Labor’s tilt away from a gambling ban makes sense — TV lobbyists get what they want

On Tuesday, Government Services Minister Bill Shorten all but confirmed the government is leaning against a full ban on gambling advertisements. 

“I’m not convinced that complete prohibition works,” he told the ABC’s Q+A, before hinting at which interest group might have been influencing the government’s thinking. 

Shorten said free-to-air broadcasters were under “massive attack” by the likes of Facebook and needed gambling advertising revenue to survive: “Some of you might say, ‘Well, bugger them, just don’t worry, we don’t need free-to-air media’ … but free-to-air media is in diabolical trouble.”

Shorten said a tightening of the rules would be the right thing to do, even if it would satisfy neither the “complete abolitionists” nor the “don’t do too much” camp.

The thing is, free-to-air broadcasters are in neither camp: they want no changes to the rules at all.