Economy
Pokies: A letter to the Federal Government
Pic: of Steve
To the Federal Government,
I am advocating on behalf of many, many people when I ask you to begin the actions necessary to enabling reform or abolition of poker machines in this country.
Why?
Because a majority of the population want them gone or reformed.
Poker machines are a dangerous product. They have the ability to cause an addiction that is as intense as some of the more addictive drugs like cocaine, heroin and “ice”.
The manufacturers have created them this way with a purpose. The aim of these companies and those who facilitate the venues is to extract as much money as possible without regard to the circumstances of the player. There are many tens of thousands of poker machine addicts in this country who are the “bread and butter” of machine manufacturers, license operators, venue owners and governments. These addicts contribute half of the $11b every year that gets spent on these machines.
There is no other form of gambling in this country which has produced more addicts, suicides, broken homes, divorce, dysfunctional children or bankrupts than poker machines.
Four out of every five gambling addicts in this country are addicted to the “pokies”.
It is the most shameful of the addictions and very powerful in its ability to tear apart families. It does this on a daily basis through all the communites of Australia.
So many private hours of stress, heartache, hopelessness and many other feelings are attached to each and every gamblers family. They say at least seven people are directly, adversely affected for every addict and that being so it all adds up to many, many private hours of stress, hopelessness and many other feelings being experienced across our nation on any given day. The amount of tears cried by spouses of addicts and the tears of the children and other loved ones affected are too hard to quantify but it most definitely is an enormous amount of grief being expressed everywhere, everyday because of these machines.
The people who suffer the most have no voice. They love their addicted one despite this filthy addiction and don’t want to bring shame on them but oh how they wish they would stop. Who can they appeal to? Most of our elected members of Parliament ignore their pleas or simply write them off as not having enough vote power. You, our elected members are failing to listen to the cries of these people and that is contrary to the essence of what your position is all about.
I believe that there are only two choices with regards to who does what about egm’s. Those choices are mandatory pre-commitment or abolition(or remove to casinos only). The size of this problem is infinitely small when compared to the upcoming spectre of online gambling. To ignore this particular aspect( poker machines) is to invite much more trouble than we already have when the other spectre comes( online gambling ). When someone can lose the house without leaving that house things will be on a very slippery slope.
So many people (especially the families and loved ones of the addict) caught a glimmer of hope when you, Julia Gillard, made your deal with Andrew Wilkie.
Those people now feel betrayed by your government because of the way you brought a stop to any reform happening. You say it’s the numbers that are preventing reform but you know that it was your dealings that have dashed the hopes of all those people. Prime Minister, if you do not get genuine about this problem you will be responsible for many shattered lives. Don’t be so hard Julia. You take a gamble on the idea that a society without poker machines would be a much happier and prosperous society.
Please Prime Minister, help save those who cannot cry out to you themselves. Please care for them.
Thank you.
Stephen K Menadue
• Simon de Little: Watch the TasCOSS & Anglicare Gambling Forum 16/10/12
Although poker machine reform has receded from public view in the wake of the Federal Government compromise of May 2012, the needs of people with gambling problems have not gone away.
TasCOSS and Anglicare conducted a forum to learn more about and discuss the impact of gambling problems on low-income and disadvantaged Tasmanians.
Presenters Tony Reidy, TasCOSS
Greg James, former publican and head of Australian Hotels Association
Mara Lovrin, Anglicare Tasmania, Gamblers Help counsellor/community educator
Karyn Wagner, community advocate
Margie Law, Social Action Research, Centre, Anglicare
• Simon de Little, Pat Caplice: Cut down the Triffid