SCULLIN MP Harry Jenkins says that while he feels for the families of gambling addicts, he understands why Prime Minister Julia Gillard walked away from promised reforms on poker machines.
The former Speaker, a long-time critic of the gaming industry, has been an outspoken advocate of reforms to limit harm to gamblers. But he said he believed in “real world politics” and that Ms Gillard did not have the numbers to get legislation to introduce pre-commitment technology on poker machines through parliament, despite her agreement with Independent MP Andrew Wilkie.
This technology requires punters to make a decision up-front about how much they plan to gamble.
“The Labor Party had to take account of what was the greater damage to Labor – exposing our members to publicly supporting something which wasn’t going to get up or to have Labor members support something that doesn’t make Andrew Wilkie happy,” he said. “Politics is about those sort of conundrums.”
It’s believed some of Labor’s own backbenchers mutinied against the reforms after a vigorous campaign by gaming venues umbrella body Clubs Australia.
Mr Jenkins said Labor’s National Gambling Reform Bill 2012, still being worked on with Mr Wilkie, represented the first time a national government had taken steps towards gaming reforms. “If we take this as a Labor response, it’s very close to what we’ve seen Labor trying to do since the election in 2007,” he said. “I can be happy with incremental steps, as long as they’re in the right direction.”
He said he hoped next year’s trial in the ACT would debunk ‘myths’ perpetuated by the gaming industry about the cost of introducing pre-commitment technology.
Mr Jenkins, speaking after successor Peter Slipper stepped aside as Speaker after allegations of fraud and sexual harassment, declined to comment on the issue, other than to say he was “watching with interest”.
