Labour, New Zealand First and the Pokies

When Helen Clark’s Labour government came to power in 1999 there were 14,000 “non-casino” pokie machines in New Zealand. Four years later there were 25,000.

Labour was asleep at the wheel.

Under community alarm the Clark government encouraged local bodies to put in place “sinking lid” policies so pokies could not be transferred to a new venue when one venue closed. Numbers have crawled down under this policy to 15,400 now but the income from the machines is going up.

A new report out last week paints the same grim picture we have heard for years.

It’s no surprise that there are five times more machines per person in the high deprivation areas of New Zealand than anywhere else.

And that’s where disproportionate numbers of Maori and Pasifika live.

Our most vulnerable communities are deliberately targeted by these parasites on poverty.

To spell it out more clearly – it’s estimated that HALF the profits from these machines come from people with addictions. That’s the business model the venues follow. No wonder the so called “host responsibility” measures employed are a sham.

The “hosts” want more problem gamblers and more profit.

The well-heeled beneficiaries of these addictions – the pokie trusts and venue owners – claim there are huge community benefits with 30% of the profits going to community groups who otherwise wouldn’t get funded.

But why would any self-respecting community fund community-building activities with a community destroying activity.

The simple fact is low-income communities are destroyed by pokies to fund community-building activities in higher income areas.

Will this latest report spark action to remove pokies from low-income areas? I have more hope that this may happen because the Internal Affairs portfolio is not held by Labour.

Over to you Tracey Martin.