Gambling's monkey grip on Canberra
Rarely has an industry spent so little to gain so much.
The Albanese government's bill to further restrict online gambling advertising, enacted in August, was widely seen as a sell-out to media moguls, gambling companies and their captives, the national sporting codes. For a purported man of the working people, enabling predatory bookies to continue destroying the lives of a generation of young Australians was not the Prime Minister's finest hour.
Underlining how easily Albanese caved under pressure from media and gambling moguls – none of whom have voted Labor in their lives and many of whom actively agitate for his downfall – was a decision taken by Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva just 30 days after Governor-General Samantha Mostyn signed Albanese's legislation into law.
In a decision that shocked the global gaming and investment communities, Lula announced that online gambling in Brazil would be banned and all existing licences would be torn up. The shares of the world's two largest online gambling companies who were building beachheads in Brazil – Flutter and Entain – were belted. Lula faces a tight re-election race this month and will then require congressional approval or the ban will lapse.
Brazil's decisive move prompts the question: how can a middle-income country somewhat infamous for corruption and easily-bought politicians be capable of implementing tough laws to minimise gambling harm when a rich country like Australia, with allegedly high standards of governance, is seemingly unable to do the same?
