‘I will not take money from Sportsbet’: Rowland admits public expects better

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has declared she will not accept any more donations from gambling firms like Sportsbet and conceded the public expected better behaviour from elected officials.

Rowland, a minister in charge of gambling regulation who received about $19,000 from Sportsbet before the May election, admitted her non-disclosure of the gifts highlighted the need to strengthen Australia’s donation laws.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during question time this month.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Rowland appeared on ABC’s Q&A program on Monday night and acknowledged it was fair to ask whether her decision-making was compromised by donations from Sportsbet that were exclusively reported by this masthead on February 9.

Until Monday, Rowland had made no other comments on the matter other than to say she did not break the rules. These rules require a politician to disclose donations only if they are valued above a certain threshold, which the Sportsbet donations did not meet.

“I will not be taking money from Sportsbet,” she said. “I want to acknowledge transparency and accountability is important to Australians. Australians always expect better when it comes to this area, even when no rules have been broken.”

“I respect that and I think that that is a reasonable position to hold.”

The Albanese government has flagged future changes to lower the threshold for disclosing donations to $1000. Rowland said her donations saga proved the need for this change. Some entities, including the federal branch of the Labor Party, voluntarily reported donations for smaller sums than those received by Rowland. Rowland’s donations were declared through the NSW branch.

“I think that this is an area of long-overdue reform and the Albanese government has had a long-held position, for example, of decreasing the disclosure threshold so it is a lower amount that needs to be disclosed, but also having real-time reporting,” she said on Q&A.

“If this conversation encourages that to be sped up, and we get rules in that, then I think that is a good thing and I will be participating in that discussion.”

The online gambling firm paid $8960 for a dinner to support Rowland’s election campaign at Rockpool, a Sydney restaurant popular with politicians and business people, in March. On May 19, three days before the federal election, Sportsbet paid $10,000 to Rowland’s campaign. At the time, she was the shadow minister for the same portfolio with oversight of elements of gambling policy.

Rowland insists the Sportsbet donation did not affect her decision-making, arguing she should be judged on her policymaking record. She points to the government’s intention to prevent the use of credit cards for online gaming and to create a self-exclusion register for problem gamblers. Both of these policies were instituted by previous governments and are supported by the gambling industry and Sportsbet.

Rowland’s Coalition counterpart, communications spokesman David Coleman, did not directly answer questions on Q&A about whether he would also rule out taking funds from Sportsbet. Sportsbet donated $278,000 in the last financial year, including $143,000 to the Coalition and $135,000 to Labor.

“We follow the rules,” he said, adding that he was waiting to hear the recommendations of a parliamentary inquiry looking into electoral rules and campaign finance.

“The government has not changed the laws. The minister is basically saying something that was OK a few weeks ago for her isn’t okay today.”

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