The article below appeared in yesterday’s edition of The Australian.

Cabinet blocks move to cut pokies in poor areas

Rick Wallace, Victorian political reporter

16 June 2006

A PROPOSAL to remove 1500 poker machines from poor suburbs has been rejected by Premier Steve Bracks’s cabinet amid concerns it would hit government revenue.

The plan, from a backbench committee, was submitted to Gaming Minister John Pandazopoulos in October. The Australian believes he took the proposal to cabinet, which rejected it and set up a sub-committee to revise it. The state Government will rake in more than $1 billion from poker machines this year, and sources said Treasurer John Brumby was pushing for a reduction of just 400 machines.

The committee’s plan would see the current regional caps extended to include Ballarat, Warrnambool, Geelong, Shepparton and parts of Melbourne, with tough new limits imposed to force the withdrawal of 1500 pokies from the capped areas.

The existing caps – based on local government and post code boundaries – cover Gippsland and struggling suburbs in Melbourne’s north, west and southeast.

Under the committee’s recommendations, the 1500 pokies would be relocated rather than scrapped, even though Victoria has the highest player-loss per machine in the nation at $114,000 a year, and its citizens spend $2.8 billion a year on pokies.

The deadlock over the caps is generating concern within the Government because it made a promise in the 2002 election campaign to extend the number of capped areas to 10, and the next poll is just five months away.

Anti-gambling activists say pokie dens close to housing commission towers and low-income housing need to be abolished and the 1500 pokies should be junked, not relocated to reduce the overall number of 30,000 in the state.

“You need the caps as a tool to remove machines from areas where they are causing damage,” said Community Action on Pokies Problems chairman Mike Hill.

“Pokies have been targeting the most vulnerable communities – it’s Aboriginal communities, it’s migrant communities, it’s welfare recipient communities. The Government has the responsibility to get the pokies out of these areas. But the revenue mafia (in cabinet) are winning, and that’s why we aren’t seeing the report.”

A spokesman for Mr Pandazopoulos would not comment on the cabinet deadlock, but confirmed the Government was considering the report.