The Tasmanian Greens today released figures showing that about one billion dollars would be lost to poker machines in Tasmania before Federal Labor’s promised reforms took effect in late 2016.
Greens Gaming spokesperson Kim Booth MP said the calculations were based on recent Treasury statistics, and showed that Tasmanians stood to lose somewhere between $1,017,464,290 and $1,123,931,635 between now and the end of 2016.
Mr Booth renewed the Greens’ call for Labor and Liberal to support the Greens’ push for a state-based $1 bet limit, saying Tasmania can no longer afford to wait for Julia Gillard to take action on poker machine reform, especially given her habit of breaking signed agreements.
“Even if Julia Gillard’s watered down mandatory pre-commitment reforms eventuate in 2016, they will be too little, too late for Tasmanians who will have lost over one billion dollars by then,” Mr Booth said.
“The loss of more than one billion dollars into the coffers of the pokie barons, a large part of which comes straight from crime or is taken from the family budgets of problem gamblers, is a cruel and amoral situation that must be addressed.”
“Both Labor and Liberal are effectively acting as stand over men for the robber barons by providing legislative protection for what is nothing more than a racket.”
“It is way past time that Labor and Liberal stood up for the victims of this indecent racket rather than defending the robber barons who prey on the families of pokie victims.”
“Think of it as a cheque for one billion dollars that Labor and Liberal are holding in their hands, which they can choose to either deliver into coffers of the gambling industry or hand back to the Tasmanian community.”
“Everybody now knows Labor doesn’t care about pokie victims, however the Liberals have a chance to recover from their cowardly retreat from their election policy and agree to support the Greens’ $1 bet limit legislation currently before parliament.”
“A $1 maximum bet limit for pokies is endorsed by the Productivity Commission as a simple but effective harm minimisation measure, which costs less for industry than mandatory pre-commitment, and which would reduce the rate at which gamblers are able to lose their hard earned money.”
Download: Fact sheet based on Tasmanian Gaming Commission Data, Kim Booth MP, January 2012:
Jan23_Projected_Poker_Machine_Losses_2011-2016_K_Booth_ATTACH.pdf
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