A STATEMENT REGARDING POKER MACHINE REFORM
I was very pleased to learn that the Greens have agreed to back the Government’s watered down poker machine reforms.
The Government’s package is much less than the deep reforms promised by the Prime Minister after the 2010 election. But they are better than nothing and worth supporting. Moreover they will establish the precedent of federal intervention in poker machine regulation and that alone is very important.
For my part I only agreed to support the Government’s watered down reforms when they agreed to my demands that all poker machines must be mandatory pre-commitment capable at the flick of a switch, and that the conditions for the Canberra trial of mandatory pre-commitment must be legislated.
I empathise with the Greens’ sentiment that these reforms could have been much more substantial. And I agree with the Greens’ that $1 maximum bets would have been a better way to go; and hence my efforts to negotiate such an outcome after the 2010 election.
But sometimes compromise is necessary, and I have no doubt that history will record the limited reforms of this parliament as being the start of the clean-up of an industry that has grown fat on the misery of Australia’s most vulnerable people.
• PEOPLE BEFORE POKIES TASMANIA
Fundraiser Launch Thurs Nov 1st – at Pokie –free Republic Bar, Elizabeth St North Hobart, 8pm.
Peter Hicks and the Blues Licks, One Trick Pony, Twice Bitten, and Kartika & Thomas.
$5 All welcome. Support local artists and a proudly pokie-free venue. Bring your friends.
People Before Pokies Tasmania are a coalition of socially-minded people working towards the phased removal of poker machines in Tasmania. We have no affiliation with any political party or interest group.
People Before Pokies – www.peoplebeforepokies.com https://www.facebook.com/groups/156385424498080/
• Stephen Menadue: A letter to the Federal Government
• $15.7 MILLION LOST ON THE POKIES IN SEPTEMBER
Kim Booth MP
Greens Gaming Spokesperson
Wednesday, 1 November 2012
The Tasmanian Greens today said that Tasmanians collectively lost $15,778,711 on pokies in the month of September, yet another unacceptable hit to the community’s most vulnerable that takes the toll for the year to $133,868,205.
Greens Gaming spokesperson Kim Booth MP said the Gaming Commission figures published on the Treasury and Finance Website were another tragic down payment on harm and suffering in the Tasmanian community.
“Tasmanians lost close to $16 million in September, much of that from problem gamblers, which is a shameful state of affairs given how many Tasmanians are already struggling to make ends meet,” Mr Booth said.
“That now takes the total of losses to almost $134 million over the nine months since January this year alone.”
“The Greens and social welfare groups have been concerned for many years that pokies are doing far more harm than could ever justify the tax revenue they raise.”
“Governments need to wake up to the reality that pokies are a recognised social cancer that splits families, drives up crime rates and leads addicts into suicidal depression.”
“Tasmanians lose more than $200 million per year to poker machines, which is why the Greens support a $1 bet limit, plain packaging and local government control for pokies and mandatory pre-commitment, as temporary measures leading to an eventual ban.”
“Although this figure is down from the same period last year, it is still $16 million dollars lost and another 16 million reasons why we should rid the scourge of pokies from the community”
“Poker machines don’t just do damage to the addicts themselves, they inflict harm on families, businesses and entire communities.”
Reference: Electronic Gaming Machine Expenditure by Rolling Year, Dept of Treasury and Finance
http://www.treasury.tas.gov.au/domino/dtf/dtf.nsf/6044ee0c1cf958a2ca256f2500108bba/cd36bfc11d136484ca2575e10006e703?OpenDocument
