The Tasmanian Greens Gaming spokesperson Kim Booth today announced a cost-neutral five year plan to rid poker machines from the Tasmanian community permanently.
“Our plan is to use the revenue currently raised from taxing pokies to pay for the permanent removal of these addictive machines from the community,” Mr Booth said.
“To achieve this we will create a Pokie Transition Adaptation Fund to receive the money that’s currently lining the pockets of the monopoly holder Federal Hotels.”
“The fund will provide financial support to pokie venues to help them transition away from a reliance on gambling revenue.”
“It will also be used to put in place strong harm minimisation strategies throughout the transition period, including a $1 bet limit on all pokies.”
“Every night in Tasmania there are children going to bed without meals and waking up in the morning without a school uniform to wear, because of pokies.”
“In just the last five years, Tasmanians have lost more than $1 billion on poker machines.”
“That’s money that should be filling up the cash registers of hard-working local small businesses. Instead this money is being funnelled from the pockets of gambling addicts into the pockets of the already-wealthy.”
“It’s time to shut down this disgusting form of government revenue-raising once and for all.”
“The Greens are the only party with a policy to completely rid our state of the scourge of poker machines.”
A copy of the People Before Pokies policy initiative is available for download:
http://tasmps.greens.org.au/sites/greens.org.au/files/u8532/.pdf/Mar03_People%20Before%20Pokies_K%20Booth.pdf
Tasmanian Greens Gaming spokesperson Kim Booth
