Dirty Money … the real story behind the Liberal State Election win

“Today’s returns show that the poker machine industry donated over $400,000 to the Liberal Party during the 2017-18 financial year,” Mr Wilkie said.

“This is a mind-blowing amount of money in itself. But it’s all the more alarming when you consider all of the spending that isn’t disclosed, such as the money the industry spent running ads in support of the Liberals’ poker machine policy.

“Accepting poker machine industry donations is all the more immoral when you consider that so much of this money is harvested from gambling addicts. Indeed the research shows that some 40% of poker machine revenue comes from gambling addicts and the Liberal Party is well aware of that. The effect of this addiction is horrendous.

“The returns also show both the Labor and Liberal parties on a national level raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars from the industry.

“No big political donor hands over money without expecting a return on that investment and the poker machine industry sure did hit paydirt at last year’s state election. The industry donations fuelled the Liberal Party to victory and with it four more years of fawning political patronage for the rotten poker machine industry.