Australian Churches Gambling Taskforce Chair, Rev Tim Costello said the poker machine reform debate must move beyond politics and business and focus on the people whose lives are affected by poker machine addiction and those who are at risk.
Rev Costello made the comments ahead of The Australian Churches Gambling Taskforce meeting in Canberra today.
“The Australian churches have a long proud history of providing support and services to Australian communities. We welcome the current historic opportunity for poker machine reform, the culmination of years of research, policy development and advocacy,” Rev Costello said.
“Our members have contributed to the debate, notable through submissions and consultations around the Productivity Commission gambling reports of 1999 and 2010.
“People who provide counselling for problem gamblers rightly focus on the individuals they are working with. The priority is to help people turn their lives around. There are very few voices focusing on the broader public policy issues such as consumer protection.
“Poker machine gambling is a problem for around a third of regular users.
“Prevention is the focus of good public policy supported by measures to help people who fall through the safety net.
“The Taskforce has no political agenda. We stand in solidarity on the issue of poker machine reform because someone has to tell this story.
“People living with or recovering from poker machine addiction are often too ashamed to speak out. They are not skilled advocates and statistically come from fairly disadvantaged backgrounds.
“While the industry pushes ahead with its well-funded campaign to mislead the Australian public, we urge our decision makers to consider the polls this year which show Australians overwhelmingly support the introduction of mandatory pre commitment measures.
“Mandatory pre commitment requires all poker machine players to determine ahead of time how much they are prepared to lose in any gambling session. This as part of a range of measures will help problem gamblers who are ready to help themselves and help protect a significant number of at-risk players from developing a problem.
“People who have had a gambling addiction tell us that being required to set limits set in the cold light of day, away from the ‘zone’ would have saved an awful lot of pain and dysfunction in their lives” Mr Costello concluded.
Download the Media Release as a pdf here: Churches bring poker machine reform message to Canberra
Having been a Counsellor now for many years and a Gambling Counsellor for over 10 years involved directly with the worst possible scenarios due primarily to poker machine gambling I am delighted to support the proposed legislation being presented by Tasmanian Independent Andrew Wilkie and the Federal government to address the hideous previously hidden and denied issue of the mere existence of Problem Gambling. Yes there has been pretension industry recognition of the problem but never has there been any truly sincere effort made to address a major social oversight. When the football season became flooded with sneaky “Wont Work Will Hurt” advertorials I knew then we had to “up the anty” because as Ray Warren informed us all the message for him to read on grand final day came from “Up Top”.
Deserved congratulate to Keith Williams of Ballina for his public stand in the interest of two young boys of his community who are innocent victims of their Father’s addiction, a probable avoidance consequence of some life trauma/s of his own, the toxic energy of which is normally unconsciously buried in pain felt denial from childhood.
Counsellor confidentiality precludes me as author from detailed revelations, suffice to say I have been exposed to too many families, relations, individuals and employers traumatised and wounded by poker machine problem gamblers some of whom have taken their own lives, been imprisoned, made homeless, before the courts for embezzlement, or theft and bankruptcy. Relationships destroyed by violent assault, leaving behind destroyed partners and broken families.
Our society deserves protection and education to the hideous dangers within problem gambling the true facts of which are being dishonestly denied, manipulated and deliberately orchestrated by vested interests within upper management where the real beneficiaries live by and on this deceitful compassionless dishonesty with their personal benefits and incomes derived principally from problem gamblers.
Anthony Ball spokesman for Clubs Australia’s recent SBS TV admission that problem gamblers do exist exposes the degree fervor and determination of the industries resistance to the entire matter.
It would be out of the question to consider that Australians will ever give up gambling and it needs to be appreciated that sole point of the argument has been to protect Problem Gamblers from endlessly chasing their losses. We aim to educate and seek the support of the broader community to the health issues beneath compulsive addictive behaviour which until now has been denied by the principal beneficiaries of the gambling industries, that is those knowingly living from the income derived through the losses of problem gamblers.