Xenophon on Tuesday joined other lawmakers in Sydney to launch a campaign to encourage workers in pokies clubs and those involved in manufacturing the machines to expose secrets behind what he called “the electronic locusts of the 21st century.”
‘Un-Australian’
Australia seemed close to enacting new safeguards in 2010, when independent lawmaker Andrew Wilkie agreed to support Julia Gillard’s minority Labor government in return for stricter rules on slot machines, including allowing a maximum bet of A$1.
After a campaign by club lobbyists branding the measures “un-Australian”, Gillard tore up her deal with Wilkie. A subsequent change in government to Turnbull’s Liberal-National coalition killed any chance of reform.
The pokies lobby’s influence compares to the power wielded by the National Rifle Association in the U.S., said Tim Costello, Alliance for Gambling Reform spokesman. He said the states and the gaming industry have helped pokies “to spread, particularly through the poorest postcodes, and it’s a willful blindness by the federal government to say, ‘well, who cares?’”
“There really isn’t that clear need for interference from the federal government” because the states license, regulate and collect revenue from the gaming industry in their own jurisdictions, Minister for Human Services Alan Tudge said in an interview. While he would prefer that poker machines were restricted to casinos, such as in Western Australia state, it was too late to “unscramble that egg.”
‘Harm Minimization’
“Labor believes that well-regulated gambling has a place in Australian society, as long as appropriate harm minimization measures are in place,” said Julie Collins, the opposition party’s spokeswoman for gambling. She said Labor was continuing to examine reform proposals.
On the suburban fringes of national capital Canberra, the sprawling gaming and dining facilities of the Vikings Club offer pub-style meals and alcohol at discount prices, plus a choice of more than 200 poker machines. The group owns four clubs around the city, with 702 machines earning about three-quarters of its revenue.
While Anthony Hill, Vikings chief executive officer, said his clubs may have become too focused on gaming revenue rather than sporting facilities, he dismissed the need for further legislation.