I have a gambling problem … it’s my government
3 February, 2012
By Andrew McKenna
In Australia we are suffering from a massive failure of public policy. The decision made today at the VCGR is a symptom of a deep illness within all our governments. Julia Gillard’s recent publicly broken promise to Andrew Wilkie is another.
On the VCGR’s About Us page they proudly claim: With a strong community focus, the Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation administers Victoria’s gambling legislation by licensing, educating and advising members of the gambling industry and the general public.
The first part is laughable. ‘With a strong community focus’. The jury has been back for a long time on the damage gambling does to communities.
Our State and Territory governments are chronically dependent on gambling taxes, which account for an average 10 per cent of their revenues, and are higher in Victoria (13 per cent), South Australia (13 per cent) and Northern Territory (17 per cent).(1)
State and Territory governments show little interest in protecting us, their citizens, from gambling-related harms. Despite so-called ‘harm minimisation’ measures, gambling losses and harm to individuals, families and communities continue to rise.
In 1983, the Victorian government appointed a board of inquiry to consider whether to introduce poker machines to Victoria. The board’s report ran to 800 pages and recommended they NOT be introduced. (2)
The NOT was in capital letters and on the first line of page one. Pokies were legalised in Victoria nine years later, and every shade of government since has embraced poker machines and their revenue.
A 2010 Victorian Department of Justice report found that pokies were the second biggest cause of crime, behind drug addiction.
A 2005 report by the SA Centre for Economic Studies found that 3.2 jobs are created for every $1 million of gambling income. By comparison, for liquor/beverages it’s 8.3 jobs and for food/meals it’s 20.2 jobs. (3)
Australia had 20.4 per cent of all the world’s poker machines. Additionally, the SA Centre for Economic Studies found that 42.3 per cent of every dollar going through a poker machine was coming from a problem gambler. Around 40 per cent of this tawdry $11.9 billion industry is fed by desperate Australians with a gambling addiction. (4)
These problems are well known in Australia and internationally. The Reverend Tim Costello, speaking in Castlemaine in late 2010, told the story of how a group of Lords from the British Parliament had visited Australia to investigate ‘how to avoid the Australian disaster’.
And the benefits? The captains of the gambling industry have enjoyed benefits, vast profits from public licenses, virtual licenses to print money.
A Sydney Morning Herald investigation found the biggest NSW clubs donate just 2.7 per cent of earnings back to communities. Despite promises of largesse from the MHS , the organisation is planning to come to Castlemaine to make money. It’s that simple. You don’t give your profits away, despite vague promises of $200,000 ($50,000 in cash and $150,000 in ‘free rooms’) and if there were ever an industry more focused on profit than the gambling industry please point it out. And $50,000 is a minute percentage of the forecast revenue from this planned venture.
Bishop Jeremy Alston had a piece in the local hard copy media recently, suggesting we were being divided by tough issues, such as the swimming pool and the poker machines. He suggested we needed to respect each other’s opinions and work our way through, to find our common humanity.
It is nevertheless difficult to find commonality with an industry that has lied and cheated to get its way, that is fixated on power, greed and money and cares nothing for local communities.
The VCGR surely had its tongue firmly planted in its cheek when it wrote in its ruling that The Commission has considered the likely social and economic impacts of the proposal and concluded that there will be positive economic benefits to the Castlemaine community if the application were to be approved.
But then, the VCGR is an arm of government, and what are its commissioners but bureaucrats on the public payroll, 13 per cent of which comes from gambling?
1.Risky business: Why the Commonwealth needs to take over gambling regulation, Alfred Deakin Research Institute
2. It’s criminal how pokies can turn people into hopeless addicts, The Age
3. The South Australian Gambling Industry Final Report, Commissioned by the South Australian Independent Gambling Authority
4. Risky business: Why the Commonwealth needs to take over gambling regulation, Alfred Deakin Research Institute
Read about other lies from the poker machine industry
Read the complete archive of poker machine stories by clicking the problem gambler at left
Posted in Economics, Employment, Ethical Investment, Featured slide, Health, Live in Castlemaine, Local news, Politics, Social Justice, Top Stories
February 3rd, 2012 at 11:27 pm
I keep hearing the MHS is out for profits but what would their motivation be for such actions?
I understand the board members are honorary so who would benefit from these illicit profits?
February 4th, 2012 at 8:38 am
There is no suggestion in this article that the board members of the MHS are privately profiting. The club has an ageing demographic and they need to expand their operations to survive.
They already draw $5 million from the poorest shire in the state. If you have juiced one market, you must seek another. Simple law of capital.
February 4th, 2012 at 11:47 am
Great and well researched article Andrew.
EPIC has lost round one to a biased organisation (VCGR). Biased due to the fact that staff salaries are paid in part by gambling revenue.
Jill and I would like to contribute $$$ to take this issue further– to the High Court if necessary.
We have different life values here. We will win this battle. We have to win this battle because the Castlemaine community wants to look after its own.
February 4th, 2012 at 1:22 pm
Be truthful and suncere to ourselves without outside interference.”GAMBLING HURTS” large sectors of community.win or lose we immediately consider the downsides of winners and losers.
Do we ever HONESTLY praise winners, or do we hand over token praise.The same applies to losers but in the obverse.do we ever laugh at a gambler who has no food money pocketed.NO!
Should we shame those as a last step resort In that they may seek help.
Why oh why as a community do not stand up and tell the truth. A council managed community referendum MUST be held and folks MUST be held to account for NOT being open and truthful,
Castlemaine is a close network town and need venues for community arts, community health and
Welfare.A space where our community can learn skills to enhance our welfare and ot see it plundered by gambling disease.
SPEAK UP NO MORE POKIES FOR CASTLEMAINE because its nigh too late
February 5th, 2012 at 7:12 am
I was naive to think that the gambling regulator (the VCGR) was somehow independent from government. Duhhh.
The disparity between the Commission’s “Guiding Principles” and the reality shows the Commission to be nothing more than an arm of government hell bent on imposing more poker machines where ever they see fit.
Guiding Principle #1
Community: The VCGR serves the community by delivering the safest and most responsible outcomes in an efficient way.
The VCGR does not serve the community when 574 objections were received about these 65 machines then totally ignored.
Guiding Principle #2
Integrity: The VCGR balances independence and accountability to regulate with impartiality, fairness and consistency.
The VCGR is not fair and impartial when 574 objections were received about these 65 machines then totally ignored.
Yet they consistently ignore the voices of the people like in the Jan Juc case.
The VCGR claims to have “a strong community focus”. I suggest the focus is strong for the gambling industry and government and non-exsistent for the rest of the community especially when 574 objections were received about these 65 machines then totally ignored.
The VCGR has an approach -”Commission members are independent which means that decisions are made without influence from industry, community groups or government.”
Reading that, one wonders why the VCGR exists at all.
And ultimately – “The VCGR is a statutory authority reporting to the Minister for Gaming.”
So if there is a problem with the way the VCGR operates, talk to the government of the day and of course the reply will be that the VCGR is an independent authority.
I am now certain that the VCGR does not “value community” as it says it does when 574 objections were received about these 65 machines then totally ignored.
The parallels between poker machines and heroin (or ice or speed etc) is interesting.
Both need a mister big, both need distribution points, both need trusted people, both need cash and both need addicts.
With pokies, governments are the mister bigs and every pub and club is a distribution point.
(yeah, bit like alcohol and tobacco, but we know that)
I now have the view that if a big part of a community does not want pokies or more pokies, it’s best to bypass the VCGR and go straight to VCAT.
Save a lot of time and money especially when 574 objections were received about 65 machines then totally dismissed.
February 5th, 2012 at 11:21 am
10 seriously positive ways to resist Poker Machines in Castlemaine.
1. EPIC have done a great job thus far. But don’t be passive and expect EPIC to do it all. The VCGR may have dismissed the EPIC group as a ‘noisy minority’ or suggest that our community will still be a great place to live with more gaming machines – don’t let VCAT do the same.
2. Write out your own objection to a planning permit. VCAT must take note of individual objectors. If 500+ objections didn’t sway the regulators, then make it a couple of thousand. VCAT decisions are not swayed by problem gamblers (weird but true) or even expert witnesses. They are swayed by local community involvement and local culture and Supreme Court decisions. Those saved Jan Juc and Romsey in the end. Get Involved!
3. Read how one objector – just one objector with a good (actually great) argument convinced VCAT that another poker machine venue in Preston was a bad idea. She didn’t just take on the VCGR – she took on her own council……..and won! Go to the Austlii website and search for Rennie v Darebin CC [2010] VCAT
4. Write to the Victorian gaming minister Michael O’Brian and tell him how a trebling of poker machines will affect our community and you as an individual. Recall his words stated as the Opposition Spokesperson when Justice Morris initially agreed to poker machines at the hotel in Romsey “ the decisions make a mockery of Victoria’s gaming laws and show that the Government is happy for the legitimate concerns of local communities to be ignored”. Remind him that he said that!
5. Join the Maryborough Highland Society. Yes that’s right join up! Get with the new culture. Attend their patch and disrupt their sense of wellbeing! Talk to board members. Mingle with the drinkers in the beer garden, hang around the terse atmosphere and horsey stuff at the TAB, and nurse budding cancer cells into activity in the smoking room (all good legal family fun!) But don’t forget to exercise your voting rights to indicate that ‘we’ should curtail ‘our’ empire building to communities that actually want more poker machines.
6. Set up a Saturday night peaceful picket line outside the MHS Clubrooms. Remind the MHS members every week that the objections to more poker machines in Castlemaine are not going away any time soon.
7. Contact the Environment Defenders Office and ask them to come up to Castlemaine and do a community workshop on the ins and outs of VCAT, and getting involved. The Environment Defenders Office might even be willing to assist EPIC in the legal challenge. Either way they are the most valuable resource for communities attending VCAT.
8. Sign a pledge that you will not use or frequent the MHS should it be forced on this community. Wear the T shirt! Make the MHS think again.
9. Write to local community based organizations and ask them not to accept funds from the proceeds of problem gamblers. Our clubs have survived for a long time with just plain old community support and effort and they should be justifiably proud of that: they don’t need easy money from the proceeds of someone else’s loss.
10. Write to Adam Bandt, Nick Xenophon Steve Gibbons and Julia Gillard and tell them how the machines will hurt our economy, and our community or culture and how government inaction on gaming machines is hurting micro economies like ours, by not having firm laws in place to respect community choice.
February 5th, 2012 at 7:34 pm
The Government won’t sanction and tax the sale of heroin because they realise the social devestation it causes. Why have they not applied the same rationale to problem gambling?