Well it took the Federal Government more than a thousand days to respond to the Murphy gambling report, and all we’ll get from the 31 recommendations is three partially implemented reforms, two of which were already underway before the Murphy inquiry.
The Murphy report was cross-party and unanimous. It provided the best researched and considered blueprint for gambling reform ever achieved by the Federal Parliament. No competent and caring government could do anything but embrace all the recommendations and commit to implement them as soon as humanly possible.
But instead the Government has opted to abandon the public interest, deciding instead to put first the commercial interests of the gambling and media companies, as well as the AFL and the NRL. This is shameful behaviour. Even if implementing all 31 recommendations was too much for the Government, there is no conceivable excuse for not implementing at least the gambling advertising ban and establishing an effective national regulator.
No wonder big swathes of the community are recoiling from the ALP and Coalition parties, not that I hold any hope that the ascendant One Nation party would be any better on gambling reform. A pox on all of them.