NDIS Minister Bill Shorten says Australia is in a “wicked situation” of relying on gambling ads to keep the Australian media afloat.

Speaking last night on ABC’s Q&A program, Shorten defended the government’s approach to a partial ban of gambling ads.

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“The free-to-air media is under massive attack by Facebook, it’s being completely disrupted by the internet and we’ve got ourselves in this wicked situation where now some of the free-to-air media need gambling ad revenue at any time in order just to stay afloat,” he said.

“Now some of you might say, ‘well bugger them, just don’t worry, you don’t need free-to-air media’, and it’s fair to say that a lot of us don’t watch free-to-air media much … free-to-air media is in diabolical trouble and that is the discussion which we are not having.”

Shorten’s comments come while Labor and Coalition MPs have thrown their support behind a blanket ban on gambling advertising, this masthead reported, stepping up a challenge in parliament.

“I think what Michelle Rowland’s looking at is sensible … what’s the exposure to kids, how do we avoid normalising gambling,” Shorten said.

“If you kill the free-to-air media, what’s going to replace it? I don’t want Mark Zuckerberg or Facebook in charge of my news feeds, he’s not even paying the Australian media for what they report.”