Zara Seidler

Billie, there has been so much news over the past couple of weeks that it has been almost impossible to surface news stories because I feel like we've had the war and we've had fuel and there have been really dominant narratives.

One story that we were discussing that we felt might have slipped under the radar was the fact that the government announced new gambling reform.

I think it must have been a fortnight ago now?

Yeah.

And so today, I think let's catch everyone up to speed, understand what everyone's saying about these reforms and what they actually are.

In order to do that, though, I think that it is helpful to paint a bit of a picture about the state of gambling in Australia, because I think once you understand that, you understand why there is so much pressure to act.

It is pretty staggering when you think about that and the numbers themselves.

What sort of numbers are we talking about here?

And thinking about the fact that like Las Vegas exists... Yes.

...and we're still somehow... Worse than that.

Worse than that.

It is, yeah.

It's pretty unbelievable.

So there is clearly a challenge that has been identified... ...through these statistics and a pressure on government to respond...

These reforms have been a long time coming, though.

So talk me through the timeline of when gambling reform was, I guess, first put on the agenda to now and how the government's actually responded.

Just if anyone's not across what a parliamentary committee actually is.

So that's a committee that is made up of members from across the political spectrum.

So you have Labor, Liberal, One Nation, Independents, Greens, whomever it is, set up a committee and they interrogate an issue or a piece of legislation.

Then they hand down a report and there are recommendations and findings in that report.