IF Julia Gillard backs away from her timetable to introduce meaningful changes to poker machines, it will disgust the members of the Gambling Impact Society of NSW. The society, whose members have almost all been serious poker machine gamblers or had family who were, met yesterday for one of their regular meetings at the Nowra Neighbourhood Centre. "This was a really good opportunity for change; it was very exciting," society chairwoman Kate Roberts said, herself a gambling counsellor who has a family member who had been a pokie addict. Advertisement: Story continues below "It'll be disgusting [if Gillard drops it]," Debbie said. She is a nurse whose former defence force husband repeatedly stole from their young family to fund his gambling habit. The society's meeting had been called to organise one of its advocacy events, a seminar during Responsible Gambling Awareness Week in May. But yesterday, having invited the Herald, members wanted to talk about the destruction high-intensity poker machines could wreak and why something needed to be done. One young member, who did not want to be named or photographed, was working in a club when her habit got the better of her. Her fiance had already taken control of their finances, so she stole tens of thousands of dollars from the till, got caught, and is now serving an 18-month suspended sentence. She supports a strong pre-commitment system and lower betting limits: "Do I believe I was born a compulsive gambler? Certainly not. I definitely would have used it," she said of a pre-commitment system. If she was forced to set limits, or not been able to gamble $9 with every slap of a machine, she may not have lied and stole to fund her habit. Ms Roberts also spoke about the ubiquity of poker machines in the Illawarra and on the South Coast, and the tools used by pubs and clubs to draw people in. Clubs, she said, raffle groceries to people playing pokies. At the Huskisson RSL yesterday, it was the "Meat the Butcher" raffle between noon and 2.30. On Tuesday, the raffle was "Grocery Grab". Ms Roberts said clubs used loyalty card information so they could target high-gambling members and invite them in for free lunches, dinners, as well as birthday celebrations. In contrast, she counselled gamblers who would bury their credit cards in their back yards, or mail their cards to themselves on a Friday, to try and exert some control over their lives. "These clubs have records of people, and instead of using the information for prevention and reduction of harm they use it for marketing and promotion," Ms Roberts said. "These are big corporations disguised as community organisations." http://www.smh.com.au/national/gill...e-trying-to-heal-the-hurt-20120118-1q6l6.html ================================ This latest self contradiction comes as no surprise. Who would buy a used car from this "woman"? I`ve lost count of the lies Gillard has spun, from the time she vowed to support K rudd, then stabbed him in the back, to the present. A PM should have some credability, even an ALP PM.
Boo (*)(*)(*)(*)ing hoo. Don't want to gamble, don't, but don't ruin for everyone else who wants to and does it sensibly. (*)(*)(*)(*) OFF NANNY STATE.
That`s not what Big Jules was saying a short time ago. Remember, "As Prime Minister of thees country, I yam mooooving foreward, as Prime Minister of thees country, with these much needed and over due poker machine reforms, as Prime Minister, that ees.
Pity that the other indies supporting the ALP government don't support it. What is she supposed to do? Introduce something that the panel she has to ask won't pass?
Well Wilkie is acting like she promised it was a done deal... so either she could have done it earlier but waited and now is unable which makes her incompetant, or she deliberatly lied about doing it and waited until she couldnt do it - or she never promised that and Wilkie is acting like a drama queen!? She shouldnt make promises she cannot keep and at the end of the day its being reported she made the promise to Wilkie that it would be done - and it isnt. Given she made a promise to the entire Australian public about the carbon tax which she could have kept but still broke it within a few months of making it, and she is lawyer, it makes perfect sense that she is probably lieing her arse off to anyone and everyone just to get what she wants so long as she can get away with it. No wonder some people call her Juliar.
We have a minority government. That means she can promise the world to one of the indies and then if the others say, "No," then it's just too bad.
Yeap, Gillard, Abbotts, Howard and so on do their very best to serve the gambling industry, mining industry, Woolies, Coles and so on, but never the Australian People. What a shame....
Just a short time ago, when the Gillard "Govt" were red hot for the destruction of the pokies industry, I distinctly remember newspaper, and ABC atricles enlightening the Australian public to the fact that poker machines losses were being used by organised crime to gain leverage over victims. These losing gamblers were being forced into drug production, contract crime, and some of the worst offenders were even forced to watch reruns of "Home & Away". This huge problem seems to have conveniently evaporated now?
Sorry mate, you didn't get it, my retoric was who is serving whom? Every whore on this planet is more honest than most of our politician....
Honesty is the issue here, not the merits, or lack thereof, of proposed laws spawned in back room deals.
Not content with draining workers` pockets via union fees, etc., the ALP / trade union syndicate has sizeable interests in clubs & other poker machine venues. Hands up who really believes that Big Jules didn`t have her orders re poker machine reform at the outset of this issue, and was simply stringing everyone along. I wouldn`t would a used wheelbarrow from this "woman".
Wilkie has just discovered he has been well and truly double-crossed by the queen of troll people. Did he really think for one minute someone who blatantly lied about not having a carbon tax and then introducing a greens party carbon tax as a pay back for helping the troll queen gain ascendancy to becoming the first female PM of Australia was EVER trustworthy? I didnt take Wilkie as being a naïve convent school girl, but he must be, if he believed the troll queen. Politicians are all a bunch of scum-bag liars, and they would sell their families up the river without a paddle for one more minute of media exposure of one more vote. I wouldnt trust anyone of them to feed my dog correctly!!
