25th July 1999
For once I find myself agreeing with John Howard - on the gambling issue. Last financial year, Australians lost $11 Billion and on the projections will lose more than that amount in the current year. We must remember however, that we are not driven at gunpoint to the racetrack or the casino or indeed to the local RSL. Australians gamble because of one single emotion - greed! Before some think that I am about to be born again, I state without equivocation that I am a gambler. I have owned a good racehorse and I regularly attend at the major events at the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival. I no longer have a lot of money and my betting is on an extremely minor scale. Having said that, I do not go to the casino and I hate poker machines.
I will defend the horseracing industry as it is part of the Australian culture and it employs thousands of Australians in the country and the cities. It has its problems with drugs and the crooks who try to rig races but I still think that it is a sport worth preserving.
It is no secret that our lazy state and federal treasurers and their bureaucrats love gambling taxes. They flow in a constant stream and the gamblers do not resent them as they do conventional income and other taxes. With gambling taxes, the treasuries do not have to over use their brains to dream up new, palatable taxes(except for the odd GST) and they are spared the onerous task of tackling cutting government spending which really gets up the nose of all the minority lobby groups in our midst.
Governments must however accept the responsibility for the massive increase in gambling. It is governments who grant casino licences and issue permits for poker machines and they have been so successful that Australia can now proudly claim that it is home to 20% of the world's mechanical bandits! That is a national disgrace. Poker machines claim a huge amount of the money Australians lose. We must not forget that they were largely the creation of the Mafia and they made their Australian landfall primarily in NSW where they were first operated by the licensed clubs. Poker machines, their manufacturers and distributors have featured in Royal Commissions and other inquiries and corrupt club committees and managers in NSW used the cash from early poker machines to finance deals in heroin and other drugs. One estimate is that for a period, $90 Million a year was milked from the pokies and invested in the drug trade. Some states held out against the introduction of poker machines but not for long. Labor Premier John Cain held the line briefly but Joan Kirner opened the flood gates giving all the carefully structured arguments that her spin doctors could come up with.
Australia pays the price for not having any visionary or practical political leaders. Gambling should have long ago been a federal portfolio in which case, peopleof vision would have designated Tasmania the only casino state and at the same time it could have been declared a duty free port. This measure which would have led to a great deal of breast beating would have guaranteed the economic future of the island state and would have taken the burden of running it off the shoulders of mainland taxpayers but such moves would have required a lot of imagination.
None of our present governments would dare regulate against casinos and poker machines. There are now too many vested interests involved and a lot of grand projects would have to be shelved. Australia is really seeing a replay of the ancient Roman 'bread and circuses' routine, designed to pacify we restless natives.
I smile when I hear people whingeing about 'selling off the farm.' $11 Billion would buy a lot of shares in Australian companies and help to 'buy back the farm.' $11 Billion would get the Melbourne - Darwin railway project up and running, creating jobs for thousands of Australians but Australians prefer to give that money to greedy governments and billionaire casino owners. We are strange cattle!
Like most of our problems, it is the people in the end who can solve them. When the community becomes angry and concerned enough, things will happen but until then, things will remain the same. I consciously refuse to go to casinos and I will not put one cent into a poker machine so I suppose that is some sort of protest which keeps money in my pocket for other things. We are the masters and mistresses of our own destiny but we it must be remembered that when Australians gamble, they are not only gambling away their dollars, they are gambling away their future.
Discuss this issue with John on the Pasquarelli Forum