One of the worst hypocrisies inside the cant of big business gambling is the one which says the industry is primarily targeted at wealthy tourists. If only this was so. In fact it is local people living in poverty from whom a huge proportion of the profits are taken. At the same time, when local communities, health and welfare professionals, non governmental organisations and others come together to resist the expansion of casinos and poker machines, one of the first responses is that the problem of gambling is simply one of pathology, a pathology that affects only a fraction of those who are adversely affected. We then enter the specious debate about whether it's one or two per cent of the population who are the true addicts, and talk about how much money the industry is putting back into helping these poor people.
Governments have a huge vested interest in continuing with the expansion of the industry.
At the same time there are never enough resources put into the problems which gambling addiction accentuates and worsens, such as poverty, domestic violence, abuse and neglect, other addictions, crime, family breakup, and in the worst cases, business failures, suicide and murder. Last week the Department of Internal Affairs released its Gaming Review consultation paper - the reason for our being here today. We have been given only until the 30th of April to make submissions to the Review, and I commend Ralph, the Compulsive Gambling Society and others involved for taking such quick action in organising today's symposium as a bid to generate and improve the quality of public debate and input into the review. Looking at the exciting programme before us today, I see this forum as an attempt to engender the badly needed broader social policy debate about how we balance the rights of people to enjoy gambling and those of Government and industry to make money out of it, while at the same time minimising harm to individuals, families and the wider community and economy. The current Gaming Review does not mention concepts of economic and social sustainability.