A lifelong Sydney publican told me a story about the days not very long ago before pokie machines were legal, when there were machines installed that weren’t supposed to pay cash prizes. Yeah, right.

He said the outfit who supplied the machines told him there was no problem paying out cash and the police were sweet, but he was a bit nervous about it. Shortly afterwards, the publican was behind the bar of his inner-city establishment as a couple of cops walked in just as a jackpot went off and the punter called out to him that he had won a few hundred dollars. The police didn’t blink. NSW was functioning just fine.

It still does. If you’re the Australian Hotels Association, you pays your money and you gets your government, same as always. It might not be illegal pokies, it might be a total non-enforcement of the 14-month-old anti-smoking laws, but it’s just the same.

The SMH splashes the story nicely this morning. Showing how FOI can still work, Andrew Clennell and Belinda Kontominas report that there hasn’t been a single prosecution commenced since the smoking laws came into effect in July last year despite more than 400 complaints being filed. A quick SMH survey of 16 Sydney pubs found nearly half breaking the law.

“The lack of enforcement leaves the Government open to accusations it is going soft on hotels before the election in March,” observes the SMH. “The industry donates more than $1 million a year to the ALP.”

Confronted with the story, the Minister for Health (cancer) Frank Sartor said the government was about to move from “education to compliance”. Prosecutions would begin soon.

Bet “soon” isn’t until after the March election and that they will then be pursued with all the vigour of an emphysemic alcoholic. And who was the health minister who introduced the anti-smoking regulations? Someone called Iemma.