Democracy Sausage with Mark Kenny
Aug 11, 2026 · 47 min · 8 segments
Why has the government fallen so far short of the Murphy Report's recommendations despite around 80 per cent of Australians wanting gambling ads banned? How did an under-resourced Northern Territory…
Charles LivingstonGuest
Mark KennyHostMaria TaflagaHost
Well, I mean, can I just approach that from a slightly different angle, which is that whatever the problems of broadcast media are, They were well emergent before the growth of gambling, particularly online gambling.
It's struggling to find a market beyond... people my age or older, and it struggles to produce content that is at all appealing to many people.
So, you know, what have they got? They've got the sporting broadcast, so they say, well, if we lose that, if we lose the revenue from this, then we're all going to go kaput.
That seems at best disingenuous, and for the Prime Minister and the government to say that's the reason they don't want to introduce restrictions on advertising is the biggest cop-out I've ever seen.
As to the distribution of resources to children's sport, I think no one would suggest that sporting efforts in WA are any less than in the other states.
In fact, the survey of recreational activities and club memberships by the ABS regularly reports that there's more participation in junior sport in WA where there's basically no gambling money going into it.
And I include in that, of course, the money that comes from poker machines, which is a large part of the subsidies to local sporting activities.
So, I mean, the AFL has always been able to find money to support its feeder organisations, its local clubs and so on.
And the same argument was made when tobacco sponsorship was ended, that, you know, the universe was going to end and that we'd all collapse in a gigantic black hole of sporting activities.
Both of those arguments about TV and sport collapsing are complete nonsense.
Yes, they do.
And the same criticisms are made and the same comments are made about when they can't advertise anymore and how terrible the results are going to be.
Oh, it's like people might be enjoying the intrinsic value and joy of the game.
Well, I mean, can I just approach that from a slightly different angle, which is that whatever the problems of broadcast media are, They were well emergent before the growth of gambling, particularly online gambling.
It's struggling to find a market beyond... people my age or older, and it struggles to produce content that is at all appealing to many people.
So, you know, what have they got? They've got the sporting broadcast, so they say, well, if we lose that, if we lose the revenue from this, then we're all going to go kaput.
That seems at best disingenuous, and for the Prime Minister and the government to say that's the reason they don't want to introduce restrictions on advertising is the biggest cop-out I've ever seen.
As to the distribution of resources to children's sport, I think no one would suggest that sporting efforts in WA are any less than in the other states.
In fact, the survey of recreational activities and club memberships by the ABS regularly reports that there's more participation in junior sport in WA where there's basically no gambling money going into it.
And I include in that, of course, the money that comes from poker machines, which is a large part of the subsidies to local sporting activities.
So, I mean, the AFL has always been able to find money to support its feeder organisations, its local clubs and so on.
And the same argument was made when tobacco sponsorship was ended, that, you know, the universe was going to end and that we'd all collapse in a gigantic black hole of sporting activities.
Both of those arguments about TV and sport collapsing are complete nonsense.
Yes, they do.
And the same criticisms are made and the same comments are made about when they can't advertise anymore and how terrible the results are going to be.
Oh, it's like people might be enjoying the intrinsic value and joy of the game.
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