Opinion – Tasmanians are still being played by Pokies Policy
Meg Webb MLC says Tasmanians should be bitterly disappointed that the Government has excluded their voice on planned pokies reforms.
Four years ago on 17 March 2016, in a statement to Parliament on gaming reform, Treasurer Peter Gutwein, said:
‘the process that led to the development of the earlier Deeds caused concern in the community and cast a shadow over the appropriateness of structural arrangements. The Government does not want a repeat of this outcome. There needs to be a fully transparent public consultation process that enables interested Tasmanians… to have their say on the future structure of the gaming sector post 2023, with the Government’s policy position as the starting point.’
I couldn’t agree more. When exactly does Premier Gutwein intend to provide that fully transparent, public consultation process on his government’s policy?
By the end of 2017, after a Parliamentary Inquiry whose findings and recommendations were entirely ignored and the abandonment of its previous commitment to getting a market price for the licences, the Government directly adopted an industry-written proposal as its election policy.
An independent assessment of this industry proposal was provided by the Tasmanian Liquor and Gaming Commission at the request of the Parliamentary Inquiry. This assessment raised numerous concerns about the unsuitability of the model for Tasmania and suggested it was likely to cause higher levels of harm in our community.
In the intervening two years, these concerns have never been addressed.
There has been no further scrutiny, assessment or public consultation on the substance of the Government’s policy. The Government have provided no modelling or evidence on the likely social or economic impacts of this licensing model on the Tasmanian poker machine industry, the broader Tasmanian hospitality industry, the Tasmanian community, or the Tasmanian economy overall.
In fact, such scrutiny has been categorically rejected, with the recently released ‘consultation’ paper explicitly stating “Matters specific to the Government’s policy itself are out of scope of this consultation process.”
Tasmanians should be deeply concerned about the impact of the Government’s proposed pokies policy and the total lack of evidence presented to support it or on how these new changes will impact our state.
This week we are debating a motion that I put in the Legislative Council calling for the release of the economic and social modelling that underpins the Government’s approach. Without this being provided before the legislation is tabled later this year, how are we to responsibly undertake our Parliamentary role in assessing its merits, considering its implications and being decision-makers on the best way forward for the Tasmanian people?
Having spent two decades working in social services, public policy, advocacy and research and the past five years talking with thousands of Tasmanians about the harm caused by poker machines, I’m deeply concerned that we are not just missing an opportunity to make things better, but actively heading towards an outcome that is far worse.
We know from global best-practice approaches that the best ways to make pokies safer are:
- Slower spin seeds
- Lower maximum bet limits
- Lower maximum jackpots
- Increased return to play rate
- Removal of near misses and losses disguised as wins.
None of which will affect the enjoyment of a recreational gambler, and all of which the Tasmanian Government rejects at the behest of big industry players.
What we should be concerned about in the government’s industry-led policy is that:
- Individual licences will lead to greater harm
- Small and regional pubs and clubs may end up worse off
- Improvements to harm reduction have been shelved until an undisclosed future time
- Once individual licence periods become unaligned, as they have in other states with that model, we will never again have a single point in time to make change
