With the Queen having sprinkled her magic on our nation, and the sniff of the sport of kings in the air, a battle royal is fast brewing over pokies. On one side are Australia’s bunyip aristocracy and elite. Rich, powerful and masterfully connected, they are used to getting their way.
On the other side, the very plebeian will of the majority - the common sense of the common people. This royal battle which would normally be settled behind closed doors is now public and transparent and will be a watershed test for our nation.
With James Packer and his thousands of Crown pokies emerging to join Channel Nine, the NRL, some AFL clubs and state governments - not to mention the $20 million advertising spend from hotels and clubs - the line up is complete. All the vested financial interests are singing from the same song sheet. Their chorus line is ‘this will not work and it is totally up to individual responsibility with some extra counselling thrown in’. Little wonder Tony Abbott chose to align himself with them.
On one thing they agree. We must stop reform of a dangerous yet highly profitable product or we will lose some of our easy money. That is a product where the average losses can be up to $1200 per hour, a product banned in many places in the world and limited in others like the UK to low loss machines where average losses are $30-$40 per hour.
This is a seriously dangerous product as evidenced by the Productivity Commission findings that 40 per cent of profits come from addicted people (making up $5 billion of the $12 billion lost to pokies annually).
And what is the pokies lobby answer to this dire situation? Just more gambling counsellors. They know perfectly well that counsellors usually only come in after the damage is done. A shinier ambulance at the bottom of the cliff is not enough - we need a fence at the top.
Against them is the consistent public opinion as represented in over seven opinion polls over six months that support pokies reform.
Money, political power and owning the media can buy a lot of misinformation. Have a look at the lies so far.
You will need a licence to punt. No - nine out of 10 players will need no card because they prefer to play the $1 maximum bet machine or low loss machines where the most damage you can do is $120 per hour. Only those who want to play the high loss machines will need a card where they must set their own limit before play.
Community groups and junior sports will be ruined. I would invite Tony Abbott to have a look around Perth. There are no pokies outside the Burswood Casino, yet there are plenty of clubs and sport. WA has the highest rates of sport and community participation, while NSW - which is dominated by pokies - has the lowest on the mainland.
It will destroy jobs, say the pokies lobby and James Packer. Again not true. For every $1 million spent on hospitality it creates 20 jobs, spent on retail 10 jobs and spent on pokies 2.1 jobs. Pokies are the job destroyer.
It is too costly and unfair to the industry to have to change the machines. Last year the Victorian Government insisted on bringing the maximum bet down from $10 to $5 on all machines with no fanfare or cost. It just required a change in the algorithm used by the system.
A similar change could be made to bring maximum betting down to $1. Furthermore, the cost of fitting a pre-commitment card to a high loss machine is in the region of $1000 to $2000 per machine, according to the SA Regulatory Gaming Authority - not billions as claimed by the lobby.
At one level James Packer is right to say ‘action against problem gambling must be the right solution’. The right reform would be to have no high loss machines anywhere so that no pre-commitment card would be needed at all. This was Andrew Wilkie’s initial proposal.
The Gillard Government understandably considered industry concerns in designing the reform and made a generous concession by leaving the industry with dangerous machines ($1200 losses per hour obviously results in big profits for the industry) but with a pre- commitment card to help problem gamblers.
And look how respectfully they have treated a generous concession and a reform that helps vulnerable people – they called it un-Australian.
But the industry seems hell-bent on treating any proposal that would make a real difference with fury and disdain. Surely the time has now come for the industry, and the politicians that have been suckered by their campaign of deception, to have a re-think.
It’s time for them to come back to the table and face up to the responsibility they owe all Australians.
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