Sydney Morning Herald – Clubs NSW chief executive Anthony Ball claims: ‘‘Fairfield Clubs do a fantastic job in supporting local community groups that might otherwise notexist if it wasn’t for their support’’ (‘‘Punters in west pile money in pokies’’, March 23). That is all well and good, but even Mr Ball would have to concede that the $298 million the clubs raised from annual poker machine profits is quite a lot tohave taken from the local community in the first place.
Both the NSW and federal governments justify their softly, softly approach to problem gambling by citing individual rights (‘‘Time for more community backbone to tackle problem gambling’’, March 23). This is all very well as long as there is corresponding individual responsibility, which there is clearly not.
The NSW government’s unwillingness to be seen operating a nanny state would be laudable if it wasn’t at the same time raking in millions of dollars in tax revenue from poker machines. The state’s addiction to electronic gambling is clearly out of control. The victims need to be protected from themselves. One way of doing this would be to drastically reduce the number of poker machines and to do it now.
