With No Idea Of What To Do, Troy Grant Wants A Review

Australian Hospitality Minister Troy Grant seems to want a review of the manner in which gambling’s impact is measured, but sets out no scale by which it actually should.

It is perhaps a mark of our modern world (or a sign of the oncoming apocalypse) that politicians feel comfortable making the sort of generalized emotive comments that can be later interpreted as being both complete support for a position, or a guarded criticism thereof depending on how public opinion forms subsequently. They know the neutered media are unlikely to be more pressing on the language they use, the know that trite mealy mouthed platitudes make excellent soundbites, and, in the end, they know they can simply fail to intersect their comments with reality and get away with it.

Grant Gives Himself A Way Out

• Hospitality Minister makes no commitments beyond talk

• Local impact assessment review a can kicking exercise

• Grant is gambling news of possible change pleases electorate

This ranges from the laughably common “We have no plans at this time…” which almost always precedes a change in plans, to the slightly lesser used “We found no evidence that…” which just means they didn’t bother looking or willfully ignored all the evidence there was available. This sort of pedantic tight definition of phrasing is coupled with a generalization that renders statements dependent upon an indefinable modifier. Which is akin to having an online gambling site in Australia with no “deposit” button, it leads nowhere.

Take Deputy Premier of Australia, Troy Grant whose gurning face smirks into press release photos like that of a man who knows his gravy train has already left the station with himself firmly and safely onboard. Recently, in his other role as Hospitality Minister (a job which hovers between laughable and outright robbery of the tax payers) he announced that should the government be re-elected he would change regulations based not on economic statistics, not with crime figures or even the numbers that come out of the public health sector, but out of something completely unmeasurable; “net community benefit”.

Quite what “net community benefit” might be in terms of the Hospitality industry isn’t clear, and nor is the framework by which it would be measured, estimated or even guessed at. He has, in effect, decided to change the law with a qualitative scale of success that bears no relation to the reality of either the situation at hand, the law as it stands, nor the communities he would doubtless claim to be helping, benefiting or possibly saving single handedly. In short, Mr. Grant is playing politics and simply can’t be bothered to hide the barefaced pragmatism that goes along with it.

Local Impact Assessments Fudged?

In a memorandum of understanding signed by Grant, and indeed the Premier himself, Mike Baird, the government has committed itself to “review the local impact assessment process” so that they can “ensure it is meeting community and industry needs”. It says much that performing a review is now something to which governments have to “commit” when so many of us would wish them to commit to actually changing things not just talking about doing so.

The industry and community in question? That of clubs and the gaming machines therein, the community? New South Wales. The suggestion? That clubs should be allowed to lease their slot and poker machines to other clubs whilst retaining their venue and the associated caps as set by the LGA. On the face of it this would seem not a great step away from the present circumstance whereby clubs can sell on their entitlements, typically when facing financial closure.

Under this new scheme it is thought many rural or suburban clubs would lease their machines to clubs closer to the center of population conglomerations, hoping that this would boost revenues from each machine, but that is dependent, as Mr Grant made clear “if it can be shown there is net community benefit achieved”. He doesn’t, of course, say what a net community benefit actually is, how it would be measured nor what steps would be taken were it failed to be realized.

Indeed the process by which it would be measured, if it can be at all, is itself under review which makes one wonder just how effective it has been thus far. Reviews are typically not foist upon instances of effective efficiency so one can only imagine that the local impact assessment thus far has been of little impact and assessed to have failed to meet acceptable standards of performance, and thus Mr. Grant finds himself on firmly uncertain ground able to later to leap in either direction should the political winds dictate it.

Gaming As A Political Football

Of course whilst the media see no problem with this fence sitting exercise in kicking the can down the road till beyond the next election, there are some groups that aren’t as willing to put up with such ill defined action being so easily bandied about for political consumption this side of Aussies going to the polls in a nation where voting is mandatory. The Australian Churches Gambling Taskforce is hardly alone in its dismay but it has certainly been the loudest in its critical comment on the matter.

“The net impact is clearly to get poker machines to work harder at getting money off people,” a spokesman said in a swipe at the immeasurable scale Mr. Grant has not so much set out as tentatively floated. He continued; “There is obviously a concern that moving machines to places where more money will be lost will result in increasing problem gambling and harm, even where a net benefit test can be satisfied.” which is tantamount to saying whatever the test introduced might be, it’ll be fudged to fit the desires of the political rather than the community.

The use of gaming as a political football is, of course, nothing new, with the pro-gambling lobby being derided as money-grabbing quaestuary scam artists and the anti-gambling groups often characterized as being po-faced goody-two-shoes out of touch with modern society’s norms. Whichever your own personal view the fact that political leaders are unwilling or unable to take clear action in either direction says much for their desire to survive politically at the expense of the country longterm.

As long as the political classes insist in living in a land of make-believe where they can blur the issues, refuse to take any personal responsibility and set unmeasurable standards by which they claim they and their proposals should be judged there is likely to continue to be a jaundiced view of the entire sector. Mr. Grant may have high hopes for re-election, his government could possibly be returned to power, but given he appears to merely be suggesting talking about change, what actual difference it would make to Australian gambling laws is anyone’s guess.