Politics and gambling in Australia
Gambling policy debate in Australia is usually a hot pretty hot topic. Largely because Australians like to gamble so much.
According to the Australasian Gaming Council the average Aussie gambled $1,112 during 2009 making them just about the biggest (per-capita) gamblers in the world. $626 of this was related to play on poker machine (slots) showing the Australian love affair with these money swallowing machines seems to be strong as ever, but just about every form of gambling is popular from lotteries to wagering and casinos…including online.
With big bucks and tax revenues on the line I guess it’s no surprise that gambling is never far from the headlines or government policy agenda. Parliamentary inquiries, Productivity Commission reports, special focus groups…you name it, there’s always some form of official fact finding and recommendation process going on.
Just last week another one surfaced. A ministerial expert advisory group will be established to advise the soon to be formed Joint Select Parliamentary Committee on Gambling on future gambling policy, including online.
Will it change the way Australians gamble? Unlikely. Will the whole process cost taxpayers plenty? You bet.
But from the government’s point of view at least they are seen to be doing something, and the fancier the committee name and the more esteemed its members the more you are seen to be doing. But this isn’t the primary motivation behind the new initiative. The primary motivation actually had very little to do with the government’s stance on gambling policy and a lot to do with a desperate need to get re-elected.
You see in order to form a minority government following a recent general election the Labor Party needed to win the support of a small handful of independent MPs one of whom was a man named Andrew Wilkie. Mr Wilkie’s support came with conditions and being an opponent of gambling (‘pokies’ in particular) one of those conditions was a government re-think on gambling policy. If Mr Wilkie was a mad keen punter (ie like the majority of his fellow countrymen) the story would have been very different.
Interesting how policy agendas are set isn’t it?
Related pages:
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!