*poke!!* Oh, wise guy, eh!?

A pokie in the eye for big clubs.

Okay, so there's a sadistic side of me that enjoyed reading that article and the comments accompanying it!!!

I worked with a local newspaper for a while in NSW and had to cover the introduction of the new tax system to cover the pokies there, which involved talking to local club owners (some of the clubs, such as the RSL, had over 50 machines), government people and so on. The local club owners were claiming it would see the ruination of everyone in the town - small businesses wouldn't be able to be supported because the clubs wouldn't be able to spend as much money on them, etc etc.

I felt like saying, "Don't you mean that small businesses would be supported because people would no longer be chucking all of their money into a pokie machine slot and could spend it at the shops instead?" Personally, I was all for the new taxes (hoping that the new laws would encourage clubs to install less of the dratted things so as to avoid paying loads more tax), but the editor of the newspaper forbade me from going with the angle of it being a good thing that the club owners wouldn't be raking in as much money from the machines. He sided with the local club owners.

Of course the governments aren't going to ban pokies. They make far too much money, even though they cause some horrible problems for the people who end up addicted to gambling with them. I remember when I still lived in South Australia, there was a little old lady I overheard in a conversation with a friend on pension pay day morning. She'd already spent all of her pension playing the pokies at the local club.

Australia needs more Nick Xenophon style politicians! :-p