Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Honourable Speaker, I thank the member for Clark for bringing this MPI on. I acknowledge up front her long and strong history in tackling this scourge. Pokies are indeed a scourge. They are a significant scourge on our society and they cost us dearly. They are designed to addict. They are programmed to win. They are located in some of the most vulnerable communities across our state.
They cost us very dearly. Just recently, the losses from the pokies industry were articulated clearly on the Treasury website: $18.4 million lost statewide to poker machines in July 2025. One single month: $18.4 million, the highest losses since July 2020, back in the midst of COVID or thereabouts. It’s almost $200 million statewide across the year, across 2024 and 2025. This is a significant amount of money and it’s coming from some of our most vulnerable communities.
My municipality of Clark is the biggest loser of all. Of course, in Glenorchy there is ‘the Golden Mile’. In July, it sucked just under $2 million out of communities, vulnerable people. This is an absolute shame and it’s a travesty and it’s an indictment on our approach. Some of the other municipalities: $790,000 from Burnie; just under $1 million from Clarence, in the honourable Treasurer’s electorate; $950,000 from Devonport; just over $1.5 million in Launceston.
This has really genuine and significant impacts on people. This is not a victimless industry. It’s a driver of poverty and financial stress. Of course, that has impacts on partners, children and others. It delivers mental health and other personal health issues for people. It drives a scourge on our society, things such as domestic violence. This house has only just passed a motion to establish a committee looking into, amongst other things, domestic violence. We know that poker machines are one of the things – and the stress that they cause is one of the drivers of domestic violence.
It drives crime and, in the most extreme cases, it can lead to the loss of life. This is not a victimless activity. This is not just a simple bet on a machine once or twice a year, because we know that because they are designed to addict, because they are designed to win, they are having significant impacts. Of course, that’s costing us as a community. Not only are we paying for the medical care and the domestic violence and other treatments; not only are we paying for the policing that’s dealing with the crime that is being driven by these pokies, but we are losing investment in our communities to small businesses, alternative things that people could be spending that $18 million a month on.
Just imagine the kind of investment that $2 million in Glenorchy could deliver to local businesses and the local community. This is being stripped from our community. It’s an absolute indictment. Poker machines in pubs and clubs is a problem. It’s a significant problem, but of course we have poker machines in casinos as well. If you want to know the breakdown between that: in July, 58 per cent of that $18.4 million losses was lost in clubs and pubs pokies, and 42 per cent was lost in casinos. So, the majority of the losses are delivered in those vulnerable communities, and some of these venues are staying open till 4 in the morning. We’ve heard from addicts. You talk to addicts about this and they just simply can’t walk down the street without going into those places, so we do need harm minimisations.
Cards are a really important way to deliver that, but of course that has been dropped by this government, and that is a shame. I acknowledge Mr Ferguson’s commitment to this as part of government. We do know that he has been committed to it, but we know that it has now been dropped. We are deeply concerned and believe this has been dropped because of the donations to political parties. The TEC’s registration, or declaration of donations to political parties, shows that the pokies industry has donated to both the Labor Party, the Liberal Party, and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party just in the last couple of months. That is what is driving the policy inaction when it comes to harm minimisation in this state.
Time expired.
