Gendered Violence and Gambling
Ms Cate Faehrmann: I move:
(1) That this House notes that:
(a) following the alleged murders of 26 women at the hands of men between January and April 2024, criminologist, Michael Salter, has named gambling as one of the clear accelerants of men's violence that needs policy reform;
(b) 2023 research from the Australian Institute of Family Studies [AIFS] found that 38 per cent of Australian adults gamble at least weekly, with men gambling more often, spending more money and more likely to be at risk of harm;
(c) in March 2023, the Australia Institute found that New South Wales has 37 per cent of the world's poker machines that are not located within casinos or other gaming establishments;
(d) criminologist and former NSW Police Force officer stationed in Western Sydney, Vincent Hurley, told ABC News on 2 May 2024 that gambling addiction is one of the issues that underlie many domestic assaults;
(e) award-winning gendered violence author and educator, Jess Hill, has stated that frontline workers are clear about the link between violence and coercive control and harmful industries, such as mainstream gambling;
(f) a report released in September 2020 by the AIFS found that gambling reinforces the gendered drivers of violence which therefore intensifies the frequency and severity of violence; and
(g) a report published in the peer-reviewed journal,BMC Women's Health, found that after reviewing 14 studies, 36.5 per cent of people experiencing gambling harm acknowledged perpetrating physical independent partner violence and noted, after reviewing a separate United States of America survey, that having a gambling problem nearly tripled the likelihood of physical intimate partner violence.
(2) That this House calls on the Government to recognise the linkages between gendered violence and gambling and ensure actions to reduce the pervasive and destructive presence of gambling in people's lives in New South Wales is a key component of any plans to end men's violence against women.
Over the past fortnight, members have spoken a lot in this House about the devastating impact of gendered violence on women, their families and many other people, and for good reason. The motion looks at one area that is clearly linked to domestic violence. Jess Hill has written about the gambling industry and spoken about it quite extensively. We need to get a handle on it if we are going to look at some of the drivers of domestic violence and how we can prevent gendered violence as much as possible. The motion outlines many statistics and a lot of research that has been undertaken to link the prevalence of gambling and gendered violence in the community.
New South Wales has a gambling problem. The State gambles the most and loses the most money per capita than anywhere else in the world. Governments like to use the term ''problem gambling" as though only a small percentage of people who gamble develop significant problems with gambling. Research undertaken by the Australian Institute of Family Studies found that almost half of the people who gamble develop issues. Research also shows that almost half of the people who gamble are classified as "at some risk" of gambling harm; most of those are men.
The most recent data shows that $8.1 billion was lost on poker machines in 2023; that is an increase of $29 million from the year before. The people of New South Wales are losing more in poker machines. The link to gendered violence is very strong. A 2020 report by Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety found that women described how their male partner's preoccupation with gambling exacerbated his controlling and self-centred tendencies to the exclusion of his family's welfare. The report stated:
Cravings and urges to gamble, and irrational beliefs about winning, resulted in anger and frustration if unable to gamble, typically directed at the female partner who was blamed for his gambling losses. Many women described how their partner's gambling escalated steeply over time, along with the frequency and severity of his violence.
I refer also to a project that was funded by the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation. It looked at programs such as early intervention and prevention around gambling, in particular. It found that there was family violence in up to 50 per cent of families in which there was a gambling addiction. It also found that 75 per cent to 80 per cent of people it defines as problem gamblers use electronic gambling machines or pokies. It said that one way to reduce gambling-related family violence is to minimise the incidence of problem gambling by making pokies safer—I remind members that this is in Victoria.
It is very disappointing that there is not similar research in New South Wales. I know that after the election the New South Wales Government set up a panel to look at ways to reduce gambling harm and whether we need a cashless gambling card. So far that panel has produced not much at all. The motion calls for this Government to recognise that there are linkages between gendered violence and gambling—in fact, the Gamble Aware website says that—and ensure that this very well-established link once recognised becomes a key component of any plan to end men's violence against women. That would be a significant step forward for New South Wales. I commend the motion to the House.