17/12/2025
Australia in 2025 is peak clown world.
The federal government, with Labor and Liberal nodding in perfect harmony, is racing to ban social media for anyone under 16. Andrew Leigh and Michelle Rowland can’t stop talking about addictive algorithms, mental health crises, and the urgent need to save children from TikTok brain-rot.
Western Australia is already trialling age-verification systems, and every current-affairs show is running the same breathless segment about 14-year-olds doom-scrolling themselves into depression. Meanwhile, on the very same phones they want to lock kids out of, and during every single ad break on free-to-air television (yes, even during G-rated weekend movies and the Matildas), Australian children are smashed with wall-to-wall gambling ads.
Ben Affleck smirking for Sportsbet, Sam Pang doing his matey routine, cartoon birds screaming “YEAH BUUUUDDY” for Ladbrokes, and constant whispers that a lazy $1 multi could change your life forever.Gambling advertising is essentially unrestricted outside a laughable 5am–8:30pm live-sport window.
You can watch State of Origin with your ten-year-old and still sit through thirty betting commercials in one night. We have more poker machines per person than any nation on earth. One in six Australian adults has a serious gambling problem. Youth gambling harm is skyrocketing. Su***de remains the leading cause of death for people aged 25–44, and problem gambling is one of the biggest drivers.
But sure, the genuine public-health emergency is a kid watching Minecraft videos or learning a dance trend.
You can’t buy alcohol until you’re 18, can’t buy vapes, can’t get a tattoo, yet the moment the clock ticks over to your eighteenth birthday the betting apps are legally allowed to bombard you with bonus-bet offers and 3 a.m. push notifications begging you to chase your losses.
If politicians actually cared about addiction and developing brains, they would treat gambling advertising the same way we eventually treated cigarette advertising: ban it, full stop. Instead they pocket hundreds of millions in gambling taxes every year and pretend the real villain is a dancing teenager from Melbourne.This isn’t about protecting children. It’s about control, easy headlines, and keeping the pokies lobby fat and happy.The hypocrisy is staggering. Call it what it is: absolute bu****it.
