Speaker 1: Darni. Last week we spoke to you about your story
Speaker 1: on the Australian Parliament's Sports Club, how I was registered
Speaker 1: as a lobby group and sponsored by the gambling industry.
Speaker 1: So apart from everyone else reporting on that and not
Speaker 1: giving you any credit, what's happened after you broke that story?
Speaker 2: It blew up in a way that I didn't expect
Speaker 2: it to.
Speaker 1: Danielle say it is Kriik's media reporter and no stranger
Speaker 1: to a scoop.
Speaker 3: We spoke on Monday about this club that organized the
Speaker 3: special games of sport between politicians and journalists and offers
Speaker 3: corporate memberships that start reportedly at a cost of two
Speaker 3: and a half thousand dollars. Amongst those corporate members who
Speaker 3: is responsible Wagering Australia, which is a peak body for
Speaker 3: the gambling industry that represents companies like sports Bet.
Speaker 1: Darney reported to this sponsorship by the gambling industry and
Speaker 1: the questions around lobbying. We're making some MPs who attended
Speaker 1: very unhappy.
Speaker 3: And in my piece we had a quote from David Pocock,
Speaker 3: who's an independent senator for the ACT, who was really
Speaker 3: critical of the relationship that the club has with the
Speaker 3: gambling lobby. So he took that to a Senate estimates
Speaker 3: hearing with Foreign Minister Penny Wongo's representing the PM.
Speaker 4: Now, I know you want to get a grab ar,
Speaker 4: but I don't know that the Parliamentary Sports Club is
Speaker 4: a lobbying firm.
Speaker 2: That it might not.
Speaker 3: Basically, it was this back and forth over whether the
Speaker 3: parliament Sports Club was a lobby organization and the function
Speaker 3: that it had, and some of the transparency around that.
Speaker 4: Is it's a Parliamentary sports club and it's not well
Speaker 4: and it may be required the under the Code of
Speaker 4: Conduct or whatever, the Code of lobbying what's called the
Speaker 4: Register of Lobbyists to register.
Speaker 3: I accept that that clip goes around the internet and
Speaker 3: by Thursday he had been booted from the club.
Speaker 2: This is when the story really.
Speaker 3: Blows up, the idea that this ex Wallaby could be
Speaker 3: booted out of the sports club.
Speaker 1: I'm Vaniel James and you're listening to seven AM today,
Speaker 1: Danny sayid, I'm the sports club that's just not cricket.
Speaker 1: It's Friday, October seventy. There are a lot of peculiarities
Speaker 1: about this story, but this one sort of does my heating.
Speaker 1: So imagine booting one of the all time great back
Speaker 1: railers from your team. What did the club organizers say
Speaker 1: about why he was booted?
Speaker 3: So the club organizer is a blow called Andy Turnbull,
Speaker 3: and he said that David Pocock's position was untenable after
Speaker 3: he had raised the issue in Senate Estimate. So he
Speaker 3: gave a statement to Kriikee and he essentially said that
Speaker 3: David Pocock, raising it in the manner that he did,
Speaker 3: suggested that he had brought up the club into disrepute.
Speaker 3: There ended up being a number of leagues of messages
Speaker 3: between Andy Turnbull and David Pocock, and he actually describes
Speaker 3: the sports club as the most a political organization in
Speaker 3: the Parliament, and he wrote to David Pocock, sadly, this
Speaker 3: week you've see our twenty years of serious effort to
Speaker 3: bring a harmonious and fun environment to a small part
Speaker 3: of each sitting day. You chose a cheap shot that
Speaker 3: will have no effect on the outcome of your anti
Speaker 3: gambling campaign. I'm sorry, it's reach's point, but you have
Speaker 3: left me with no choice. Very stern, very stern, very stern.
Speaker 3: It's I'm picking up my bat and ball and I'm
Speaker 3: going home. Then there's the Prime Minister and his relationship
Speaker 3: to the club, into Pocock, into Turnbull and he gets
Speaker 3: asked about it on Friday morning up in Brisbane and
Speaker 3: he says, the club presidency comes with the gig, David
Speaker 3: Pocock being David Pocock, getting himself in a story. You know,
Speaker 3: this is a voluntary organization. The inference being he is
Speaker 3: accusing him of grandstanding, he's accusing him of being attention seeking.
Speaker 3: And then he says, the amount of time I have
Speaker 3: spent on the Australian Parliament Sports Club this year is zero.
Speaker 4: I have participated in zero events in terms of sports,
Speaker 4: just because I'm a bit.
Speaker 3: Busy, because I'm just a little bit busy, which he
Speaker 3: of course is as the PM. But past chairs of
Speaker 3: the organization are people like Mel Braff and who's the
Speaker 3: current director, people like Barnaby Joyce and Mick McCormack. It's
Speaker 3: not necessarily a thing that comes by default when you're
Speaker 3: the PM. And that is really really fascinating. This idea
Speaker 3: that Albanizi has sort of raised of well I don't
Speaker 3: get a choice is just part of it's just part
Speaker 3: of it. The third part is the amount of time
Speaker 3: I've spent on the Australian Parliament Sports Club this year
Speaker 3: is zero. That's not strictly true, because he spoke at
Speaker 3: the season launch of the sports club at the Press
Speaker 3: Club two months ago, and we have photographs of him speaking,
Speaker 3: and there are a number of other speakers, people like
Speaker 3: stakeholders and industry bodies. Kay Campwell, who's the SEO of
Speaker 3: Responsible Wagering Australia Capitol Brief reported was at that event
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 1: So do you think the Prime Minister is mistaken or
Speaker 1: misleading when he says he's had zero involvement.
Speaker 3: I think he's trying to minimize his relationship to the
Speaker 3: club quite reason because obviously this is such a hot
Speaker 3: button issue. I think it's slightly misleading in the spirit
Speaker 3: of it in terms of passing and partists. I think
Speaker 3: it is misleading. So suggest he spent zero time on
Speaker 3: the club. I don't have any information to contradict the
Speaker 3: idea that he has participated in zero events, but to
Speaker 3: suggest that he's spent no time on it, that he
Speaker 3: doesn't think about it, that he has no real substantive
Speaker 3: relationship with it, which is what he's trying. In my
Speaker 3: view to suggest here, I think that's misleading.
Speaker 1: So putting that aside when it comes to David Pocock,
Speaker 1: does he have a point? I mean Pocock would have
Speaker 1: known about the sponsorship when he was playing in the club.
Speaker 3: Right yeah, And I think this touches on a really
Speaker 3: interesting sort of discussion that also negates a lot of
Speaker 3: the arguments around the substantive impact blobbing here, right the
Speaker 3: idea that David Pocock a would have known about the
Speaker 3: sponsorship reasonably he would have and casual sports social sport
Speaker 3: especially is a great tool for relationship building and it's
Speaker 3: a really positive thing and there are lots of benefits
Speaker 3: it does. It fundamentally does a really good thing for
Speaker 3: relationships across the various people that work in Parliament House.
Speaker 3: That's why he's sort of been inclined to stay in
Speaker 3: the club and didn't resign voluntarily, and he sort of
Speaker 3: wants there to be some sort of sporting for him.
Speaker 2: Obviously, as wall we have seen the impact of that.
Speaker 3: The interesting part is this counter argument that comes from
Speaker 3: the likes of Andy Turnbull who say there's an unwritten
Speaker 3: rule that you don't talk shop while you're playing sport
Speaker 3: and that there's no real lobbying going on here. The
Speaker 3: fact is that you form these relationships while you're playing sport,
Speaker 3: and that's the point of the thing. You can't have
Speaker 3: an organization that is based in relationship building that is
Speaker 3: a positive thing, and simultaneously have that relationship building have
Speaker 3: no impact. Otherwise your organization's pretty useless. That's the admission
Speaker 3: you're making.
Speaker 1: Coming up a club without a ball thief Danny. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a great headline for the club when they booted
Speaker 1: David Pocock, So what's been the fallout?
Speaker 2: This is fascinating.
Speaker 3: So a number of fellow mostly tier independent MPs have
Speaker 3: followed his lead, so a Legraspender and Sophie Scomp's went
Speaker 3: with him, and Nick Ryan had already quit at this
Speaker 3: point by the time we had published and Alegraspender called
Speaker 3: his ejection of disgrace. She said the sports club should
Speaker 3: be about politicians love of sport, not their sad addiction
Speaker 3: to the gambling lobby. I can't be a part of
Speaker 3: a club that promotes the gambling lobby because it's such
Speaker 3: a big headline and again completely in congruous for a
Speaker 3: punter to see one of the only sort of able
Speaker 3: sportsmen in Parliament. There's a couple of others kicking her,
Speaker 3: but certainly one of the fittest and fastest in the.
Speaker 2: Parliament be booted out of the club.
Speaker 3: The Prime Minister is still called it absurd that it's
Speaker 3: this sort of nefarious lobbying organization, but he suggests that
Speaker 3: David Pocock should be allowed to play, and all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, Andy Turnbull follows the PM's suggestion on Friday afternoon,
Speaker 3: who sort of walks back some of that snark we
Speaker 3: talked about and says, well, participation should be open to everyone.
Speaker 3: Who am I to argue at the Prime Minister and
Speaker 3: invites David.
Speaker 2: Pocock back, So he's back in No, he.
Speaker 3: Has come out and said that he won't redoin until
Speaker 3: the club undertakes a transparent, open process to consider all
Speaker 3: current and future sponsorships. There are rumblings that we're hearing
Speaker 3: about what's going to happen sort of on the twenty
Speaker 3: eighth or so in a couple of weeks when the
Speaker 3: Parliament comes back and sits again. Is David Pocock just
Speaker 3: going to show up on the lawns outside of the
Speaker 3: Senate wing? What do you do when you know this,
Speaker 3: this hulking back rower comes up to you and he says,
Speaker 3: I'd like to play place.
Speaker 2: Are you going to tell him no?
Speaker 1: And so what is the club said? I mean, are
Speaker 1: they war gaming this possibility?
Speaker 2: I imagine they are.
Speaker 3: But now they have deregistered the club as of Monday.
Speaker 3: They say that they've deregistered the club on the basis
Speaker 3: of advice they've taken from the Register of Lobbyists.
Speaker 2: There's a bit of a weird.
Speaker 3: Element here where the Register of Lobbyists is run and
Speaker 3: maintained by the Attorney General's Department. The reason that Anie
Speaker 3: Turnbull gives for the club being registered as a lobby
Speaker 3: organization in the first place is because he says he
Speaker 3: got advice from a very senior member of the Attorney
Speaker 3: General's Department suggesting that he should register the club as
Speaker 3: a lobby group. And so there's at some point somewhere
Speaker 3: some conflicting advice being given to if any Turmberle is
Speaker 3: of course telling truth that there's somewhere there's some conflicting
Speaker 3: given to the Parliamentary Sports Club from the Attorney General's Department.
Speaker 3: And I'd be really really interested to see that advice
Speaker 3: laid out in full.
Speaker 1: So Darnie, through your reporting, you've gone ahead and you've
Speaker 1: blown up a sports club. I hope you proud of yourself.
Speaker 1: What do you think is likely to happen now? In
Speaker 1: terms of reform.
Speaker 3: It's a real shame that it's that it seemed to
Speaker 3: have this effect because also I didn't I didn't realize
Speaker 3: until this afternoon that the Parliamentary Sports Club is also
Speaker 3: responsible for the infamous Polly's Verse Press cricket match which
Speaker 3: Andrew Purben has been trying to get me in for
Speaker 3: a number of years. I still play great cricket. Now
Speaker 3: that might be off the cards, I'm afraid. But in
Speaker 3: terms of reform, I'm really I really don't know. I'm
Speaker 3: really curious to see whether sort of the more informal
Speaker 3: types of sports that have played at Parliament House. There's
Speaker 3: a long running squash competition, for example, at Parliament House
Speaker 3: that sort of is very not corporate. I wonder whether
Speaker 3: those sorts of things will take more precedence or whether
Speaker 3: things will just carry on as usual and David Pocock
Speaker 3: will just be forced to throw rocks at windows in
Speaker 3: Parlament House on the lawns and that's going to be
Speaker 3: his new sporting pursuit.
Speaker 1: And of course there's a much bigger and far more
Speaker 1: seriously ship behind all of this, Darney, and that's the
Speaker 1: government's willingness to address the bigger issue of their inaction
Speaker 1: on evidence based gambling reform. What sense do you have
Speaker 1: of where that's at at the moment.
Speaker 3: I think there's been lots of moving parts that sort
Speaker 3: of effect whether or not we see movement on gambling
Speaker 3: advertising reform. And it is things like sports rights, it's
Speaker 3: things like new television deals being broken. It's things like
Speaker 3: the gambling lobby itself having a presence in Parliament House
Speaker 3: as it does. But the government hasn't responded to the
Speaker 3: Murphy report, which was ordered back in September twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: There's not really a sense that the government's going to
Speaker 3: do anything in the immediate term. We are coming up
Speaker 3: to the Spring racing Carnival, which is one of the
Speaker 3: big It's betting Christmas for the betting companies and for
Speaker 3: the lobby. I will believe it when I see it
Speaker 3: at this point. This government previously started to commit to
Speaker 3: partial bans on gambling advertising sort of in the lead
Speaker 3: up to the twenty twenty five election, then went back
Speaker 3: on that and said that there wasn't going to be
Speaker 3: anything to laughter the election. We're now a solid six
Speaker 3: months post election, so I don't anticipate there to be
Speaker 3: any significant change. Noting, of course, the government line that
Speaker 3: they've done more on gambling arm than any government since federation,
Speaker 3: which is their sort of routine talking point.
Speaker 2: That is in a sense true.
Speaker 3: They've made a number of changes around things like self
Speaker 3: exclusion registers and whatnot, a number of self regulatory changes
Speaker 3: for gambling companies. A lot of those aren't being adhered
Speaker 3: to anyway, so I'll believe it when I say it.
Speaker 1: Dannie, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having me, Daniel.
Speaker 1: As always, you can read Dannisaya It's reporting at krikey
Speaker 1: dot com dot are you. There are many many exclusives there.
Speaker 1: Also in the news, a protest group behind regular pro
Speaker 1: Palestinian rallies has won a case in the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: against the new South Wales government. The Palestine Action Group
Speaker 1: challenged laws introduced earlier this year with stop protesters from
Speaker 1: gathering around places of worship. Lawyers from the group organizer
Speaker 1: Josh Lees, successfully argue that the laws gave police too
Speaker 1: much power, including the move protesters on even when there
Speaker 1: was no reason to believe worship has felt obstructed, harassed
Speaker 1: or scared. And an Australian soldier has died in a
Speaker 1: training accident in Townsville. The soldier died after a vehicle
Speaker 1: rollover on Wednesday evening. In a statement, the Department of
Speaker 1: Defense confirmed the death. Two other soldiers were injured in
Speaker 1: the accident but have since been dis charge from hospital.
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel James. This is seven am. Thanks for listening.