Labor pokie donations

From today’s Crikey sealed section:

12. Labor’s great pokies addiction

By Stephen Mayne

Did anyone else note that ACT Labor’s four biggest donations came from the Canberra Labor Club and Woden Tradesmen’s Club, and totalled $386,397? That’s excluding the additional $120,000 that the Canberra Labor Club donated to the federal ALP in 2004-05.

The impact of these Labor Party owned gambling enterprises is to take money from those Canberrans who are statistically most vulnerable and least able to afford gambling. What does this say about the morality of the ALP?

Then again, Graham Richardson lobbies for casino mogul Kerry Packer, former Queensland Treasurer Keith de Lacy is a director of Cairns Casino, former NSW Premier Barry Unsworth sat on the NSW TAB board, the late John “Bruvva” Ducker was chairman of Aristocrat and former NSW Labor identity Joe Meissner was the president of the Australian Poker Association.

In other words, Labor is the party of gambling, so no wonder they happily pocketed almost $1 million from gaming interests in 2004-05, which included the following:

Canberra Labor Club and Woden Tradesmen’s Club: $386,397, ACT
Australian Hotels Association: $248,000, NSW
Canberra Labor Club: $120,000, National
Clubs NSW: $32,000, NSW
Tattersall’s: $30,000, Victoria
Australian Hotels Association: $27,500, SA
Individual Sydney hotels: $20,000
Mallen Colac Hotel Pty Ltd: $15,000, SA
Star City Casino: $15,000, NSW
Woolworths: $15,400, NSW
Burswood: $15,000, WA
Australian Hotels Association: $2,980, Tasmania
Australian Casino Association: $2000, National

I’ve left off Woolworths and the AHA in WA because the state does not allow pokies in pubs.

Apart from the deluge of pokies cash to the ALP in Canberra, it is amazing how NSW dominates the gaming receipts with more than $300,000 from hotels and casinos. It really is the old rum corp in Sin City.

Interestingly, the once huge donors at Clubs NSW pulled right back to $32,000 in 2004-05, which probably reflects the dastardly new pokies tax that the Carr Government introduced.

However, new Premier Morris Iemma caved in last August, so expect to see much bigger figures from Clubs NSW when we finally get to read the 2006-07 figures in February 2008. Have another look at the 2004-05 figures here.