Talking about "moral backbone," there must be problem fornicators too. Perhaps Wilkie and Xenophon should lobby to limit the amount of money that can be spent on each visit to the brothel or the steambath. Perhaps 5 bucks per entry?
Since each club and pub have mini casinos with pokies go the whole hog Just attach a brothel to each club / pug, then we can have permanent 1/2 price meals and beer.
.
Not sure where you are coming from given Tim Costello has spent a live time being an advocate for the poor, starving and disadvantaged often against the establishment.
How silly to describe Abbott's stand like this.
Can you provide proof that mandatory limits will eliminate problem gambling?
No one else has. Further, the proponents of this policy refuse to undertake a trial of the suggested policy.
Why? If they are so confident it will work, they have nothing to fear from demonstrating it before gazillions are spent in changing the machines.
What Tony Abbott actually said is that such a policy will not fix problem gambling.
I agree. I spent some considerable time facilitating a group of pokie addicts and as a result have a considerable insight into what motivates them and what doesn't.
Absolutely no indication that any mandatory commitment would do anything for them except make them laugh.
If you can criticise Tony Abbott's suggestion that individual gamblers would much more benefit from individual counselling in order to help them understand where the motivation to gamble came from and thence how to cope with it from a point of view of knowledge and experience, by all means do this.
But I'm pretty sure you won't be able to, so maybe just hold off on the mindless criticism.
The proposed policy exists purely because one Andrew Wilkie demanded it as a condition of allowing Gillard to govern. Absolutely not because of any conviction on Gillard's part on the issue, as is entirely obvious every time she talks about it.
Couldn't agree more.
Well, whoop de do. I'm all for people who care about the disadvantaged, but Tim Costello lacks the capacity to apply an objective view about most of what he goes on about. Couldn't be more different from his brother.
After a decade of research and a comprehensive report by the Productivity Commission, we know the answers to address why 40 per cent of all profits come from problem gambling.
After illicit drugs, pokies are the second greatest contributor to crime.
Some 86 per cent of problem gambling in Australia is from pokies.
Australia has the highest loss machines in the world - it is possible to lose over $1,200 an hour on modern machines.
The 2008 Productivity Commission into gambling estimated that problem gamblers lose an average of $21,000 a year gambling - and that the social cost of problem gambling is at least $4.7 billion per year.
Supporters of pokies reform are not interested in stopping people enjoying recreational gambling. The reforms currently proposed will barely impact on the majority of players.
While you may have missed it in the clubs' misinformation campaign, the Wilkie scheme does not require pre-commitment for lower loss machines, which have maximum bets of $1 per spin and have an average hourly loss of $120 and consequently do less damage.
Mandatory pre-commitment will only apply to those high-loss machines that are causing the most damage.
In Western Australia, the absence of pokies has not resulted in an increase in online gambling
In fact, WA has mainland Australia's highest recreation and sports participation rates. NSW in contrast has the lowest.
only 2.7 per cent of pokie profits go to supporting community and sporting groups.
WA does not depend on exploiting weak and vulnerable people to achieve community activity.
Mr Abbott's solution to this problem of "more counselling" is not supported by the evidence. The Productivity Commission found that only 15 per cent of problem gamblers seek help.
The recent polling of public support for pokies reform is encouraging. The more than 60 per cent public support, despite a $20 million misinformation campaign by Clubs Australia, shows that Australians know vested interest when they see it.
No, my point is that the idea that gambling problems are a choice is nonsensical. You don't choose the addiction; it chooses you.
It's no secret that I have a history with poker machines, that my drive for reform is founded on my own experience of addiction... but I haven't played in years. Surely my story is proof that people make their own choices, control their own destiny?
Let me tell you something about that.
I didn't choose to become an addict. Sure, I chose to play poker machines but I didn't choose the consequences. There is a massive difference between recreation and addiction, and the sad truth is that one can lead to the other. Such was the case with me.
And I didn't choose to quit. Despite hating what I was doing, I simply couldn't stop. It took confrontation and exposure, more than once, before I could walk away from my addiction.
Tom Cummings writings offer an excellent insight the way poker machines systematically strip people of all their money/
But at least once they've blown their cash they can get cheap food and drinks. It's about "giving back to the community".
Unfortunately its the people who don't play the pokies who get the cheap food, drinks and sports. The gamblers subsidise the non-gamblers (more fool them, I suppose).
The ones who have "blown their cash" don't have money to buy food no matter how cheap it is. The cost eventually goes back to the tax-payer.
It's no secret that I have a history with poker machines, that my drive for reform is founded on my own experience of addiction... but I haven't played in years. Surely my story is proof that people make their own choices, control their own destiny?
Let me tell you something about that.
I didn't choose to become an addict. Sure, I chose to play poker machines but I didn't choose the consequences. There is a massive difference between recreation and addiction, and the sad truth is that one can lead to the other. Such was the case with me.
And I didn't choose to quit. Despite hating what I was doing, I simply couldn't stop. It took confrontation and exposure, more than once, before I could walk away from my addiction.
I am sure most here would'nt dare read the Drum as clearly its all a left wing conspiracy but this article by Tom Cummings is revealing for those that think pokies is just a social night out.
Worth a read from an insiders view rather than those from the outside that really know nothing.
BTW went to the Perth casino Friday night fascinating watching the zombie like pokie players..............
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3867720.html
Sounds like a lot of "wah wah it’s the pokies fault I'm addicted" to me, there are multiple sources to get help from. But oh no let’s bring in the 'I'm stupid' act. Honestly, if you’re a grown ass man learn to deal with your $hit.
I beg to differ, Julia:If it's the dreaded machines that are totally to blame for this person's addiction, why are all the other thousands of people who play them recreationally not also addicted?
Pretty silly, imo, to be blaming a machine for a personality trait or psychological difficulty.
(The above should not imply that I like anything about these machines. I find them breathtakingly boring, but I don't think they should be blamed for causing addiction.)
Given that Western Australia is relatively free of pokies, I must say I prefer it the way. We may have a higher participation rate in Lotto, but at least we know our Lotteries Commission ploughs $Millions back into grass roots sport and what passes for "cultural events."
(But even there I'm beginning to get annoyed by the subliminal advertising seeking higher revenue by glorifying the Lotto Life, One Powerball, and - most poisonous - Internet gambling.)
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