The Tasmanian government has been accused of being too close to the gaming industry. Now it’s at war with it.
Just four years ago, the Liberal Party won a state election campaign dominated by debates over poker machines, their coffers awash with donations from the industry. Opposition Leader Rebecca White’s pledge to phase them out of pubs and clubs sparked fierce backlash from the gaming industry.
Signs popped up all over the state decrying the move, while gaming and hotel giant Federal Group attacked it on receipts at one of their Hobart cafes.
And when the Liberal Party strongly ruled out following suit, the Tasmanian Hospitality Association (THA) and gaming and hotel giant Federal Group donated more than $300,000 towards their campaign.
The Liberal Party’s message was clear: it wouldn’t interfere with people’s freedom to gamble.
So, it shocked almost everyone when it announced this week that Tasmania would become the first Australian state or territory to launch a mandatory pre-commitment scheme, where gamblers must use a cashless card that limits losses.
For the gaming industry, that shock quickly morphed into white-hot anger.
In a media release entitled “lies, lies and more lies”, the Tasmanian Hospitality Association labelled the move “Orwellian” and a “slap in the face”.
Australian Hotels Association is also planning a trip to Tasmania to voice their concerns about the policy.
Vocal opposition from the gambling lobby played a role in then prime minister Julia Gillard tearing up a deal with independent Clark MP Andrew Wilkie to introduce a mandatory pre-commitment scheme at the national level in 2012.
It’s widely expected that a similarly fierce campaign will be launched a decade later — if not to stop Tasmania from going ahead with its plan, then to prevent other states from doing the same.
For its part, the government attempted to deflect focus away from the upcoming war on Friday, stressing the industry will be heavily consulted both before the mandatory pre-commitment scheme starts, and in the transition period to a new operating model which kicks off next year.
Lots of the stunned response to the government’s policy is that it appears to have come out of the blue.
The Liberal Party didn’t take mandatory pre-commitments to either the 2018 or 2021 state elections, with their pledge to break up the Federal Group’s monopoly of poker machine ownership and operation the only policy of note.
As part of the change, it slashed the tax rate for poker machines at Tasmania’s casinos, both owned by Federal Group.
And although the government argued the overall change would result in the hospitality giant being being almost $25 million a year worse off and increase the amount of gambling revenue flowing into treasury coffers, the new model was actually proposed by Federal and the THA in a 2017 submission to the Legislative Council’s inquiry into gaming reform.
In response to blowback over its legislation not doing enough to minimise gambling harm, the government asked the state’s gambling regulator to investigate both a pre-commitment scheme and facial recognition technology.
That report was handed down this week — leading to the dramatic change in pokies policy,
The government argues it’s simply seeing through what it started by accepting the regulator’s recommendation to introduce the scheme, and the gaming industry shouldn’t be surprised at all.
But neither anti-pokies advocates nor the gambling lobby — who supported a pre-commitment scheme as long as it was voluntary — saw this coming.
When he became premier earlier this year, Jeremy Rockliff said he would lead a government with heart. By bringing in a measure to protect some of Tasmania’s most vulnerable problem gamblers, the government can argue it’s delivering on that commitment.
Certainly, the emotion evident on Treasurer Michael Ferguson’s face as he announced the change showed that he is convinced it’s the right move.
It will no doubt be a bumpy road ahead as the government works out exactly how the new scheme will work, set to be in place just months before the next state election falls due.
And if history tells us one thing, it’s that the gaming lobby won’t let it happen without a fight.
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