GREENS’ POKIE-FREE TASMANIA COMMITMENT

GREENS’ POKIE-FREE TASMANIA COMMITMENT
5 Year Plan to Remove All Pokies from Pubs, Clubs, Casinos and the TT Line
Nick McKim MP
Greens Leader and Treasury spokesperson
and
Kim Booth MP
Greens Gaming spokesperson
Thursday, 4 February 2010

www.tas.greens.org.au
The Tasmanian Greens today released their ground-breaking Pokie-Free Tasmania: Ready to Deliver a Five year Plan to End Tasmania’s Electronic Gaming Machine Addiction policy commitment, which would see all of the state’s 3671 poker machines removed over a five year period.

Greens Leader Nick McKim MP said that this policy commitment is economically and socially responsible, as it establishes a ‘Pokie-Free Tasmania Adaptation Fund’ to help venues identify and implement alternative formes of revenue-raising entertainment, including an exit package for current monopoly holder, Federal Hotels Ltd.

Greens Gaming spokesperson Kim Booth MP said that given the shocking losses of $220 million in 2009 alone on pokies, the Greens’ policy is needed to end the current situation where massive profit is made at the expense of those in our community who can least afford it.

The Greens’ Pokies-Free Tasmania policy will:

q Amend the Gaming Control Act (1993), removing Federal Hotels’ monopoly control of Tasmanian pokies

q Negotiate fair and reasonable exit package for Federal Hotels, over which the Auditor-General will have oversight

q Wean the State Government off pokies revenue

q Implement a range of harm minimisation strategies throughout the transition period (including a $1 bet limit, as recommended by the Productivity Commission)

q Amend the TT-Line Gaming Act 1993 to ultimately remove pokies from the TT-Line

q Restructure of the current ‘Community Support Levy’ into a new ‘Community Support Fund’

q Require casinos to contribute to the Community Support Fund at the same rate currently required of hotels and clubs

A core component of ‘Pokie-Free Tasmania’ will be the establishment of a new ‘Pokie-Free Tasmania Adaptation Fund’ to:

q Fund a pokie buyback scheme; and

q Assist venues in:

® Identifying and adopting alternative forms of revenue raising entertainment to replace pokies income

® Obtaining expert business planning assistance to readjust to operating without pokies.

“Pokie-Free Tasmania will see all pokies from Tasmanian pubs, clubs, casinos and TT Line vessels, removed over a five year period, in an economically and socially responsible manner,” Mr McKim said.

“The Greens have been long on the public record raising concerns of the negative impact that pokies are having on Tasmanians problem gamblers, their families, and local businesses, and we are now at the forefront with a positive plan to deliver a solution to this growing social and economic problem.”

“We’ve listened to the community, we’ve listened to social welfare organisation who have to pick up the pieces, and we’ve developed out Pokie-Free Tasmania policy in response. This policy is a win for the community, and it will also be a win for the state’s budget bottom-line,” Greens Gambling spokesperson Kim Booth said.

“I wish to address upfront that while this was not developed to look after Federal Hotels specifically, we do provide for an exit strategy to assist them to transfer out of pokie entertainment, to be adjudicated by the Auditor-General.”

“Listening to Tasmanians, it is clear that people believe good public policy is that which looks after the community rather than looks after the interests of corporations, and that focus is what this Policy delivers.”

“We have seen Tasmanians lose a shocking $220 million over the single year of 2009 alone, Anglicare’s ‘Nothing Left to Lose’ report clearly links problem gambling with crime, and it is time for leadership to say enough is enough. Tasmanians deserve to b free of the identified most harmful mode of gambling entertainment, as pokies have been described.”

“Pokie-Free Tasmania will end the pokie stranglehold on the Tasmanian community, reduce the impacts and costs of problem gambling, and invest in building healthy business independent of poker machines,” Mr Booth said.

Download: Pokie-Free Tasmania: Ready to Deliver a Five Year Plan to End Tasmania’s Electronic Gaming Machine Addiction, released by Greens Leader Nick McKim MP and Gaming spokesperson Kim Booth MP, February 2010:

Download: Feb4_Pokie_Free_Tasmania_N_McKim-K_Booth_ATTACH.pdf
Nick McKim, Kim Booth