Yesterday’s announcement by NSW Labor on potential pokie reform demonstrates just how captured by Clubs NSW and the gambling industry Chris Minns is.
Make no mistake, a vote for Labor is a vote for Clubs NSW.
How can Minns’ proposed trial be ‘mandatory’, when it would include just 500 of the 90,000-plus gaming machines currently in operation across our great state?
How can Minn’s proposal that only new pokie machines be fitted with a $500-load-up limit have any genuine effect on money laundering or problem gambling when there are still 90,000-plus in operation across the state?
That’s 90,000-plus pokies with load-up limits of $5000, $7500, and $10,000. These limits are not a pointer to use by casual punters but serious organised crime.
Minns’ proposal is akin to sprinkling a handful of salt into the Pacific Ocean. It will make no genuine difference at all beyond cementing him the ongoing support of pubs and clubs. But most dangerous of all, is that Chris Minns and NSW Labor have willfully ignored an extensive investigation by the NSW Crime Commission.
After a thorough inquiry, the NSW Crime Commissioner’s No1 recommendation was a mandatory cashless gaming card to address money laundering in pubs and clubs through pokies machines.
The assumption by Minns and NSW Labor that somehow their mystery panel knows more about law enforcement, money laundering and the proceeds of crime than the NSW Crime Commissioner underlines just how willing they are to turn a blind eye to evidence and facts to protect clubs and pubs and their profits of $600 million per month.
The Crime Commissioner stated: “criminals are funnelling billions of dollars of ‘dirty’ cash through poker machines in pubs and clubs every year.” How will a trial of 500 machines address that?
Chris Minns and NSW Labor is not about looking after families or tackling organised crime, they are about looking after vested interests. Protecting those who deal in misery and misery money.
And finally, following the data leaks at Medibank and Optus, if you think Clubs NSW can be trusted with your facial recognition data you must be off your face. If Clubs NSW is hacked, the genie is out of the bottle forever,
because once you lose your face, you can’t change it or get it back. Say no to facial recognition @yourlocalclub I will be calling for:
A mandatory state-wide cashless gambling card;
A universal independent self-exclusion register to support harm-minimisation;
A curfew on gambling machines operating between midnight to 10am;
Support for the call of Greg Piper, Alex Greenwich, and Joe McGirr to establish a special commission of inquiry into the undue influence of clubs and pubs over the major parties;
An end to any agreements between the NSW Government and the gambling industry that prevent meaningful gambling reform.
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