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Australia’s longest-serving prime minister in the modern era has intervened in the gambling advertising debate, backing a full ban amid public and politician anger over reports of softening government policy.

The federal government’s slow and uncertain response to a unanimous lower house committee recommendation to ban online gambling ads has triggered a new attack on the industry, including from former prime ministers, former state premiers, cross-bench lawmakers and professional luminaries.

Signatories of an published by the Alliance for Gambling Reform are led by former conservative Prime Minister John Howard, who was in power from 1996 to 2007, fellow conservative former PM Malcolm Turnbull and, at publication time, 72 other prominent figures.

Those figures cross the entire political spectrum and include former New South Wales state premier Dominic Perrottet, former Victoria state premiers Steve Bracks and Jeff Kennett, unionists, sports professionals, scientists and health professionals, clerics, charity leaders, and 25 federal and state minority party and independent lawmakers in both left wing and conservative camps.

“Gambling advertising in Australia is out of control with 1m gambling ads being aired on free-to-air television and radio in just one year,” the letter reads.

“We the undersigned urge the Government and the Opposition to publicly commit to the swift adoption and implementation of all 31 recommendations of the Murphy Report parliamentary inquiry into online gambling.

“This includes a three-year, phased-in ban on all gambling advertising and the banning of inducements and promotions, especially around sports betting, which are unethically used to ensnare people who want to stop gambling,” it says.

Howard’s intervention is notable given his right-wing record, his formidable political appeal to upwardly mobile working class voters and the traditional lack of support for anti-gambling activists from right-wing politicians.

“It’s just everywhere,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Howard as saying on Friday (August 9), referring to gambling advertising.

“I mean, I follow a lot of sport: I watch rugby league, I watch cricket, I watch the Olympics, I watch it all, and it’s just everywhere. It’s too much,” he said. “The spread of gambling and the social harm from it is a serious issue for our country.”

The open letter quickly followed a Sydney Morning Herald report in early August that the federal Labor government will heed gambling and mass media lobbyists and disregard the toughest recommendations of the lower house Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs delivered in June 2023.

These include the phased-in complete ban on online gambling advertising, almost entirely covering sports-betting products.

Communications minister Michelle Rowland has yet to release her response to the committee’s report or to submit her plan to Cabinet, but the Herald reported that mass media advertising will be reduced and capped rather than banned, while a full advertising ban on internet and mobile platform will be adopted.

Howard still has the power to influence Australian politics. In his time in government, he surprised many early on with the speed and comprehensiveness of his national gun reform response following the Port Arthur massacre, Australia’s worst in modern times, in Tasmania state.

The massacre took place just weeks into Howard’s first term in 1996, and the prime minister responded with a popular, nationally coordinated buyback scheme and new restrictions on self-loading weapons.

Howard’s influence on the current Liberal party apparatus may therefore not be as important as his influence on Australian voters and ability to read and weaponise public exasperation over years of gambling industry non-compliance.

Gambling is “particularly bad for young people who are so easily tempted”, he told the Herald.

“We hear a lot of talk from the Prime Minister of that leadership, but he’s got an opportunity to show leadership on this issue.”