By Paul Sakkal
Cautious to the point of being circumspect, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland is not a risk-taking politician.
Her reluctance to go as far as some Labor politicians want in scrapping with gambling ads is making MPs jittery. They sense the government is drifting to the end of its first term without an exciting agenda.
Without wanting to overstate the level of discontent, Coalition MPs say it feels like the end of last term, when the Morrison government shelved religious freedom laws after a long fight.
Michelle Rowland is a deliberate politician in charge of a big moral and commercil issue.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
It is Rowland’s lot to clamp down on $300 million in gambling advertising, which powerful figures like Peter V’landys and Kerry Stokes are begging her to leave alone, without ignoring the moral force of campaigners insisting she honour late Labor MP Peta Murphy and treat gambling like tobacco.
Nobody thinks this is an easy fix. Even the anti-gambling campaigners admit it is a “wicked” problem, and it is odds on that Rowland will anger a powerful group of people either way.
Rowland has proposed banning digital ads, capping TV ads at two an hour, and ringfencing sports broadcasts. These are big steps angering bookmakers, media barons and sports codes but not an outright ban.
It should have been a political win for Labor to curtail ads that annoy voters. Instead, questionable political management put the government on the defensive. It’s easy to forget it was the cabinet that asked Murphy’s committee to conduct the inquiry.
“We were trying to find a solution to a problem and instead we’ve come to appear like a blocker to the solution,” one senior MP said.
Rowland played her cards close to her chest over year-long talks over the policy. Very few interested MPs have been able to get an insight into her thinking. Murphy’s husband, influential Labor figure Rod Glover, suggested Rowland’s approach contrasted with the openness of Murphy’s inquiry.
Labor MPs invested in their late friend’s legacy should not have learnt about Rowland’s final proposal via leaks to this masthead.
“It’s disgusting,” outspoken MP Mike Freelander told the ABC. “All the industry was briefed long before caucus was.” This masthead’s reporting on Rowland’s plans “two weeks ago [are] almost word-for-word what the proposals are”, he added.
It is unsurprising that a Labor caucus yearning for bold reform is running a coordinated campaign to secure a blanket ban. The government has been understandably shy on big-picture social policy since the Voice referendum failed.
Cabinet ministers, too, have differing views.
Troublingly for Anthony Albanese, the debate on gambling ads has exposed a wider concern among some MPs and the part of Labor’s base that leans left: what is the Albanese government for if it can’t take on this fight?
They worry Labor has too often avoided battles for political expediency. They point out that Murphy’s bipartisan recommendations were supported by Coalition and independent MPs.
Only Albanese himself has the authority to crash through and toughen up the Rowland proposal.
Bill Shorten took hold of the argument last week when he became the first minister to say the quiet part out loud.
Emphasising the need to protect financially unstable TV networks, he said: “Merely because I won’t do 100 per cent of what an advocate wants, doesn’t mean I’m not interested in fixing it.”
Crossbench MPs briefed by Rowland in Canberra on Monday evening said it took until the end of a long meeting for Rowland to mention the viability of media companies. They were left disappointed with what they deemed a lack of imagination and conviction to deal with the trade-off inherent in the policy.
“The thing that really got me is it was framed as being all about public health, but as more questions got asked it became clear broadcast media was on the other side of the scales,” independent MP Kate Chaney said.
In the absence of a forceful public narrative shaped by Rowland, anti-gambling MPs have filled the space.
Independent Zoe Daniel said Rowland had dozens of meetings with gambling bosses, then retracted her claim. Despite this, some MPs, fairly or otherwise, still think Rowland is too close to bookmakers, a view formed mostly by revelations about Sportsbet’s donations to her campaign.
Murphy’s backers in the caucus would reject the notion that a ban is unrealistic.
Advocates such as Tim Costello say the cost to media is smaller than imagined. And Glover would argue it was possible to bring several arms of government together, including Treasury, to manage the financial cost of a gradual phase out. Italy and Spain have outlawed ads.
Sportsbet is hopeful Rowland may water down her plan to block ads on digital platforms. Labor agitators think they’re a chance to push the government closer Murphy.
Both can’t be right. Either way, it looks like Rowland can’t win.
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