COUNCIL DOING THE RIGHT THING IN OPPOSING POKIES

THANK God someone is making a stand on the pokies situation.

City Hall has refused to allow more poker machines in Leopold.

We, as a community, need to stand together and take a clear look at this and also speak out.

Here in Geelong we have lost $118 million in a year on the pokies. $18 million alone was lost at the Grovedale Hotel and the Sphinx.

Has anyone else caught on to the fact that $18 million was the amount raised by all the hard-working people for our wonderful Royal Children’s Hospital?

Does that say anything about priorities?

How much is contributed to our hospitals by the pokies?

Sadly, most of the pokie venues are clumped together in areas where there is the most need.

The long-term deprivation of the children of the people using these will be felt for generations to come.

Welfare groups are run off their feet in some areas, whereas in other areas where the pokies are absent they rarely get called.

With no contact between the welfare groups, it is like throwing mud at a brick wall with none of it hitting the target and, frankly, I believe it is actually making people dependent on hand outs.

Try putting pokies in affluent areas and there would be an outcry.

Stick to your guns CoGG on this blight on our community and, please, I just hope the community will speak as one and say “enough”.

Margaret Wedding, Belmont