Andrea Dawkins MP | Greens Gaming spokesperson
Treasurer Gutwein's statement today foreshadowing the release of Part B of Acil Allen's Social and Economic Impact Study of Gambling in Tasmania was just an opportunity to try and say, 'there's nothing to see here'.
All the Treasurer did was to confirm his government's support of the pokie industry, and their addiction to their profits. Profits from the poorest in our community.
The Treasurer assured us that pokie users are reducing and that the number of machines per person is appropriate, but we haven't seen this in the figures. Every year we see close to $200M lost to pokies.
Treasurer Gutwein isn't fooling Tasmanians. Anglicare's EMRS poll shows that, with 4 out of 5 people wanting pokies out of our pubs and clubs.
We are losing almost $200M every year to pokie machines and with the addition of unregulated online gambling, it's the Tasmanians who can least afford it, and their families, that suffer.