As the curtain open on this year’s footy season, parents across the country are bracing for the ugly side of sport their kids didn’t sign up to.
Betting odds flashed on screen before the first bounce. Alcohol promotions on signs running the length of the boundary. Junk food brands emblazoned across their favourite player’s shirts
For families trying to shield their children from products that pose a risk to their health, the onslaught of harmful advertising has become relentless and inescapable.
On billboards and at train stations, on tram stops and bus shelters, on our phones and streaming services, and most prominently, on TV when we’re watching sport, these ads are the background noise to our lives.
There was a time when cigarette marketing was everywhere too. Until the 1990s, our elite athletes were prime advertising space for a product that kills more than eight million people globally every year.
But as the harm caused by smoking became undeniable, Australians demanded change. The 1992 Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act was a significant tobacco control measure that contributed to a seismic shift in culture and helped smoking rates plummet and lung cancer rates drop.
Today, we’re at a similar crossroads, staring down a public health crisis fuelled by gambling, alcohol and unhealthy foods. We need our political leaders to show the same vision and courage they did with tobacco and call time on harmful product marketing.
Australians have the highest per capita gambling losses in the world – losing more than $31 billion a year to betting companies. One person dies every 90 minutes from alcohol-related causes. Unhealthy diets are directly linked to 27,500 Australian deaths every year.
Knowing this, these industries continue to relentlessly market their harmful products, including to people most at risk of harm. They collect personal data and use it to tailor advertising that bombards people who are trying to cut back or quit.
They’ve followed the Big Tobacco playbook, glamourising and normalising their products by embedding them in sports children love, laying the foundations for kids to be customers for life.
Alcohol is not meant to be advertised during peak children’s viewing hours, but live sporting broadcasts are given an exemption.
All of this can happen under the current system primarily consisting of “self-regulation”. We have an inconsistent patchwork of rules, most of which are voluntary, that fail to reflect the modern media landscape and leave glaring gaps online, with little meaningful monitoring or enforcement.
Introducing a Harmful Products Marketing Act would give the system teeth, with sanctions for breaches, which would protect the community and improve both public health and the economy.
More than 200 public health, social services and community organisations alongside leading researchers, academics, lived experience advocates have signed a shared statement calling on the Federal Government to introduce this legislation.
It’s a move backed by most Australians, with recent national polling showing four in five people are concerned about the harm caused by gambling, alcohol and unhealthy food advertising. Only six per cent disagree that there should be less of it.
We know how to get this done because we’ve done it before. By modelling the legislation on the success born from the Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act, it would have clear objectives – to improve public health and limit the public’s exposure to marketing for products that cause grave harm.
Instead of chasing each new platform or advertising tactic as they emerge, a comprehensive Act would establish clear, mandatory rules governing how harmful products can be marketed across all media, including platforms that don’t yet exist.
Decades of research show that exposure to alcohol, gambling and unhealthy food advertising increases consumption, particularly among young people. Companies invest hundreds of millions in marketing because it works.
Reducing that exposure won’t eliminate harm overnight. But it will make it easier for families to choose healthier options, support people in recovery rather than undermine them, and align our public spaces with our national public health goals.
As we witnessed when tobacco advertising was phased out, industry resistance is inevitable, with well-worn arguments around “personal responsibility” and “choice”.
But children and parents do not choose to be relentlessly bombarded with gambling odds during sports broadcasts or junk food ads while watching their favourite shows.
People trying to reduce their alcohol use don’t have a choice about alcohol promotions algorithmically targeting them based on their online behaviour. Families struggling financially can’t escape inducements to gamble.
Parents are tired of trying to shield their kids from billion-dollar marketing machines because governments are avoiding doing the regulatory work to protect them. We need legislation that lifts the burden from families and places it squarely where it belongs – with the industries causing harm.