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Pressure is mounting on the federal government to go further on its gambling reforms -- now from within Labor’s own ranks.

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00:01Well, as it stands, there's no way they can get these gambling reforms through Parliament
00:06and that's because both the Greens and the Coalition have made it clear that the reforms
00:10aren't enough.
00:11What's significant, though, is now that we're hearing from Labor MPs that they too don't
00:16believe that these gambling reforms are adequate.
00:19We've got some Labor MPs even publicly saying, while it's a good first step, more needs to
00:25be done.
00:25The ABC has spoken with Canberra MP Alicia Payne.
00:29She's talked about the need for inducements to be banned, whether there also needs to be
00:34a discussion around the opt-in versus opt-out model of advertising bans.
00:40So it's pretty normal in a political space to see opposition from the opposition and from
00:46the Greens, but to see concerns being raised within the government, that's another element
00:52then that the Prime Minister and his senior ministers have to manage as well.
00:56This isn't just about getting other political parties on side.
00:59It's about getting their own colleagues on side.
01:02So there is the expectation that some changes will need to be made to this original proposal.
01:08It's just a question of potentially how far the government is willing to go.
01:13Now, senior ministers for some time now have been using this line saying that these are
01:18the strongest gambling reforms ever put forward.
01:21In very simple terms, yes, they are the strongest because there hasn't been much done.
01:27The question really though is, are they adequate?
01:30And that's not a question that a number of senior ministers seem to be able to answer.
01:35They just keep talking about the fact that they're the strongest reforms yet, that they
01:39strike the right balance.
01:41But we're just starting to hear more and more people, especially after those examples we heard
01:47in the Senate inquiry this week about problems around gambling, that the reforms as they
01:52stand don't go far enough.
01:53They don't address everything that was in that Peter Murphy report into gambling released
01:57a few years ago.
01:58The Deputy Prime Minister, Richard Miles, this morning was asked on Radio National Breakfast,
02:03you know, do you need to do more?
02:05He didn't seem super open to that idea, despite the fact that Communications Minister Annika
02:11Wells has indicated earlier this week that she is open to negotiations with other parties
02:16to try and get some form of legislation through parliament.
02:20I mean, this has been an issue that we've been working through over a long period of time.
02:25It is complex. There are differing views across the community. We understand that. And that's
02:32just part of what we are dealing with here. And it's also an area where you need to strike
02:37a balance. And we believe we've done that.
02:41Now, Steph, on another issue, we are waiting on the government's immigration policy. After
02:45Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke cancelled his National Press Club event, when will that likely be released?
02:52We're expecting it not too far away, Kath, potentially even next week. The government's not putting
02:57on a timeline on it, understandably so, given the fact that the Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke,
03:03had cancelled that speech he was due to give at the National Press Club this week. A little bit of
03:07a bizarre exchange between the Deputy Prime Minister, Richard Miles, and Radio National Breakfast,
03:13Sally Sarra this morning, Richard Miles, wasn't agreeing with the fact Sally was saying the speech
03:18was cancelled. He was wanting to use the word postponed. And he also insisted that it's pretty
03:24normal for ministers to have to change their events and diaries because there's always so much going on.
03:30While, yes, ministers are allowed to change their plans, we really don't see National Press Club's
03:35addresses being cancelled. I can't recall the last time a senior minister did so. The background to this
03:43is that it's the understanding that within government, there were concerns that the immigration policy
03:49just needed a little bit more work before it was released. Is it a big deal that it's been delayed?
03:55The deal with this is it's created a vacuum, a space for the opposition, for One Nation,
04:01to question the government on exactly what they're doing. We know that One Nation has seen a rise in
04:07support and a big part of that is because they've been calling out the government on migration numbers,
04:13claiming that they're too high. A very similar line from the coalition too. The government knows itself
04:18that it needs to bring migration numbers down. It's just a matter of working out what policies
04:23would work best in a very complex area.
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