While it was shocking to learn NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet wore a Nazi uniform as a costume to his 21st birthday, I wish I could say I was shocked by the supposed impetus behind the reveal.
Undoubtedly internal party politicking was part of it, but the other major factor was the gambling industry and its desire to quash NSW’s desperately needed reform.
For decades the gambling industry has worked as a puppeteer in Australian politics, and nowhere more so than in NSW. At times it has felt like a more effective shadow cabinet than the actual opposition, and that is definitely the case now.
When you “follow the money” in this tangled political web, it leads right to the gambling industry and its borderline racketeering behaviour in protecting profits — profits that so often come from human misery via poker machines that are deliberately designed to addict people; designed by psychologists, no less.
The greatest of these profits come from the suburbs and people who can least afford the losses, thanks to the intentional location and targeting of stressed communities by the industry.
The proposed gambling reforms in NSW are sensible and would have the dual benefit of not just reducing gambling harm but also preventing possibly the easiest way to launder money that exists anywhere in the world.
A card that allows people to set a limit before gambling on poker machines with losses capped at $1500 a day is hardly an infringement on civil liberties. Surely extracting a hypothetical $547,500 a year from people is enough for the gambling industry?
There aren’t many Australians earning that much, let alone able to afford to lose that amount.
These reforms will also stop the almost 87,000 poker machines in NSW being so easily used as effective money-washing machines, as was recently demonstrated by satirical comedy group Boy Boy. They went into poker machine venues wearing T-shirts saying “I’m here to launder money” and made a huge show of what they were doing, yet were not stopped at multiple venues.
That’s because turning a blind eye to money laundering and gambling harm is integral to the gambling industry’s predatory business model. Just last month it was caught out in blatant push-polling against NSW’s essential poker machine reforms.
It’s hardly surprising given it’s had success in the past with political tricks: the industry flexed its political power against former PM Julia Gillard when she tried to introduce poker machine reforms more than a decade ago. That was when the Labor Party learnt just how large the arsenal of the gambling industry is.
Now it seems Labor is scared it will happen once again. NSW Opposition Leader Chris Minns could all but neuter the power of the gambling industry on this issue by offering his support for the reforms. As demonstrated in Tasmania, the first state to introduce a mandatory cashless gambling card with pre-set loss limits, when there is bipartisan support the industry’s ruthless lobbying is defanged.
There’s strong support for reform among Labor voters, and the highest harm occurs in the working-class suburbs Labor is meant to represent.
I’m forever perplexed that more people don’t care about this. The parallels between the dangerous power the gambling industry wields in Australia and the gun lobby in America are obvious. Yet the US gun industry is openly acknowledged and discussed here with mocking and disgust, while Australia’s gambling problem continues unabated, busily rotting our democracy while destroying families and devastating our communities.
Minns surprised some with his measured response to the Nazi uniform saga. There is now a once-in-a-generation opportunity for change — he can surprise again and make an extraordinary difference in ushering in much overdue and critically needed gambling reforms in NSW.
It is time to stop the rot.
Do you think the gambling industry is behind Perrottet’s plight? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
Wouldn’t it be great if all political parties (state and federal) stood up to the gambling industry. If they worked together instead of playing politics everyone would win, barring the industry of course.
There does not seem to be direct evidence, but the cui bono principle plus previous conduct puts the gambling industry and its creatures at the head of the list of suspects.
Retiring MP David Elliott apparently delivered the news to the Premier. A former board member of Castle Hill RSL Club and XO at the Australian Hotels Association.
What a coincidence!
Yes, I’d be thinking the gambling industry has been holding onto this particular piece of kompromat for use at precisely the right time. Which was last weekend. Of course, no one will know exactly what happened until after the election. You have to wonder what else these extortionists have in their arsenal, and how far back this behaviour goes.
Capt Renauld wouldn’t have believed that the Russians blew up Nordstream but even he’d be ‘shocked, shocked!, I tell ye‘ at the calumny heaped on the beneficent gambling industry which is trying so hard to be a good corporate citizen.
Thanks for that article, Tim.
My take on all this (for what it is worth and I know that is “precious little”), is that this gambling industry should be shut down completely. I am not interested in tinkering around the edges with it by introducing “cashless cards” and more restrictive advertising on the industry. The gambling industry is a cancer on our society. The sooner it is excised completely the better. The people who run it could not care “two-hoots” (to put it politely) about the social, economic, and criminal mayhem that results from it. Like all “good capitalists”, all that matters to them are the profits that can be made from selling their disgraceful and nefarious products to the gullible and vulnerable.
As far as Dominic Perrottet’s grave indiscretion goes, this is nothing more than a convenient distraction from the gambling issue in the forthcoming N.S.W. election. I do not like the Liberal Party that he belongs to (I have never voted for it at any level of government in my life). I do not like Perrottet’s Catholicism (another blight on humanity), however I feel some sympathy for this man. He has readily owned up to his indiscretion and issued numerous groveling apologies for it. He has not sought to blame others for his mistake. We all did silly things in our teens and early twenties that we later regret as adults. Accordingly, I would urge voters to ‘lay-off’ Perrottet and focus on the real issues in the election. There is no more serious and central issue than the threat to society posed by the egregious and vile gambling industry.
Could’t agree more.
As an avowed atheist, non-liberal voter I’ve got zilch in common with Perrottet but utterly respect the stance he’s taken on pokies.
I remember Gillard’s sell out. Now we have Minns doing it too. Apparently he does not understand how obvious it is that he has been bought. I don’t want someone like that as premier.
Against all previous predictions I will vote for Perrottet. I don’t want a sleazy industry to think they can get away with this underhand behaviour.
Minns does not need a trial period. He could examine the Tasmanian experience.
Choosing the lesser of two evils, near enough. We have far too many spineless politicians, but Minns is a jellyfish. Give him some credit though – unlike Gillard, he’s sold out before the election, so at least the voters know in time.
Sorry no credit. His failure on this hurdle is a key indicator of how he will proceed. He wouldn’t get my vote now, and the ALP will not get my money.
You prove my point – that’s exactly why he deserves credit (but not your vote). He’s given you all the information you need to cast your vote appropriately. Unlike Gillard.
I don’t understand the claims of a sell out. Minns has promised to: stop political donations from the gambling industry to all parties (removing them as with developers from direct political influence); reduce the poker machine loading limit from $5,000 per machine (what possible purpose could the average person have for loading $5,000 into a single poker machine?); and implement a trial of cashless gambling in at all machines in a number of venues across NSW.
It doesn’t sound like Minns is selling out – particularly when compared to the NSW Coalition government that has done nothing while in power and is only promising to have a look at it after the election (at leat no policies have been proposed so far).
Anyone who has seen the damage that pokies do to our communities and the lives it destroys knows that nothing will change until politicians stand up to this lobby. We need a bipartisan bill to ban the pokies outside of casinos and tax the industry until it is a fraction of its current size.