Pokies pub’s bid to extend its trading

The Claremont Hotel’s application to extend poker machine playing until 4am should be turned down flat, writes Kristie Johnston

POKER machines, and the devastation they cause, are back in the news, with the Claremont Hotel wanting to extend poker machine playing until 4am. It is obscene.

Of course the application needs to be turned down flat.

If the Glenorchy Council can’t or won’t reject the application, the government should legislate poker machine trading hours.

Have you heard of the “Golden Mile”? It refers to the string of half a dozen or so pokies pubs that stretch along the main road between Moonah and Claremont; but the only “golden” thing about it is the river of gold it returns to the poker machine industry: nearly $2m a month, just from venues in the Glenorchy municipality.

I know what I’m talking about. I was an alderman on the Glenorchy City Council from 2011 to 2021, the mayor from 2014, and now I’m a member in state parliament with my electorate office on Main Rd, Glenorchy, right in the middle of this “Golden Mile”.

For more than a decade I’ve witnessed the dreadful damage that poker machine addiction causes to individuals and families, and the tragic consequences of ripping $2m every month out of this largely working and welfaredependent community.

My community.

Now the Claremont Hotel has applied to extend its operating hours to 4am, mirroring fellow Golden-Miler the Elwick Hotel, which has been open to 4am for several years.

A few months ago I visited the Elwick at 2am on a Monday morning to see for myself who could possibly be playing the pokies at that hour. There were a dozen or so people totally transfixed by the machines. That’s not recreation: no one plays pokies at that hour of the morning unless they are addicted.

These are real people, experiencing real harm, and the Claremont Hotel wants a piece of that action. How disgusting.

It galls me that the poker machine industry and their political partners – by that I mean the entire Labor and Liberal parties – glibly promote the pokies as a form of entertainment while doing everything they can to turn pokie players into problem gamblers.

The sad reality of the gaming machine industry is that the business model has nothing to do with pokies as harmless fun but on creating then retaining problem gamblers.

The industry barons know this, but it suits them to push the “entertainment” shtick. And apparently they still sleep at night.

Opening hours for poker machine venues need to be wound back. That aside, there are two further opportunities right now that our politicians could grasp that would reduce poker machine harm.

The first is to tighten up the Responsible Gambling Mandatory Code of Practice, which is currently under review by the Liquor and Gaming Commission, in particular areas of the code relating to advertising, inducements and player loyalty programs.

In my view, there is no