True believers wanted serious gambling reform. We got the hokey pokies

August 27, 2026 — 5:00am

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At budget estimates on Wednesday, NSW Racing Minister David Harris crowed that the gambling reforms he’d announced a day earlier were the biggest in more than three decades.

He’s probably right. How grim.

The reforms unveiled by Harris are a victory for political timidity. Together with the wet lettuce that the Albanese government unveiled this month, they mark a tent-pole moment for mediocrity.

Not that anyone should have expected more.

The most significant difference between the Albanese government and the NSW Labor Party is that while some in the federal caucus actually called for change – it was the late Labor MP Peta Murphy who kick-started the push for reform with her report recommending a total ban on gambling ads and inducements – the Minns government has never shown any desire to seriously pursue pokies reform.

Powerful Labor mayor takes swing over ‘half-hearted’ NSW gambling reforms

It was Minns’ refusal to offer former premier Dominic Perrottet bipartisan support for cashless gaming which in effect killed it as an anti-money-laundering and harm-minimisation response. It is not an exaggeration to say Minns’ government has largely viewed the push for poker........

© The Sydney Morning Herald