It seems that independent MP Andrew Wilkie’s luck has run out. After winning support for his mandatory pre-commitment scheme in exchange for his vote during the hung parliament, Julia Gillard announced the policy was a loss on the weekend after it failed to get enough crossbench support.
Gillard instead unveiled her own policy to tackle problem gambling, which includes a $250 ATM withdrawal limit, machines that support pre-commitment technology and a 12-month trial of mandatory pre-commitment in the ACT starting in 2013.
An angry Wilkie says the government can’t always count on his support now and he expects a “warmer” relationship with the Opposition. Wilkie says the government will suffer from backing down on the gambling reforms. “It will be damaging for them as far as the government’s reputation, character-wise, to have failed to honour a promise,” declared Wilkie. The Greens are now calling for $1 maximum bets, which Tony Abbott immediately said he would not support.
Embattled Labor MP Craig Thomson — he of the alleged embezzled union funds used to pay prostitutes scandal — wrote an op-ed for today’s Daily Telegraph congratulating NSW Labor MPs for securing the “commonsense approach”, rather than supporting Gillard’s claim that the policy backflip was due to a lack of crossbench support.
While not entirely throwing his leader to the wolves — “the PM provided judgment and skill to course a path that is sensible and logical”, Thomson noted that to go ahead with the mandatory commitment scheme would “have flown in the face of proper policy making” and that the Gillard turnaround is “a big win for NSW Labor MPs” who fought against it.
Thomson is likely to continue his role in the spotlight. “The Coalition will home in on suggestions of political interference in the Fair Work Australia investigation into Labor MP Craig Thomson, as a possible trigger to persuade independent Andrew Wilkie to support a vote of no confidence in the government,” reports Ean Higgins in The Australian.
It’s not actually as bad for Gillard as it seems: Wilkie doesn’t want an early election and Kevin Rudd was encouraging leadership rumours over the pokies reform issue, notes Philip Coorey in The Sydney Morning Herald:
“Gillard emerges from the encounter with her unfortunate reputation as a deal breaker enhanced and the Opposition Leader armed with fresh material. But the Prime Minister has defused an issue that was tearing Labor apart and destabilising her leadership.”
But, adds Coorey, it’s not NSW Labor MPs or Tony Abbott that is the biggest winner of this policy change:
“The clear winner out of the saga is the cashed-up lobbying industry. Just as the minerals sector tore down Rudd — and almost the government — over the mining tax, the club and hotel groups, with their seemingly bottomless pit of gambling revenue, have prevailed here.”
Dr Jennifer Borrell, author of the book Understanding Problem Gambling, agrees in an op-ed in The Age:
“Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s capitulation to the powerful poker machine industry is a blow to democracy in this country. Governments are meant to represent the public interest, not be intimidated by industry campaigns against reform in marginal electorates.”
Gillard is leaving a trail of broken promises, declares Dennis Shanahan in The Australian:
“Labor starts the political year amid more accusations of betrayal, untrustworthiness, broken promises and policies without conviction. Seen from outside, it’s another politic fix and another political mess.”
Actually the Gillard government just wanted to get the focus off pokie reform and instead onto the the economy in the face of financial crisis in Europe, argues Daniel Flitton in The Age:
“Pokies reform was all anyone wanted to talk about. Would it happen or not? The debate was sapping morale, giving Tony Abbott another reason to belt Labor and made it almost impossible to send out other ”messages”, as the politicos call them, on the economy.
A backbench delegation went to Gillard before Christmas and pleaded to cut Wilkie loose.
Labor strategists then decided it was better to take another hit to the government’s credibility than keep fighting a long and likely losing battle over an issue it didn’t really have its heart in.”
We may as well shut down Canberra and acknowledge that BRW’s richest list makes the laws in Australia.
Each day we’re faced with yet another capitulation from a spineless Labor Party egged on by a venal Coalition.
The pokie problem is not problem gambling addicts but problem gambling revenue addicts.
This pokie reform business ended up a right camel of a thing… no one would own up to actually designing it… couldn’t find a father for the thing anywhere. It was “the best we could do”… technically feasible but politically convoluted and complex.
There is unquestionably solid support in the community for doing something about “problem gamblers”. But it needs to be simple, direct and effective.
For my part I’d start by stopping these gadgets doing what they are designed to do. By psychologists no less. No more bells and whistles. No more pretty flashing lights and sirens. Just really really boring and repetitive… chook battery stuff. Pouring dough down a slot. At least the chooks get a feed out of it. That’s probably a state government option there.
A simple $1 limit feels nice. And cutting back the number and the sheer ubiquity of the things would be excellent. Even if the state government have to buy back some rights. Like water.
None of that involves any fancy gadgets cards and asking people to make actual decisions designed to reduce one’s ability to make decisions.
But a serious approach is predicated on getting the clubs, pubs and state governments off this addiction to the torrent of cash pouring from the pokies. Cold Turkey is not feasible economically or politically.
That means doing some serious empirical work on how much a club provides real support to local social and community life and how much government assistance and what sort of concessions they should attract for doing so. Measure the thing.
At least this money stays in Australia, the money to buy jobs in VIC and SA goes straight to Detroit to support their share holders. The independents should bring this government to an end ASAP for the sake of good government. Unfortunately they only care about staying in parliament for the next 18 months, not the people they represent.
It has been demonstrated again that no Australian government can take on a powerful commercial interest and hope to prevail. Cashed up and you don’t like a government policy? All you need is several million dollars to fund a disinformation campaign and the government will eventually cave. You’ll have a good chance of free support from large sections of the media (including Murdoch tabloids and commercial talk radio). The Coalition is normally on the side of money so no problem there.
In the campaign you don’t need to worry about facts, let alone credibility. Any outrageous claim and it will go largely unchallenged in the popular meida, e.g. there’ll be an end to childrens’ sport (what, there is no kid’s sport in WA?); it will cost $5 billion to implement ($25,000 per machine? They’ve got to be joking).