To highlight the current scourge of gambling in Australia, public attention deserves be drawn to a brilliantly incisive cartoon by Wilcox in The Sydney Morning Herald on September 18

It reveals the hypocritical travesty of the Albanese government’s lack of action in regard to the terrible harms caused by gambling.

It is a fact that, in comparison to the $2.7 billion Australians annually lose to scans, we lose more than $27 billion per annum to gambling.

These days, the scourge of gambling rivals the personal, medical and societal havoc caused by alcohol and other dangerous drugs.

It is well and truly time that our parliaments pass tough new laws banning any advertisements promoting gambling on television and all other media.

The result of such tough anti-gambling legislation would produce similarly huge benefits as have the banning of ads promoting alcohol and cigarettes smoking.

Ross Fitzgerald
Redfern, NSW