Opinion
Pokies: We’ve got the ear of the Premier, says AHA
The Australian Hotels Association is confident it can stop Tasmania trialing technology to limit poker machine bets.
Premier Lara Giddings says no decision has been made about whether Tasmania will be the first State to trial pre-commitment technology, which limits how much people can gamble.
The Association will be meeting with the Premier on Thursday.
The association’s Steve Old says Ms Giddings will face the wrath of the industry if the trial is run in Tasmania.
“I know Lara, and Lara is smart enough to realise that I’m sure after our conversations that this isn’t something she should be trialing in Tasmania,” he said.
“So we’re confident at this point that Lara will not go down the path of what the Federal Government is trying to make Tasmania be the scapegoat on.”
Tasmanian federal independent MP, Andrew Wilkie, is hoping the Premier will agree to the …
Leo Schofield:
MY TASMANIA
Leo Schofield
Saturday Magazine – The Mercury 26 Feb 2011
I DO wish I could feel optimistic about the elevation of Lara Giddings to the position of Premier.
I met Giddings once and was underwhelmed.
It was at a luncheon some years ago in Sydney whither, as quondam arts minister, she had ventured to tout Tasmania’s vibrant arts scene, about which she seemed to have but a glancing familiarity.
This is a personal view, but she struck me as arrogant and ill informed and had a dramatically closed mind.
My fellow guests and I were struck by her ignorance of national and international arts practice and her reluctance to listen to any opinions other than her own, which seemed received and informed neither by experience nor maturity.
Giddings’ smug proclamation last week about the essentiality of Gunns pulp mill indicates that her ability to listen and learn seems not to have improved.
That she has ascended to the leadership of this state bodes ill for the future and she will surely be yet another female leader thrown to the wolves by an increasingly desperate Labor party.
The only politician of her gender who may survive the imminent demise of her intellectually-bereft party is Queensland Premier Anna Bligh whose strength, conviction, modesty and courage should be a model for her inexperienced and terminally parochial counterpart in the island state.
One hopes that Giddings has noted that the approval of Bligh, written off by pundits as a loser, has risen from 25 to 60 per cent.
That’s just a little less than the percentage of Tasmanians who disapprove of the pulp mill.
BigEars, comment: Sitting beneath Mr Old” tactical idiocy, of course, is a thick layer of arrogance and certainty about the relationship between industry groups and the Labor government. He is probably quite correct in his assessment that the prospective “wrath” of any industry group is enough to have Lara and her colleagues averting their eyes from major social issues and from their responsibility to frame coherent policy responses. The last time that a Tasmanian government openly confronted a major industry lobby was … when exactly?