Poker machine reform has been talked about on and off for years now, but it has never seemed to get off the ground. With sports gambling, on the internet in particular, becoming more and more pervasive, it looked as if the pokies would take a back seat when it came to gambling reform. The intrusion of betting into people's homes, with odds constantly thrown at them as they watch their Saturday football, where they don't even have to move to make a bet, seemed a more likely target. However, it's back on the table and it's all because of Andrew Wilkie.
Being from Perth, pokies are essentially alien to me. They are banned here, even the ones at our casino take a bit longer to play and involve an actual game of poker. Our pubs are free of them, there's no dingy back room populated with one aged pensioner and the local masturbator. We don't have them in our RSL or Leagues Clubs, because we don't have any RSL or Leagues Clubs, well we have RSLs, but nothing happens there. In fact we never leave our houses. If you've got mineral wealth we'll take you for all you've got, we'll even disenfranchise large communities just to get it, but we haven't based our economy on ripping off people who can't afford it.
From my position poker machine reform is a no-brainer. I find the large scale defence of poker machines to be utterly staggering. I cannot believe that anyone, particularly MPs, can be in favour of the current situation. I find the Liberal's position absolutely ridiculous. They are in favour of full welfare quarantining for Aboriginal People in the Territory, where people are registered, given cards and forced to shop at Woolworths, but try to make someone do something far less onerous so they can throw a pre-determined amount of money away in Sydney and they scream nanny state. Bull. Shit.
Clubs Australia, the association of clubs that rely on pokies for revenue, has launched a multi-million dollar campaign to sink the reforms. Obviously, they believe that allowing people to pre-determine their potential losses will lose them money, enough money to blow $20million on advertising without blinking. This is as clear as an admission that they primarily make their coin off people losing more than they intended. Claiming that the money goes back into the community is not a defence, you could argue the same thing for a community run heroin dealer, it doesn't make it right. Feeding off misery is feeding off misery.
Andrew Wilkie has come out this morning and stated that he has received death threats and attempts at blackmail over this issue. The response from Clubs Australia almost immediately was to essentially call him a liar, ask him for proof and feign outrage at an accusation he hasn't made. Their CEO Anthony Ball stated that there is no way this came from one of their members. Really? No way at all? I mean, Clubs Australia is probably a pretty tight ship, there's absolutely no possibility at all that one of their 4000 members didn't read the 'No Death Threats or Blackmail' memo in the bimonthly newsletter. There's no way that someone might take the law into their own hands. That never happens.
This is a passion project for Andrew Wilkie. He made it part of his deal to support the Government, so I suppose it's a passion project for them too now. It will be a hard road. Certain State Governments make millions in taxes from these machines, and Tony Abbott's position has more than a whiff of hoping that cultivating opposition to this may get him into the Lodge.
An opportunist to the end.
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