Wilkie, the pokies and the need to Do Something
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Not for Andrew Wilkie this business of establishing the Government’s fiscal position and identifying the impact of election commitments on the Budget before entering substantive negotiations with the major parties. Nope, he issued his list of demands yesterday, seemingly omitting only world peace, an end to poverty and the cloning of the thylacine. But introducing maximum bet and loss limits on poker machine, and more funding for Hobart Hospital, are apparently Wilkie’s threshold issues. Yesterday Stephen Mayne, a long-time pokies opponent, backed Wilkie and called for the buying-back of poker machine licences. Mayne was a Senate candidate in Victoria on a pro-immigration and anti-pokies platform and it was great to see someone fighting back against the concerted bipartisan campaign against immigration we saw during the campaign. However, I part ways with Stephen on pokies. Not out of any love of gambling — in my view, gambling on chance is a self-levied tax on innumeracy, and gambling on racing animals funds a vile cruelty — but for the simple fact that, like smoking, adults should be allowed to do whatever self-harming activities they want without hurting others, as long as the social costs of their behaviour are covered. And by the way, I have some family experience of the impacts of drinking, smoking and gambling, so I know what “social costs” really are at a household level. The Productivity Commission (whose recommendations Wilkie wants to implement) last year estimated that the social costs of gambling were at least $4.7b pa. It also estimated, from state budget papers, that governments reaped just over $5b from gambling. On the face of it, gamblers therefore pay their way for the indirect costs they inflict on society. There’s a separate issue of how much governments should reap by way of taxation beyond “recovering” the social costs of gambling — on that rough calculation, governments aren’t getting very much by way of tax revenue beyond their costs — but that’s fiscal policy. There’s already a very strong moralistic strain in Australian public policy — I’m desperately resisting the urge to use that phrase — when it comes to censorship, drug use, the use of the internet and the status of gay and lesbian couples, among other areas. But the heavy dependence of state governments on gambling revenue has created a tension between the tendency to reflexively condemn certain forms of gambling and the need to prop up government revenues with taxes on wagering. And poker machines are where those two urges collide: they generate lots of revenue but, so the narrative goes, they are a mechanistic, solitary, addictive form of gambling conducted in darkened rooms and aimed at the lower classes, compared to, say, the social, convivial, outdoors, essentially Australian form of gambling to be had at a horseracing event. The kingmaker status thrust on the likes of Wilkie by the election outcome — or, more correctly, the refusal of 144 of his soon-to-be colleagues to deviate from two-party orthodoxy — can only exacerbate this deeply intrusive and illiberal tendency. For all our delusions about rugged individualism and mockery of politicians, the impulse to demand that governments Do Something runs deep in the Australian character. Desperate politicians willing to cede to third-party demands in order to cling to power are particularly likely to start regulating where there is no compelling social need for regulation. |
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65 Comments
Wilkie is showing signs of becoming the House of Representatives’ version of Fielding.
How long before he also dons a bottle suit?
The whole ‘independents’ thing is starting to wear thin. Why should the whole country be beholden to (and governed at the whim of) people whose avowed aim is to look after their own electorates - sure, that part of it is their job, but should they determine who governs?
“[G]ambling on racing animals funds a vile cruelty” - so true, Bernard - bravo for saying it. But in that case, it’s not just a “self-harming activity” “adults should be allowed to do … without hurting others”, because it IS hurting others - the animals.
If your readers want to know more about one such vile cruelty, check out http://horseracingkills.com/ban_jumps_racing.php
Much as Bernard may be correct in his libertarianism, the die on this is cast. If there’s one thing Andrew Wilkie is known for in Hobart, it’s his ‘pokie loss counter’ ute and associated anti-pokie campaigning. Accordingly, those who voted for or preferenced him knew exactly what they were getting on this score, and presumably endorsed it.
If ever anyone had a mandate to Do Something, it’s Andrew Wilkie on pokies.
Bernards libertarian claptrap around adults being be allowed to do whatever self-harming activities they want without hurting others, as long as the social costs of their behaviour are covered do not bear scrutiny in this instance.
Societies greater understanding of the effects of passive smoking have led to a raft of legislative changes designed to limit the impact of smoking on those who choose not to smoke.
The impacts of “passive gambling” are in fact, far greater than those caused by passive smoking, especially in the way that they impact upon children.
I have absolutely no doubt parents choosing to spend $100 - $200 a week supporting their nicotene addiction can have serious ramifications for the living standards of their life partners and/or children. Nonetheless, I suspect this impact is minimal when compared to families where one or both parents regularly below many hundreds or in some cases thousands of dollars a week playing poker machines.
I am also disappointed that Bernard neglected to mention that aside from our gambling tax addicted state government, the biggest beneficiaries of revenues from poker machines in Australia are the Packers, Coles and Woolworths who now own over 12000 machines
Of course, this is not the first time we’ve seen Libertarian ideology used in making arguments that are in essence really all about protecting the profits of big business to the detriment of average working people
We may need to wait for the next crop of independents to force the most crucial - and generally least discussed - issues onto our thoroughly tamed political duopoly.
Malcolm Fraser dropped a heavy hint on Q & A last night, when he warned eloquently about the overweening power of News Corp.
http://sydwalker.info/blog/2010/08/31/malcolm-frasers-warning-about-the-power-of-news-corp/
Then again, the major parties could take up the issue of media reform themselves…
Two policies are confused here. Putting a limit on the speed of money loss is easy and achievable and hardly a matter that should be considered a red hot liberties issue.
Buying back pokie licences is one of those fantasy causes that have no hope of ever being realised. Although next time a gambling industry figure claims that pokies are merely another form of entertainment, and not a sad mixture of fraud and desperation, I could be tempted to support the proposition.
Personally, this is one of Wilkie’s policies that I could take or leave. I’ve no strong feelings about it either way. I am inclined, as you are, to the view that if people are stupid enough to put their money (or even worse, money they’ve embezzled or stolen from others) into slot machines instead of putting food on the table and paying the rent or the mortgage and then their family suffers then that’s just tough on those who … hang on … that just doesn’t sound right.
Filling our gaols with embezzlers or making innocent third parties suffer doesn’t sound all that flash. It is a tricky one.
Actually, Wilkie’s proposals sound fairly modest. He isn’t proposing anything that would absolutely prevent people from spending stupidly on the pokies. He’s essentially saying: this stupid and no further.
I’d be in favour of much more intrusive intervention — the kind that would make it much harder to enjoy being on the pokies for long and even harder to lose much doing it. You’d have to play with a smart card, that would have a balance that was readable in all clubs. You’d be limited to no more than 5% of your income in any given year (based on your last tax return) so some guy on $50k could only spend, on average, $50 per week, and you couldn’t spend more than that in any 7-day period. Every 40 minutes in the venue 25% of the machines, chosen by their MAC addresses, would shut down and not restart for a random amount of time between 20 minutes and one hour. People playing would be locked out for at least 40 minutes and would simply have to find another machine or go to another club.
Not only that but the spin cycle on the machines would be longer, about twice as long. People would be given randomised but simple multiple choice trivia questions and until they got three right in a row, the cycle would not continue. Again, this interruption to the flow of the game inhibits compulsive behaviour and would slow down the loss rate.
This system would fall short of an outright ban, and so respect freedom, but it would make self-destructive behaviour a lot harder to compound. In the end, people could still have their afternoon at the club or a hotel playing the pokies but it would be a lot less costly.
Smoking is a little different to gambling as smoking is a public health issue. While not a big fan of government intervention per se, I can see the argument when applied to improving the health of society. However I fail to see why the government should intervene in regards to gambling. There doesn’t appear to be a public health issue, only a public wealth issue. If people want to spend their hard earned on a daily flutter at the doggies, why should the government stop them?
Re Scott’s comment, these days gambling is considered a public health issue. The best PH policies that have worked for binge drinking/heavy drinking are those that seek to reduce the amount of grog consumed. Not prohibition. The same applies to pokies/gambling generally. Reducing the amount of money put through machines is, to my mind, a sensible strategy given the devastation limitless throughput can inflict on families, individuals, etc. Bernard your ‘lower classes’ (whatever that means?) are frequently pensioners, the unemployed, blue collar workers - and the odd academic! Pokies are often used as entertainment. But for some they are also (and I hate this word) addictive. When there’s not much happening in your life, or too much to bear, it’s a distraction. Pokies are also used by many pensioners who use clubs/pubs for cheap, subsidised meals. Their ‘gaming’ is purely because of the physical proximity of the machines to the restaurant, and a result often of loneliness. You probably disagree with all of that.
Wilkie is going to be very, very difficult to work with no matter who he decides to support. He’s going to be such a self-righteous prig that he’ll make Steve Fielding look good.
“he issued his list of demands yesterday, seemingly omitting only world peace, an end to poverty and the cloning of the thylacine.”
Actually, Bernard, I am sure Wilkie referred to his list of 20 points as his “priorities” and repeatedly denied it was a Wish List. Certainly not a “list of demands” as you so coyly term it. He has, effectively, given the two major parties an insight into his special interests - they can study it and woo him accordingly.
The Wilkie list was definitely not making demands.
Nobody and nothing can make Fielding look good. Fielding raised parliamentary stupidity to an art form.
Wilkie is an educated man, and a person of humanity and principle. He’s also very astute. While I regret him saying he’d hand government to whoever did a deal on RHH and pokies, I regard this as simply his way of staying non-committal while playing the game that independents have to.
I doubt either side will go for that. So he will be forced to do it on the basis of the NBN and a carbon price.
Probability classes for anyone who gambles over $100 a week should be made compulsory. They must pass the course before they can’t go back to gambling!!
Profile: Andrew Wilkie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wilkie
oh! just a though Andrew Wilkie was an ethical Defence whistleblower but it appears he has a far more sordid past history way way back. Wilkie was a third class (read Senior Cadet) at Duntroon cadet from the Bastardization years at RMC, 1984. He started in 1980 and graduated in 1984! so he should be asked why he said “nothing back then” and now he wants everyone to know he was Right and Howard lied about Iraq and WMD.
Seems kinda two-faced to me. If he is going to hide under a rock or be the next Steve Fielding, then who was Officer Cadet Wilkie in 1983? because the AGE of mystery over who he is going to support - begins there.
http://about.theage.com.au/view_profile.asp?intid=844
ANDREW RULE broke the story on bastards at Duntroon in 1983 while Andrew Wilkie was a Duntroon cadet (1980-84) and a member of the young Liberals .
“While he has worked in various areas, Andrew currently focuses on feature writing and investigative reports. The stories for which he is most proud, he says, are those that have had an important social or political impact; the kind of yarns that have helped “right the wrongs”. These include his 1983 article exposing the physical and mental torture of cadets at Canberra military college, Duntroon (the publication of which embarrassed the Hawke government and the Australian military)”
“Desperate politicians willing to cede to third-party demands in order to cling to power are particularly likely to start regulating where there is no compelling social need for regulation.”
“accede” rather than “cede”? Cede is a transitive verb; it requires a direct object. For example, you might cede power to someone.
Does Bernard feel that wearing a seat belt impinges upon his personal freedom?
All Mr Wilkie proposes is a sensible public health safety measure. The Productivity Commission found puts 30% of those who regularly pokie gamble addicted or at risk of addiction, a truly harmful product. Government research shows that the $1 bet won’t affect the recreational gambler.
No need to buy back anything.
If revenue loss is the worry (it shouldn’t be) then it’s solved by equally taxing all who derive income from pokies. Stop the billions lost through tax breaks given to pokie clubs for their questionable social contributions. See Chapter 6 of the Productivity Commission’s final report.
Wilkies pokies machine reform is the only realistic item on his wish list.
The other stuff he’s requested like a brand new Hobart hospital(A *STATE* Responsibility Wilks!), a Hobart railway system(A *STATE* Responsibility Wilk!) and the shut down of Gunn’s Timber Mill is really disneyland stuff.
He might as well ask for a dozen unicorns and a handful of pixies on his wish list.
@LEONE - IMHO the only thing that would look good on Fielding is a Doberman Pinscher. While Wilkie may be a tad eccentric, Fielding is as mad as a mad thing on a very mad day (and disgustingly horrible to boot!!).
I wasn’t aware up till now that Mr Keane was a card-carrying member of the loony libertarians. What Wilkie is proposing is broadly similar to the Productivity Commission’s findings.
No-one is proposing an outright ban on poker machines. What they are proposing is putting sensible limits how much people can gamble (and lose) in short periods.
In NSW currently, you can gamble up to $10 a spin on some machines. Handy tellers are placed in handy proximity to machines, which can swallow $50 notes.
The ease of access to gambling in NSW and Victoria in particular has helped to make Australia the worst country in the developed world for problem gambling.
This creates enormous social costs and personal heartache, not just for the gamblers, but their families, friends, employers and the wider community.
I say all power to the likes of Mr Wilkie and Mr Mayne in what seems to most rational people as a sensible and progressive reform.
I see sour grapes here… Sour grapes that *your* local MP doesn’t have a position to do similar things. You had your chance to elect an independent.
As a libertarian myself, I agree with David Sanderson on this one:
There is a big difference between taking away people’s free choices, and using financial and other regulation to influence social policy.
John Stuart Mill had something to say about the difference between choosing to behave self-destructively, and encouraging others to do so for one’s own profit:
- On Liberty, chap 5
What are we then to say about state governments that depend on such a sordid business for their revenue, and are motivated to protect it? Such a government may begin to resemble those vice gangs which ruled Chicago in the 1920s. Not a good look.
What I am really enjoying is seeing the cosy consensus between the two major parties upset. The neoliberals have had their day for too long, and it’s quite amusing to see the rising panic among the media “experts” about the independents and their wish lists.
More power to them I say.
I say melt the lot of the disgusting things down and make saucepans or something vaguely useful from them.
I look into pubs every now and then and see the desparate and destitute hanging over one of the things to “win” and they always lose.
I have seen people lose their homes, their kids, go to jail and for what? I spent one hour in the Canberra working mans club and put $1 in a machine in 1988 and was so bored in 5 minutes I went and got drunk instead.
Much more productive.
No-one is proposing an outright ban on poker machines.
Well I am, Mr D. Pokies are gambling at its most vegetative. They’re also a good way to kill music scenes. Wilkie’s plan doesn’t go far enough. Trash them all and dump them in the Derwent.
And I thought you were an environmentalist! With a plasma incinerator you could recover and separate most of the material for useful stuff. No dumping needed.
Fran Barlow, good point.
Or perhaps a similar fate I recently suggested to the Brisbane City Council regarding an ugly ‘architectural’ metal structure in King George Square ie: melt it down and make spikes for golf shoes.
My brother worked for the Greenbank RSL Club years ago and the win setting was about 12-15% return on a dollar. The club was good till they filled it with over 240 pokies , and he was seeing people lose over $300-400 a day on the machines. It has stuffed the social gatherings of the club, Bingo , Keno and pokies and the bet on anything that moves in the public bar, betting screens everywhere. It is a sole-less place to go to. The beer is flat and dear , the food is not cheap and is crap . All food is out sourced to Catering firms. All staff are out sourced and private sercurity toss the drunks out with force. But they line up everyday to get in. I thought that Lotto was a game for people that cannot count , but Keno, Bingo and pokies are too . Burn the pokies.
the only good thing about that stupid whitlam song was the chorus ‘Blow up the Pokies’…
Once you quantified the social cost, Bernard, you lost me. Some things can’t be quantified.
@TheTruthHurts
Sure, hospitals and railways are state issues, but pokies are too.
That’s a bit rough, BGLilley, he did no such thing. Try reading more than three words of the article.
No dumping needed.
Point taken, Fran. However, I should also point out every now and then I attempt to write figuratively, not literally. Sometimes I fail. This appears to be one of those times. I thought the cheap alliteration would be a giveaway, but no.
Huh, Freecountry? His entire article runs from the premise that: “but for the simple fact that, like smoking, adults should be allowed to do whatever self-harming activities they want without hurting others, as long as the social costs of their behaviour are covered.”
And please, no quotations from On Liberty in response. I’ve got no interest in what some dead utilitarian thinks.
Coalition just too lead again in 2PP. By 500 votes!!!
Looks like some seats in the Labor column are close to being called close seats again by AEC. eg Robertson
BGLILLEY - It may sound cold, but social costs can be evaluated this way: If society could cut the incidence of, say, alcoholism or gambling in half by means of some magic pill, how much would society be willing to pay for it? Suppose this magic pill would cost society the equivalent of Australia’s entire tax revenue … would I personally be willing to pay double my current rate of tax to cover it? What about a 50 per cent increase? 25 per cent? 10 per cent? And so on. Ask millions of people the same question, and you get society’s aggregate estimate of the social cost.
That’s fascinating and all, freecountry but I thought you said Bernard wasn’t mentioning that…
Just because something apparently “can” be done, it doesn’t mean it isn’t flawed (quantifying emotional/social costs inevitably is) or should ought to be done.
I knew that Saigon … I just wanted an excuse to mention plasma incinerators …
OK, the quantifying bit was my own answer to your point. What Bernard Keane said was something very different:
I think many of us could say the same, whether it’s drugs or gambling, or something else. So to answer your point maybe more tactfully than I did before - I agree, money can’t cancel it out, and there are no magic pills.
The “dead utilitarian” as you call him, is a very persuasive thinker, nothing more. I could have paraphrased him without attribution, but that would make me sound smarter than I am. But many libertarians really do swear by Mill, so it’s interesting - and potentially a very powerful political argument - to see that even the grand sage of liberty did not oppose using the law to shut down antisocial vice industries while still allowing people free choice in their own lives.
Especially ironic, seeing the way Mill distinguishes between those who choose to destroy their own lives, and those who get rich from helping them do it: states that depend on big gambling revenues fall into the latter category. If they stop doing so, then shortfall in gambling tax really will have to be made up by some other revenue. And people really will be asked: “How much extra tax are you willing to pay to clip the wings of those monstrosities?”
I always wonder about these cost-benefit analyses in areas like social cost. It sounds rubbery to me.
If people spend less money on the pokies, will they just stuff the money under a mattress? I suspect not. It’s likely they will spend it on something else, which might or might not be better for them and any dependents they might have but will almost certainly be taxable. And if people don’t embezzle, then presumably the costs will be lower. Prosecuting people is expensive and locking them up isn’t cheap either.
I read somewhere that the wealthier you are, the less likely you are to gamble. I’m not sure if that means that wealthy people don’t gamble or that gamblers are less likely to be wealthy.
Dead Right Bernard! The facts are that poker machines are losing popularity in Australia. For example, in Victoria, adult expenditure on poker machines peaked in 2002 at about $695 pa. It is now in the region of $630 — despite greater disposable income since 2002.Punters are voting with their feet.There are fewer venues, and fewer poker machines [egms]
There are 3 and a half times the number of alcoholics in Australia, compared with problem gamblers. So will Andrew Wilkie and Stephen Mayne next turn their attention to banning alcohol.?Alcoholic products can be feely advertised throughout the land — you can’t advertise egms in Victoria or most of Australia — yet alcohol is infinitely more addictive and dangerous than poker machines. It leaves permanent impairment of brain capacity, whereas reformed gamblers are unimpaired and may even return to gambling without being “re-hooked”. Amuses me to see inebriated friends deploring expenditure on egms, on public welfare grounds!
Secondly, the electors are also voting with their feet.In this very uninspiring election how many votes did Stepen Mayne achieve on his ante-pokies platform for the senate?This very public figure, with multiple platforms from which to preach, achieved 4400 votes — about 0ne-twelth of the vote of the Sex Party. Personally I wish egms had never come to Australia. But the opposition — partly hypocritical, partly plain illogical — is breathtaking
Finally, Crikey has started to ask questions of the independents. Wilkie is a political opportunist that would make Mark Arbib blush. About time his free ride is over.
@ Kwickcounter: Mr Wilkie is not proposing a ban on pokies but a limit on the maximum bet. The per capita poker machine gambling statistics in Australia are of paramount concern. I wish I had some numbers at the ready but really, they are omnipresent. It’s a no brainer for me, less pokies and decrease the ability for mug punters to punt their weekly wage in 15 minutes flat.
@ Bernard Keane: I’m not so sure I follow your logic. Apparently, you are espousing that any product or action that is merely self-harming has no right to be legislated against, just be sure to whack some resources into flow on social costs and she’ll be right mate.
“…adults should be allowed to do whatever self-harming activities they want without hurting others, as long as the social costs of their behaviour are covered.”
So cure is better than prevention by that rationale? Correct? Everyone can do what they want to themselves, just make sure there is support and money for those affected by adverse consequences of this you-beaut individual free-for-all. And can you demonstrate how much of that $5b dollar you scream about is directed back towards problem gambling?
Can I make some suggestions for your world view?
- Aristocrat Poker Machines: Now with integrated EFTPOS and Credit Card, PIN or Sign? Please insert your Fly Buys Card or Everyday Rewards Card.
- Fathers Day Promotion: All Dads receive $20 FREE pokie credit thanks to XYZ Pub. Come on down, there’s a Wii room for the kids whilst Mum and Dad bring home the bacon!
- Heroin: 95% Pure China White, $100/gram, Buy 1 Get 1 Free for the entire month of January, only at Amcal Chemists!
- Ice: Smoke it, snort it, ingest it, you can even stick it up ya bum! Sleep is yesterday’s news! Grab a gram today and get this FREE bonus decorative glass pipe. Offer exclusive to Chemmart and only whilst stocks last.
You claim the moral high ground, albeit reluctantly. I claim you’re a fool.
GRATTON WILSON,
Please see this paper by Worthington et al, Gambling participation in Australia. Researchers using ABS household expenditure data found that:
* Gambling correlates not so much with income level, as with how income is earned
* Wage and salary earners use them more, self-employed people and pensioners use them less
* The 50-69 year old age group puts the most money into poker machines
* Parents with dependent children are less likely to use poker machines (they buy scratchies instead)
* NSW residents use pokies a lot, WA residents hardly use them at all
* Gambling tax doesn’t make much difference to poker-machine usage, although it does affect TAB betting
Kerry Packer was a bit of a connoisseur of (and benefactor to) casinos, sometimes losing tens of millions in a single day, and also once bankrupting a London casino in a single day. But he was a special case; rich folks mostly gamble on the stock exchange.
The big difference with the stock exchange is that (a) it’s a positive-sum game in which you tend to win more than you lose, and (b) it serves a useful working-capital purpose for society.
Some anti-capitalists will jump on me for saying that, but consider this: Suppose people’s instinct to gamble could be somehow diverted into a speculative component of their superannuation funds, just imagine how much better off they would be. Not to blow their whole retirement fund on prospecting of course, but a limited component, say ten per cent of a person’s super fund in a given year. 90 per cent of any big winning would be transferred into the managed-fund component, with just ten per cent added to the speculative component.
@Adam Bell - finally someone making sense here.
No one can argue that gambling is not an issue, whilt our government continues to tax it on the basis of providing for future Problem Gamblers with the proceeds.
To not reform gambling policy because it may upset the gravy train that is tax revenue from it is even more appalling. Here we are trying to implement a direct cost on carbon emmisions, that may or may not reduce the effect carbon has on our climate, but we will not stand up and say that gambling has an effect on our lives, that clearly it is.
We applaud the bipartisan support for the Intervention in NT Aboriginal Communities, and the sale of unsniffable petrol, yet we stand by and watch millions of dollars bleed from white australians, the majority of whom are living in the lower end of the socio- econimic spectrum, all in the name of liberty
I’ve got it! Re-build the Hobart Hospital as a pokies venue. People who frit their life-savings away will then be investing in the future of health-care.
BERNARD KEANE,
As a big-picture man, you might be interested in the taxation problem. I mentioned earlier that dependency of some states on gambling tax presents a moral hazard to social policies, making them effectively pimp states. Gambling taxes on average make up one tenth of the internal revenue collected by states, according to the PC report (table 2.1, page 2.3)
Like the dreadfully inefficient stamp duties on land transfer, gambling taxes are levied not by choice but by necessity. Commonwealth approaches to taxation and state funding, and a long history of High Court rulings, have painted the states into a corner where they cannot use efficient taxation methods, and at the same time cannot rely on the Commonwealth to fund them effectively.
See pages 37-38 of this paper on the state of Australian federalism, by the state intergovernmental Council for the Australian Federation (CAF).
The Henry Tax Review noted the same problem (10.2 State Tax Reform):
The gambling problem is just one of many social problems which cannot be properly addressed without a root-and-branch approach to tax reform.]
Until Canberra stops messing around with populism and starts taking the Henry Tax Review seriously, people like Andrew Wilkie are wasting their time.
I felt quite frustrated and annoyed at reading this article so I decided t just join up to Crikey.
I wonder at what self interest Bernard Keane has in poker machines because I am baffled as to why he may feel threatened or fearful of regulating this destructive industry. I say fearful because ignorance is born out of fear and I can only call this article short sighted and totally ignorant.
It amazes me that Bernard thinks that social costs can be quantified via fiscal measures……’as long as the social costs of their behaviour are covered.’ How do you quantify depression, mental illness and suicide associated with an extremely insidious addiction? Maybe you are just grand standing Bernard…..’look at me, i’ve never been and never will be afflicted by such silliness.’ You make it sound like it’s a choice Bernard! Be careful what you wish for……..
‘Desperate politicians’…….like there’s any other amongst the ALP/LNP at present……’willing to cede to third part demands’…..that’s what most people call democracy and you use emotive language very cunningly to make it seem inappropriate………’in order to cling to power’…..very emotive and likely to bring great cheers from audiences from the like of Alan Jones (not that they would be visiting this site)……..’are particularly likely to start regulating where there is no compelling social need for regulation.’ Tell that to the mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, sons, daughters grieving a loss. And not a financial loss!
Your ignorance astounds me.
I’d like to qualify the above. I claim you’re a fool on this issue. Anything further would be casual slander!
Having just joined this site i’m not sure whether this FREECOUNTRY dude is serious or not. I’m quite certain it’s just some young lawyer, just out of Uni, trying to sound smart, maybe even interesting to some, by quoting/referencing Mills and various papers in order to take the piss………………having a laugh surely!
If only life was so black and white……life’s probably easier to categorise or comprehend when the blinkers are securely fixed.
Deadly serious, sir. Tax policy may be boring to you, but that’s more likely to reflect your all-round education level than its real effect your life and on a whole range of social problems including gambling.
Like others, you missed the whole point of the Mill quote. The most powerful popular argument against regulatory control of the poker machine industry (as distinct from the real reasons some governments support it) will be the free choice angle which Mr Keane mentions. Mill may not be the Second Coming for serious political thinkers, but he is the most well-known popular source of libertarian ideas, so the above quote can be used to explode that argument quite effectively.
A bit more thinking and a bit less judging that which you don’t understand would enable you to get much more out of your reading. Good luck with your new subscription to Crikey.
Fair point, i’m not sure whether the last paragraph is still a quote from Mill though!
Your idea of ‘thinking’ is obviously different to my idea of ‘thinking’, just a belief thing. I do find it ironic though that a gambler who is addicted to playing poker machines does so as to not confront their emotions while hiding behind a machine; a quasi intellect hides behind their script and verse in order to not confront their emotions by hiding behind books. Both life coping mechanisms, albeit the latter one far less destructive. Fear motivates both these behavious.
I have two problems with some of your arguments that don’t seem to add up to fact. The first one, was the data you used as evidence from teh study by Worthington et al. We are all aware of how easy it is t manipulate statistics and you have done this very craftily. You have conveniently missed the following points that would have been more worthy of a balanced argument:
* Only 6,892 households surveyed
* Data taken from ABS records in 93/94 and 98/99 when poker machine licenses were far lower than current numbers in the last decade, particularly places like Crown Casino.
* Productivity Commission (1999) calculated average gambling expenditure at $821 per person, the survey/study you refer to has the average at $470 per person. A huge variance that calls most of their findings into question. Your a numbers person….what would you consider a reasonable variance, say 5-10%. It calls the study into question, particularly understating gambling amounts by participants.
The second contention I had with your comments was reinforcing the quote by Keane stating “And by the way, I have some family experience of the impacts of drinking, smoking and gambling, so I know what “social costs” really are at a household level.”
I laughed when I read that because it so reaked of the homophobe saying ‘I have homosexual friends’, reminded me of Tony Abbott on Q&A before the election when asked about gay marriage. Bollocks of an argument……..
Well, we agree on something: “Your idea of ‘thinking’ is obviously different to my idea of ‘thinking’.”
I had a client whose hairdressing salon was ripped off by staff a member that manned the counter. Alarms got installed beeping when the front door was opened after repeated theft, real noisy. Afterwards, the money ended up being stolen by a mid 50 year old Russian immigrant(counter staffer), eventually they found out who it was. Before that, she reported it being ‘pilfered cash register’, they ran out the door, no description’ 2 times… to the police.
She had the charm happening big time, with home visits. A number of elderly clients lent the bitch money through made up stories. Where’re talking thousands of dollars, double digit at least - about 5 elderly involved.
All went on pokies…
I agree with Wilkie’s pokies measures. Do you know some Schools in Queensland have 40% of the kids arriving to school without any breakfast or lunch. The cause in over 70% of the cases is that the parents have lost their wage / welfare on the pokies.
Go on your Wilkie and Xenophon.
@Outstanding …… - are you really surprised about anything that happens in ‘Darwin’s waiting room’?
@ Tom
No. But we need to fix it fast for the kids sake. Screw the pokie manufacturers, the State governmenst addicted to pokie tax, we need to help the helpless.
@ Outstanding … No argument from me in context of the basic principal …. but ….. in the world in which we live, you try and get political support for a decrease in gambling revenue tax of $XX Billion, a decrease in manufacturing export revenues form companies making the bloody things (if they can’t sell them here will they continue to manufacture them here?), the XX thousand jobs that will be lost …. etc etc etc
Would require a Government of conviction which after the recently demonstrated ‘race to the bottom’ is more than some way off. The fact that Wilkie and Xen-a-whats-his-face now hold real power and are holding out I’d suggest is, as you describe yourself an ‘outstanding result for Australia’!
TOM - Exactly. That’s why I mentioned tax reform above. Readers can say “Just fix it!” until they’re blue in the face. But until the states either regain the ability to levy broad-based taxes, or receive back the GST that they generate — without any strings attached, as we were led to believe they would in 1998) — any serious reforms to gambling legislation will only appear to receive strong support, but then mysteriously fail to get enacted.
Fair’s fair. The states never abolished stamp duty, as they were supposed to.
MESKI, the states abolished numerous taxes but the Commonwealth used GST to replace previous state funding, not to supplement it, and continued the practice of using Special Purpose Payments (SPPs) to supplement the GST with strings attached. Often highly complex and political strings. They are prevented from collecting things like fuel taxes (ruled to be “levies” by the High Court and therefore unconstituitonal), and Australia is the only federation in the OECD in which states can no longer collect income tax.
For a more thorough explanation of the states’ point of view on this, please see Australia’s Federal Future, section 4.5 Fiscal Federalism, pages 142-159. Quite an eye opener for those of us used to hearing from federal ministers about how everything is the states’ fault. Australia is the most un-federal federation in the OECD, and the states are barely able to function.
They will not be able to simply go cold turkey on gambling tax unless they can collect something else in its place.
Excise, I meant to say. Ruled to be an excise by the High Court. Anyway the report I linked above goes into more detail. And the Ken Henry report I quoted above is a good starting point for appreciating the problem.
You can’t seriously demand that Ken Henry’s mining tax be implemented without demanding at least a serious consideration of the other 137 recommendations. One of which was announced but so watered down as to be a slap in the face; another just a simple adjustment of a percentage rate; and the other 135 simply ignored.
Latest election news from Down Under:
Back stabbers win by attacking one-armed bandits !!
PM claims to have moved forward.
@Graham: You know, some newspaper’s going to use those lines now.
Social cost of gambling $4.7b p.a, direct and indirect cost of obesity and obesity related illness at $37.7b p.a. Time for a pre commitment card to limit our fast food spend?