CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
As the sunshine disappears behind the icy rain of an unseasonably bitter winter, the current cost-of-living crisis could not be more front of mind for all Australians.
Without the cost-free distraction of the beaches and parklands that make up Australia’s great outdoors, the price-gouged costs of bread and meat is far more dispiriting when you don’t have a picnic to go to.
This depressing malaise has not at all been remedied by the Albanese government’s 3rd Budget, which saw Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmer stand before Parlaiment for two days and wax about how predatory power companies will be further subsidised with money that Australian tax-payers cannot touch or see.
For both sides of politics, the overall national sentiment is that Jim Chalmers is a bit of a pussy – with a lot of talk and very little desire to rock the boat, or bring about any form of change.
Meanwhile in the real world, Australians trudge on, without the same parliamentary renumerations and entitlements that are gifted to our brave policymakers.
Those who are lucky enough have a disposable income might have treated themselves to the NRL’s Magic Round over the weekend, or the odd visit to an AFL match the MCG here and there. Otherwise, Australians are staying home – watching the winter football codes on their TVs, and enduring the relentless onslaught of sportsbetting ads.
In an economic downturn, paired with a housing crisis, paired with stagnated wages – the most unregulated predator of them all continues to ping away with push notifications in every man’s phone, regardless of whether their income is ‘disposable’.
As the Australian media attempt to have an open discussion about gendered violence and the shortcomings of suburban men who perpetrate and enable this kind of domestic horror, one fairly relevant statistic that our news editors and journalists will simply not bring up is how much distress these highly addictive sportsbetting apps are causing Australian families. These same sportsbetting apps that keep the Australian media afloat with millions in advertising dollars.
The estimated yearly earnings of Australia’s tax-dodging sportsbetting companies comes to around $24 billion. Roughly the same amount Australia pays for aged care. Perhaps, this racket would be not only better regulated but far more beneficial to society if put back into the hands of the Australian people.
You know, like how the TAB was state-owned before Labor made the brilliant decision to privatise it in the 1990s, giving to rise of hundreds of cold-blooded and noisy competitors that create a world where working Australians cannot help but hand their credit card directly to the bookmaker and bet money they don’t have on and incessant stream of algorithmic odds while holding their phone down the side of their bed at 2 in the morning with the screen brightness turned down to zero so as to not wake their pregnant wives who are none the wiser the catastrophic damage being caused by this fun little Australian past time.
