From ABC News – The South Australian Government and Opposition have reached a compromise to let contentious gambling legislation pass.
A special meeting was called between Attorney-General John Rau, members of the Opposition and crossbenchers to discuss their differences, including on maximum-bet limits for poker machines.
Mr Rau said the outcome of the negotiations was disappointing for gambling reform but paved the way for the bill to pass State Parliament.
The Attorney-General said planned amendments to assist problem gamblers had been gutted by the Opposition, but he said the Government was successful in halving maximum-bet limits on poker machines from $10 to $5.
Mr Rau said measures to accelerate the introduction of pre-commitment technology, on-screen warning messages and risk-monitoring were removed from the bill.
Opposition treasury spokesman Iain Evans said the Opposition also blocked a move to let ‘major’ venues increase their numbers of poker machines.
“Our amendments got rid of pokie venues being able to go from 40-machine venues to 60-machine venues,” he said.
“That essentially means Coles and Woolworths won’t become the super-pokie barons within the state.”
Mr Evans said the Liberals had reservations about the legislation when ClubsSA indicated changes would put its members out of business.
To this day they (Government) haven’t been able to show us the modelling of the impacts on pubs and clubs and that was why we were so opposed to those measures.”
