ACT Greens Seek Alliance with Liberals on Pokies Reform after Frustrations With ‘unprogressive’ Labor

Originally posted on June 7, 2020 @ 11:17 am

ACT Greens leader Shane Rattenbury said he was pissed off with ”unprogressive” Labor on pokies reform and would seek assist across the aisle. Picture: Provided.

ACT Greens leader and Gaming Minister Shane Rattenbury says he’s pissed off with ACT Labor’s “unprogressive” method to playing reform, and will seek an alliance with the Liberals to pass poker machine harm minimisation legislation.

Mr Rattenbury said he would introduce legal guidelines that will allow for the creation of a central monitoring system (CMS), a software that links all ACT poker machines with the intention of collecting information and limiting playing losses. He says Labor MLAs are refusing to help this.

“The ACT Labor Social gathering has avoided, delayed, and in the end rejected these best-follow reforms. It is going to come at the price of the community’s wellbeing and livelihood,” he stated.

“The major objection recognized by Labor is the cost of implementing a CMS. But detailed modelling exhibits that such an strategy would value less than 5 per cent of poker machine income over the following 20 years.

“Labor’s failure is a setback for the vital task of harm reduction, it’s a disappointing end result for the ACT group, and it is a decidedly ‘unprogressive’ method, opposite to the values Labor purports to characterize.”

Read Also Second detainee dies at Canberra’s jail inside a month

Chief Minister Andrew Barr instructed a press convention on Friday (30 August) that the Greens had been taking part in politics.

“The discussion on the CMS is proving to be a problem … it’s expensive and can be circumvented by folks going across the border,” Mr Barr stated.

“I suppose there’s a pathway forward here however the eve of an election is perhaps not the best environment to get the Greens to compromise on many things. There are quite a lot of guarantees they are making which are just not sensible or achievable.”

ClubsACT CEO Craig Shannon can be pissed off.

“We have an undignified and purely self-selling debate occurring in the Assembly that advantages nobody,” he said.

“The membership trade in Canberra has sought and obtained in-precept help from the three major parties for an independent inquiry into the club business that should deal with all the issues being raised next week and would enable for an evidence-based mostly policy response by the subsequent Meeting.

“It is appalling that Canberra political representatives treat the membership trade and our members and the problem of playing harm as political footballs for self-promotion functions. It’s a childish and counterproductive strategy to public policy development.

“We are calling on all the Assembly political events to chorus from any additional legislation impacting on our industry until the impartial inquiry into the membership industry is completed, allowing factual evidence to be used to form insurance policies going forward.”

ClubsACT CEO Craig Shannon has called on political parties to cease taking part in politics on playing reforms. Photograph: ClubsACT.

Exact details on the ACT Greens’ proposed legislative changes haven’t been made public, however Mr Rattenbury indicated he would even be taking a look at obligatory cashless gambling that required all gamblers to have an account and mandatory pre-dedication with default loss and time limits for all gamblers. If Labor doesn’t help the reforms, the Greens would be capable to cross them with the assist of the Liberals.