening the powers of existing national regulators and to reinforcing measures against gambling inducements. The amendment followed a grassroots push from members for either a dedicated regulator or for the Australian Communications and Media Authority to be given the powers and funding to do the job itself.
A dedicated national regulator was the central recommendation of the 2023 parliamentary inquiry led by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy. That report, You Win Some, You Lose More, also called for gambling advertising to be phased out entirely over three years.
Tim Costello of the Alliance for Gambling Reform said the party should have gone further. "Why do we have the greatest gambling losses in the world? Because there is no national regulator," he said.
The government's own bill was introduced three weeks before the conference met. The Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill 2026, tabled on 2 July, caps free-to-air gambling advertising at three spots an hour between 6am and 8.30pm, bans wagering ads and the broadcast of odds during live sport in the same window, stops athletes, celebrities and influencers from promoting gambling, and removes gambling advertising from sporting uniforms and venues. Online gambling ads would be served only to logged-in users verified as over 18, with an opt-out. The main measures are phased over three years and are expected to start on 1 January 2027.
That is a set of restrictions on where advertising can appear. It is not a change to who supervises the industry, which is what the Murphy review said was missing and what the conference floor was asked to settle.
Gambling companies and their lobby groups disclosed $894,003 in political donations in 2024-25, according to the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education's analysis of Australian Electoral Commission returns. Companies with both alcohol and gambling interests disclosed a further $2.72 million. FARE put the combined alcohol and gambling total above $5.5 million, more than double the previous year, with the Liberal and National parties taking more than half and Labor close behind.
A national platform is a statement of party policy. It does not bind the government's legislative program, and nothing in Friday's vote requires the bill now before parliament to change.
The conference runs to Saturday, with defence and foreign affairs the final day's business. The bill is the thing to watch. Its main provisions do not begin until 2027, and the platform Labor adopted on Friday asks for stronger regulators rather than a new one to enforce them.
