I’m getting a little fed up with how, when a government, a politician or political party announce some policy initiative, something that may actually be worthwhile doing, the announcement seems to be inevitably reported as “outraging some powerful lobby industry” or other, and being a thing that will tip society over the teetering edge of civilisation as we know it.

Yet the abyss beckons according to Clubs Australia executive director Anthony Ball …

… said the undertaking to implement a mandatory pre-commitment system for all poker machines across Australia as well as to limit ATM cash withdrawals to just $250 a day were completely untested.

He said the measures would close rural clubs, cost jobs, inconvenience recreational gamblers and club users, and do nothing to alleviate problem gambling.

“Julia Gillard wrote to Clubs Australia and committed herself to consultation in developing gambling policy.

“That commitment has been broken. We won’t just take that sitting down.”

Oh, really? Well, la-di-da.

Does Ball truly think anyone’s going to swallow that scenario?

Does he really think that he’s going to be able to persuade the remaining three independents, all of whom have strong, personal connections to their country electorates and have very probably heard the experiences of problem gamblers firsthand, that “inconveniencing recreational gamblers” to ATM withdrawals of $250 a day at their local club or pub will signal the beginning of the end of the industry or the devastation of their local communities?

I would suggest people who are gambling two hundred fifty bucks a day are not quite in the category of “recreational gamblers”, would you think?

And if they can’t get more cash from the ATM at their pub or club, they’re probably just going to wander off down the street to the one at the fucking bank on the corner.

I have no moral objections to poker machines, or judgements to cast on those who play them. I’ve played the things, though not to any significant extent I must admit, and certainly for no significant amount of money, a few coins now and then, or a five buck note if I’m feeling audacious. I find them almost unbearably tedious after about five minutes, as there’s nothing one is required to do beyond pressing a button and watching some fucking wheels spin round until you get heartily congratulated for winning a “top result” of fifty fucking cents, and I would drop to my knees invoking the one billion names of God in thanks if my local pub would just put a couple P!I!N!B!A!L!L! M!A!C!H!I!N!E!S in the damn room to liven it up some.

But Ball may as well eat his own arse with a one-tined fork from a circus trapeze if he thinks his industry’s lobbying efforts are going to cut it the same type of sweet ‘n’ easy deals with these independents that it gets from the major party players.

For we have heard these “major party players” for years now, gibber on about the need to address “problem gambling”, to address the yadda, yadda, yadda of this and the yadda, yadda, yadda of that, and invariably all they manage to come up with is just another fucking sticker on a fucking machine, or just another fucking poster on a wall divider, or just another fucking “helpline”, or just another fucking website, or some fucking conference, and all of it, every word spoke, every word written, is little more than lip-service paid to the ether from soft-bellied, mouth-breathing arseclowns grown fat on the proceeds of human misery who think the “collateral damage” done by gambling is but an inconvenience akin to a fart in a confessional compared to the great, greasy fistfuls of shiny, shiny coin to be had …

… All the better to use for the announcement of yet another brand new rail-link or some other such fantastic imagining, I suppose …

No, I very much doubt these independents are going to be swayed by a “lobby group” like Clubs Australia to their cause, as the cause simply amounts to, “We demand the right to exploit human frailties and weaknesses to the fullest extent we can in return for a buck.”, and I don’t think those being lobbied share much in common with the likes of Joe Tripodi or Eddie Obeid or any of the other reptilian party hacks from the dank backrooms of Sussex Street, do you think?.

The independents are the lobby group now, and the lobby group that matters it would seem, the lobby group that gets to call all the shots it damn well likes, and if one of the shots they’re calling is for measures to be taken to regulate poker machine gambling in such a way that it may help reduce some of the problems caused, I think it’s a shot long overdue to be fired.

And if they manage to get that up and running, then all power to ‘em.

Tags: Andrew Wilkie, Clubs Australia, gambling, poker machines