On Tuesday 27 October 2026 I gave a speech to Parliament about the gambling industry's donations to, and influence over, Queensland's major political parties. You can read my full speech below, or in the official transcript of Parliamentary Proceedings (Hansard).
Queenslanders are still feeding quite obscene amounts of money into pokies which still ends up in the pockets of the major political parties through bought and sold access and outcomes that we still call political donations. Mr Deputy Speaker, $1.33 million: that is how much the gambling industry has bet on the major political parties in Queensland over the last 10 years. That is only in Queensland, mind you. That is $591,000 to the Labor Party and $740,000 to the Liberal National Party, not to mention the $24,000 that has gone to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. It also does not include federal level donations, which of course tend to get moved around as the big parties please.
An opposition member: You’ve taken federal money.
Mr BERKMAN: It is not the cacophony I was expecting, because of course they are going to go there. I want to make it really clear that the Greens do not, as we have said time and again, take donations from gambling corporations or lobby groups. They consistently try to bang on and deflect from their closeness with the gambling industry by talking about a Greens donor who is a poker player. Let’s be really clear here: he does not run the pokies; he does not race dogs; he does not target children and vulnerable addicts with Sportsbet ads; and he has no financial interest in the regulation of this industry.
Mr Mickelberg interjected.
Mr Mellish interjected.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Krause): Hang on a second, member for Maiwar. Member for Buderim and member for Aspley, the member for Maiwar is a long way away from me. I need to be able to hear what he is saying in case there is a point of order. Can I have some quiet, please?
Mr BERKMAN: Unlike the major parties’ donors, the Greens’ donors are people who want to support a better world. It is an individual person who is donating based on values that our policies are trying to achieve. Our policies reflect that. We are consistently calling for a ban on gambling advertising, for pokies to be out of pubs and clubs, and for an end to greyhound racing. Meanwhile, the policies of the LNP and Labor reflect their complete servility to the gambling industry.
Let’s go back to those donors. Let’s do a bit of naming and shaming here. I will start with Entain. They may be one that people have not heard of, but they are one of the world’s biggest online gambling and sports-betting companies. They have a lot to lose from any move to restrict gambling advertising. They make the standard $11,000 donations, which is the annual membership rate for the cash-for-access business clubs that Labor and the LNP run. Entain joined both the Labor and the LNP schemes before the 2024 election, but now they are only forking out to see the LNP. Shock, horror: why would that be?
Then there is Tabcorp, Sportsbet and Clubs Queensland. These are some of the biggest donors in Australian politics. They make a tidy buck from the greyhound racing industry. Shock, horror: over $190,000 has been donated to the major parties, both of which went on to allocate public money to this so-called sport, the blood sport that is greyhound racing.
The Queensland and Australian Hotels Association benefit hugely from Australia’s world-leading pokies addiction. The spend on pokies in this country is like nowhere else across the globe. These organisations oppose harm reduction policies like bet limits. They have donated over $500,000 to the major parties which has been split almost evenly each way.
These cashed-up gambling corporations are betting on continued favourable treatment from politicians and they are getting it, but they are not the ones who are bearing the cost. Queenslanders lose around $4 billion on the pokies every single year, and that is not including the casinos. That is just in our pubs and clubs. Thirty per cent of children aged 12 to 17 are already gambling. Investigations have found that the gambling industry is aiding money laundering and crime for organised crime syndicates. However, the parties that take money from these vultures will not do anything to reduce their power or their impact on people struggling with addiction.
It is time for us to remember who we are working for. It is time to cut the gambling companies off and really take this harm head-on. It was shameful to see federal Labor completely squib on the opportunity they had to really lead the charge here and properly regulate gambling to try to reduce the harms in our communities. They squibbed it and the federal coalition were more than happy to go along with it. We here in Queensland have the power to make real change. I implore everyone here to take steps to do it.