7 August 2009

Katie plans to shift pokies to vulnerable greenfields mortgage belt locations ...

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Despite referring to them as a “vice”, Katie Gallagher said on Stateline that she would be shifting pokies from (presumably less populated and profitable areas of Canberra) to the new mortgage belts as they develop.

Just the areas and mortgage stressed families you’d want to quarantine a little from too many pokies, one would have thought.

She also hinted at plans to eat into the 14 per cent the clubs are disbursing to the community (they contribute double the 7 per cent requirement) as increased taxes and revenue raising.

So we can look forward to more social ills, and the government cynically engineering the revenues in all sorts of ways.

Go Xenophon.

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I did actually think Katy had more care about the impacts of pokies on people’s lives and wouldn’t be keen to see more. So yes, I guess I am serious.

housebound said :

…..I thought Katy was better than that.

Are you serious?????

hjholden said :

do you have a source i-filed?

Stateline on Friday night – Katie interviewed.

We hit the 5200 cap in December 2006 according to the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission.
Stefaniak himself admitted that 5200 was arbitrarily chosen, and chosen as higher than was in use since the ACT hadn’t yet hit it yet.
Hansard link:
http://www.hansard.act.gov.au/hansard/2003/week11/3956.htm

the argument often made is that it is only a small percentage of people who can’t handle an occasional play of the pokies. I for one will occasionally play $5 or so – big deal.

given the harm they do to those who can’t handle them, though, I think we would all be better off if they were banned entirely.

Was there a cap on the number of pokies when Tuggeranong was built?
Are there more people currently addicted to pokies in the Tuggeranong Valley (6 clubs) as compared to Gungahlin (2 clubs)?
Should the residents of Gungahlin be deprived of a social club just because there is a cap on pokies numbers?

And yet there is the distinct possibility of her becoming CM.

In which case they become qualifications rather than just characteristics…

considering that amongst my other addictions, booze and pokies were high on the list, and at the time, I was living in the gutter, moving pokies into areas that conceivably will be filled with common folk like me is perhaps the stupidest thing to ever come out of this woman’s mouth.

A smarter idea would be to ban the poker machines entirely. Unfortunately, this would stifle the revenues derived from them, and prevent the ACT health system from getting new facilities, pot holes filled in on roads, etc, etc.

The Minister is in between a rock and a hard place. lose revenue, having to come up with new ways to attract revenue, or keep the pokies and inflict them on low income earners.

I would prefer another way to attract revenue, but it would take a far smarter minister to come up with that idea.

hehe – that definition of addiction occurred to me too. She didn’t really carry that off too well. Are you blaming her for implementing ALP policy. Do you think the others would present a different response, other than to fill it with more spin?

Reminds me of a smoker claiming they weren’t addicted because they’ve been able to give up many times before.

I still thought Katy was better than that. (But then I also like Hargreaves disarming honesty that continually gets him saying things he shouldn’t).

Because some of us still have some idealism in there somewhere, and we hope (admitedly against ALL the evidence) that good will occasionally prevail. To some extent it has, because Katy has indicated no desire to increase the cap on pokies. Whether 5200 pokies in a town this size is a good number, is an entreily different question.

Having now seen the stateline story for myself (it’s now on the ABC website), the flag to raise more taxes is there, but less of a main point of the story than i had understood from the OP.

That addiction definition is from H. Clarke, S. Danilkina Economic Models of Addiction: A Survey Melbourne, LaTrobe Univerity School of Business, (2006).

(It also gets called “”Talking Rationally About Rational Addiction” in case anyone is curious.)

Feel free to leave a copy on Katy’s desk.

housebound said :

I thought Katy was better than that.

Katy is scum and she has no spine.
Also she claimed that ACT Labor were not addicted to pokies income, they could give it up any time they want to.

Handy hints for Katy:
You’re the Health Minister, you should be familiar with recognising addiction.

A behaviour or substance is deemed addictive if, as the duration and intensity of consumption or dependance on the behaviour increases:
(i) users become more tolerant to the substance or behaviour so they progressively want more of it;
(ii) users find it increasingly difficult to cease consumption or committing the behaviour;
(iii) if users do quit, they suffer withdrawal disutility, and perhaps long-term cravings for the experiences historically supported by the substance or behaviour;
Finally, (iv), if use is interrupted or ceases, users experience unpleasant outcomes which impede their ability to function.

“I can quit” is a denial of the reality of addiction, “any time we want” is a rationalisation of that denial, on the grounds that the truth is that you don’t want to go into withdrawal.
ACT Labor’s addiction to pokies is currently satisfying a lot of currently-dependant functions (as in keeping a lot of Federal and ACT Labor systems running or keeping staff paid who may have originally been supported by other revenue streams), giving it up would involve changing the way you live, and that change would be so unpleasant in the short-term that you are unwilling to brave the crucible.

Never forget the mantra “Katy is scum and she has no spine”, and you can deal with her just fine.

Master_Bates11:34 am 10 Aug 09

Why are we surprised that the Government is continuing to do what it can to increase revenue?

Get with the times…….

This is really disappointing. I was kinda hoping the Labor Club sale would see the beginning of the end of the pokies (perhaps to balance the 25+ million election purse windfall).

I thought Katy was better than that.

What I-filed may be getting at is the open-market licnse sharing proposal (as the number of pokies in the ACT is capped), whereby licensees can sell off their licenses or allow multi-location clubs to move licenses between premises.

This would mean you could open up a club on a new site, and either shift some of your own pokie licenses out there, or poach them off a competitor.
Part of me is screaming “Bad thing!” but another bit of me wants to see what else gets introduced as part of that policy decision\change.

The decision is due out in October, which should be just after FY08-09 returns and contributions disclosures are returned.
By the Editor’s leave (whoever it is at the time) I’ll do some kind of numbercrunching at that time.

do you have a source i-filed?

By contributing double the minimum, she means ‘everyone but Labor’.

Clown Killer6:37 am 08 Aug 09

It’s a market thing isn’t it? For pokies to be profitable they need a constant fresh supply of dumb people with money – it’s as simple as that. I doubt that any geographic part of Canberra has a franchise on stupidity but if people aren’t prepared to travel into town to give their money away, maybe moving the pokies to somewhere more convenient is the answer.

Gungahlin Al11:02 pm 07 Aug 09

We were consulted by ACTPLA reps a few months back about whether we felt there should be more “clubs” in Gungahlin and told them absolutely no. Enough pokies here already.

Seems the ALP folk didn’t listen though, as there seems to be a push on to release land right near the Raiders Club for another club (read: Labor Club?).

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