Council seeks to tame one-armed-bandits

By Alex Giblin

City of Sydney Council wants greater control over where poker machines can be located and will push to have the relevant NSW law altered.

Council will seek to repeal section 209 of the 2001 NSW Gaming Machines Act which says that a council cannot consider whether or not a venue will contain gaming machines when making a decision on a development application.

Councillor Irene Doutney said: “Council knows … where there’s social disadvantage and we know where it’s probably not a good idea to put poker machines but we’re not allowed to comment.”

Cr Doutney’s Notice of Motion of 26 July moving that the Local Government Association call on the NSW Parliament to repeal section 209 was carried unanimously by Council.

Cr Doutney said the motion was prompted by the redevelopment of South Sydney Leagues Club, in Redfern, which will operate in the same building as a supermarket.

“The first thing that problem gamblers give up is food,” she said.

“To me, that’s a socially irresponsible thing to do, to have … a supermarket and gaming machines together in an area that is really disadvantaged.

“Family breakdown, bankruptcy; it’s an addiction, it has the same side-effects as any other sort of addiction … people spend their food money, the next thing they spend after their food money is their rent money, or their mortgage payment money. So, it’s socially destructive. I personally think if you want to have gaming machines they should be in a casino.”

According to the NSW Office of Liquor, Gaming & Racing 0.4 per cent of the adult population of NSW are problem gamblers.

An Australian Government Productivity Commission report into gambling, published 26 February this year, found that Australians spent about $10.5 billion on poker machines in clubs and hotels, compared with about $1.4 billion in casinos, in 2008-09.

Poker machines in clubs and hotels accounted for 55 per cent of all gaming revenue for that period.

Leagues Club chairman Bill Alexiou-Hucker said that much of gaming machine revenue is returned to the community.

“I don’t think these people, these councillors, realise, or haven’t investigated, how much money … clubs, via poker machine revenue, actually put back into the community.

“It’s in the hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said.

“I’m very sympathetic to their concerns but they are talking about 1 per cent of probably the adult population, if that, that have got a gambling problem. The other 99 per cent or more see poker machines as a form of entertainment.”

Cr Doutney said she thought the process of repeal would be very difficult. “A lot of people think poker machines are a fine revenue resource.

“I think it’s only 50-50 that the Local Government conference will accept the motion,” she said.