AUSTRALIAN cricketer Usman Khawaja has declared his support for reforms proposed by the anti-gambling inquiry chaired by the late Dunkley MP Peta Murphy.
Khawaja visited Parliament on Thursday, 28 August, to meet with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. He travelled to Canberra planning to speak about the war in Gaza and gambling reform.
Prior to his meeting with the Prime Minister, Khawaja told reporters in Canberra that the federal government should ban gambling from sport. “You have to go cold turkey. It’s the same as what happened with tobacco,” Khawaja said. “If gambling is repeatedly being brought together with sport and athletes, showing you can’t watch sport without gambling, then it is a very dangerous precedent to set.”
“I can’t watch a game without getting odds right before. I play grade cricket with young cricketers who are coming through—there are 16-year-olds with gambling accounts and they cannot watch the game without putting a bet on,” he added. “The relationship that young kids are having with gambling is scary, and it’s dangerous.”
Peta Murphy chaired a parliamentary inquiry into gambling harm, which released its final report in mid-2023. Murphy tragically passed away from breast cancer just months after the report was handed down.
The inquiry’s report made 31 recommendations, including a ban on online gambling advertising, stronger consumer protections for licensed online gambling, a crackdown on illegal gambling websites, and a legislated duty of care. Despite the call for action, the federal government has yet to act on the recommendations (“Murphy Report Inaction Inconceivable” The Times, 29/4/2025).
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was grilled about the federal government’s inaction on gambling reform during Question Time last week. Independent MP Kate Chaney asked the Prime Minister, “Is the delay due to successful lobbying by powerful interests, and what do you say to people experiencing gambling harm who are still being bombarded by gambling ads?”
“Today, parliamentarians from across the House again heard personal stories about gambling harm, including from a Western Australian whose brother died by suicide after struggling with gambling addiction. The government hasn’t even provided a response to the Murphy inquiry into online gambling, let alone implemented any of our key recommendations,” Cheney said.
Albanese defended his government’s track record, saying, “It is not correct to say that we haven’t responded. We have done more as a government than any government in Australia’s history since Federation.”
“BetStop, the self-exclusion register, has been in operation for two years as of last week and is making an enormous difference. We have launched the National Self-Exclusion Register. At the end of July, it had recorded 46,369 total registrations, including 30,750 active exclusions. Thirty-nine per cent of current registrants have chosen a lifetime ban,” he said. “The problem that we see with gambling isn’t someone having a punt on a Saturday at the pub. It is ongoing addiction to gambling, which can be incredibly harmful.”
“We have banned the use of credit cards for online wagering. We’ve established mandatory customer ID pre-verification for online wagering. We’ve implemented monthly win-loss statements. We’ve strengthened classification of video games that contain gambling-like content.”
Albanese said that sporting organisations needed to take responsibility themselves. “We want to break the connection between wagering and sport. A lot of that has been done voluntarily, as well, by the sporting organisations, who understand the damage that can be caused,” he said.
“Gambling is legal in Australia. We respect people’s right to have a punt, but we also have a responsibility to make sure that the industry acts responsibly, and that’s what we’re doing.”
First published in the Frankston Times – 2nd September 2025