Barefoot Investor Scott Pape has unleashed on Anthony Albanese, demanding to know why he showed political courage on tax reform aimed at easing house prices but stopped short on gambling ads.
In an open letter, Pape said he was unconcerned by the political fallout surrounding Labor’s controversial negative gearing changes, which critics have described as a broken promise after Albanese went to the election saying he would not change the policy.
‘The changes to negative gearing and capital gains will make property investing less attractive,’ he said.
‘I’m happy to cop that if it takes a bit of heat out of house prices, my kids need somewhere to live one day – so do yours.’
Instead, he questioned why the Prime Minister had not acted more aggressively to protect children from gambling harm.
‘All the headlines this week are asking whether you lied about negative gearing. I don’t care. You saw an opportunity and you took it. Good on you,’ Pape wrote.
‘Here’s my question: why couldn’t you be bold when it came to our kids?’
Pape pointed to Australia’s gambling losses, arguing the country had become heavily reliant on younger generations entering the system.
Barefoot Investor Scott Pape has launched a blistering attack on Anthony Albanese, questioning why the Prime Minister showed courage on tax reform but not gambling ads
Pape accused Albanese of failing to act to better protect children from gambling harm
‘Australians are the world’s biggest gambling losers – 40 per cent worse than the country that comes second,’ he wrote.
‘That doesn’t happen by accident. It requires fresh-faced kids. And over a third of 12 to 17-year-olds are already gambling. Gamblers Anonymous is now seeing teenagers at its meetings.’
The finance guru also took aim at the government’s handling of recommendations made by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy, who chaired a landmark parliamentary inquiry into online gambling.
Pape said Murphy had handed the government 31 recommendations and described gambling reform as her ‘dying wish’, but claimed ministers failed to act despite broad political support.
‘You sat on it for 1050 days. Then, while every journalist in the country was buried in the budget lockup, you quietly slipped it out.’
Pape said Albanese had the chance to take a stronger stance by announcing an outright ban on gambling advertising.
‘Now, you could have gone on The Today Show and said: ‘These companies have hijacked our sport and they’re targeting our kids. I’m banning the ads’,’ he wrote.
‘And I think every parent in the country would have fist-pumped their Weet-Bix off the table, even the ones who love a punt.’
Pape finished with a direct challenge to the Prime Minister to ban the ads.
‘Is it any wonder voters are done with the party machine? You’re the most powerful man in the country, Anthony,’ he wrote.
‘You just proved you can be bold when you want to be. So why not for the kids?’
