Poker Machine Cap

Extract from Hansard

Legislative Council
29 May 2001

Sandra Kanck
Deputy Leader Australian Democrats
Member of the Legislative Council

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The Hon. SANDRA KANCK: I have put on record a number of times over the past few years my position in relation to gaming machines. I will not labour the point this time except to say that I know that, in voting against a cap, my name will probably be published in the paper and people will ring up and abuse me and say, `Why?' I could very easily say, `Go back and have a look at my very good speech of 2½ years ago where I explained the philosophical basis of my position in great detail.' But people probably would not do that.

In summary, I see that, yes, there are people who gamble who have problems, but they are only a very small proportion of the people who gamble. I think we have to look at other methods of dealing with this issue rather than a cap. The use of alcohol creates problem drinkers, it creates binge drinkers, and it creates alcoholics, but I do not see anyone suggesting that a cap should be placed on alcohol production in this state. In fact, if you were to do that there would be a great cry of outrage because of what the wine industry does for South Australia's economy and tourism.

The Hon. SANDRA KANCK: Well, a cap could be put on the number of hotels, but there is no limit on how much they sell.

The Hon. SANDRA KANCK: I am not going to enter into that argument. At the present time, there are figures that show that about one in eight people will develop age onset diabetes. I do not see a move to cap the number of chocolates that can be sold. If you are to be consistent with the attitude to poker machines, that is what should be done. Every year, hundreds of people are killed and thousands are injured as a result of car accidents on our roads. I do not see any move from anyone in parliament to attempt to cap the number of cars on our roads when, arguably, they produce a great deal more misery than the problems caused by gaming machines.

I simply cannot see any consistency in the position taken by people. When action is taken to limit the amount of alcohol that can be produced, when action is taken to limit the number of cars on the roads because of the number of people killed and injured, I might take their arguments about limiting the number of poker machines seriously-but not until that time. I see this issue as one that is basically fed on populism. As a politician, I cannot make my decision based on populism; I need cold, hard facts. They have not, over a period of years, appeared. I will be opposing any freeze on the number of gaming machines.