Comment – Good rules protect the community
Comment | Kingborough Chronicle | October 20, 2020
When it comes to products that can be harmful or dangerous, we make laws and regulations to ensure that community members are protected and harms or dangers are minimised as much as possible.
This approach can be seen in the rules we make about the sale and consumption of products like alcohol and tobacco. I can be seen in the way we make driving safer by setting speed limits and making seat belts compulsory, and in the way we restrict access to guns in our community.
In all kinds of ways, big and small, we use sensible laws and rules to provide the best protection we can to Tasmanians. It is an important role of governments to make harm minimisation a priority when it comes to dangerous products.
However, in relation to poker machines, a product which is proven to be addictive and cause harm, we do not put standard harm minimisation measures in place that have proven to be effective.
Tasmania, and most other states of Australia, absolutely fail to use the very straightforward harm minimisation measures that are common for poker machines in the rest of the world.
Because we fail to provide this standard level of protection, Australia has the highest levels of poker machine addiction and losses. We are far ahead of every other country when it comes to harm in the community from poker machines.
The most clear-cut protection measure used in other countries is to put poker machines only in casinos. That is what the state of Western Australia does, and what virtually every other similar country in the world does.
We could also choose to follow the clear evidence from the rest of the world and program Australian poker machines to be less addictive and less harmful. That would mean programming lower maximum bet limits ($1 instead of $5), and slower spin speeds (6 seconds instead of 3 seconds), and lower maximum jackpots ($1,000 instead of $25,000). These would immediately slow the number of Tasmanians who become addicted and cut the level of losses for those who have a problem with poker machine gambling.
The State Government is planning to change the way poker machines are licensed in Tasmania, but it hasn’t suggested any new or better harm minimisation measures to introduce at the same time. We shouldn’t be satisfied with the current level of harm, we should be striving to do much better, just like they do in most other countries.
Every three years there is independent research done on the Social and Economic Impact of Gambling in Tasmania (the SEIS). This research is an important way for us to understand the impact that poker machines and other types of gambling have on the Tasmanian community.
The 2020 SEIS is being done right now by a team of independent researchers, and its findings will be very helpful to developing better approaches to the regulation of poker machines.
The independent researchers are keen to hear directly from Tasmanians about their views and experiences. You may have personal experience to share, or have seen the experience of friends and family members, or you may have a general interest in this topic.
You do not need to be an expert! Every submission that comes from a Tasmanian community member will be a valuable contribution to the research.
For a quick and easy way to make a submission, you can find an online submission form here https://megwebb.com.au/seis-online-submission/
Tasmanians are invited to provide input into the 2020 SEIS by using this online form before 2 November 2020.
Meg Webb MLC Kingborough Chronicle 20 Oct 20
