Labor pokies ban yet another deal with Greens to destroy jobs

As

a Liberal who believes in freedom of choice and individual responsibility, Labor’s vow to spend $55 million of taxpayers’ money closing small businesses and buying out jobs is unfathomable, especially when 99.5 per cent of Tasmanians are not problem gamblers.

This money should be spent on health, education or critical infrastructure like roads — $55 million would pay for about 550 new nurses.

Labor’s policy is paternalistic, nanny-statism “government-knows-best” at its worst. According to Labor, the people of Glenorchy cannot be trusted with poker machines, but if you live in Sandy Bay where the casino is, go for your life.

Worst of all, Labor’s policy will hurt small business and cost jobs for no real impact on gaming. Even their own policy document concedes more than 70 per cent of pokie gambling will move to casinos or online.

In terms of addressing problem gambling, Labor’s policy is essentially pointless.

You’ve got to ask, what exactly is this policy all about?

Well, history shows Labor has form on spending taxpayers’ money buying out jobs to appease the Greens.

Who could forget the disastrous Labor-Green forestry deal, where hundreds of millions was spent paying sawmills to close and for hardworking Tasmanians to join the unemployment queue. History is repeating. Again we have Labor cutting a deal with the Greens by picking up a Greens’ policy and running with it. The only difference this time is it has happened before the election, rather than after it. What’s next? Arguably, alcohol and fast food cause much greater health and societal damage than poker machines. Are these next on Labor’s hit list?

What about the salmon industry, which the Greens oppose? Or the guns that farmers own for legitimate crop-protection purposes?

I want to be clear. The Liberal Party acknowledges that for a very small percentage of gamblers poker machines are a problem.

The latest Social and Economic Impact Study of Gambling in Tasmania (2014) reports that about 0.5 per cent of Tasmanian adults are problem gamblers.

That is why we have continued to support a comprehensive harmminimisation framework that is regarded as best practice and one of the strongest in the country, and includes the Responsible Gambling Mandatory Code of Practice, which has been recently reviewed by the independent Tasmanian Liquor and Gaming Commission.

In addition to the mandatory code, some of Tasmania’s most effective harm-minimisation measures include a complete ban on note acceptors and ATMs in poker machine venues, and the Tasmanian Gambling Exclusions Scheme, which allows gamblers who have recognised they have a

problem to bar themselves from venues with pokies.

The Social and Economic Impact Study — an independent, peer-reviewed study — found that Tasmania’s suite of harm minimisation measures are effective in reducing the expenditure of at-risk gamblers without affecting the enjoyment of the vast majority of Tasmanians who gamble responsibly.

These measures are working and as the study points out, the number of Tasmanians who gamble overall is reducing, the amount they spend on pokie machines is reducing and importantly the percentage of problem gamblers has also reduced as well.

But we know there is more that can be done and under our policy we will continue to focus on improving harm minimisation.

This government (not Labor and the Greens) introduced a new community interest test so local communities can have their say about where poker machines are placed and, importantly, we will do away with the monopoly and put the network licence to the market.

We will not be banning things just to keep the Greens happy, with scant regard for the jobs and regional economies. We will not penalise 99.5 per cent of Tasmanians by taking $55 million out of the budget to buy out jobs.

Tasmanians should be able to make their own informed choices rather than being told what they cannot do. We have a clear vision to take Tasmania to the next level and that is what we are focused on.

We will not ban things just to keep the Greens happy, with scant regard for the jobs and regional economies.