Soft Target a Soft Option

In another desperate deal with and independent (Andrew Wilkie), in order to cling to government, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has agreed to force poker machine players to declare a loss limit prior to playing. On face value a responsible community caring action; in practice an ill-considered knee-jerk raid on a struggling industry and on civil liberties.

Certainly too many people over the decades have ruined themselves financially through gambling; but not just on poker machines. However the clubs are a soft target and the purge on their viability continues.

Let's get a few things straight. Licensed clubs have poured millions of dollars into their communities, sponsoring junior sports and giving to schools and charities and other vital activities that make a community a community. The punitive taxes on poker machine profits in NSW have seriously curtailed this spending and governments don't step in to the gaps they force the clubs to leave. Poker machine taxes are significantly higher than those that were proposed on mining profits - a policy from which this same Labor government rapidly retreated.

Also, not every poker machine player is irresponsible and ruinous or indeed a problem, but they all get lumped in with the tiny minority who are and as a result an entire Industry must suffer and the workers and communities hitherto dependent on clubs for employment and assistance suffer.

It is past time all governments backed off the soft targets of legitimate commerce and cracked down hard on something hard; illicit drugs. All those users are a problem.