The ACT seriously lags behind in its effort to reduce the harmful effects of poker machine gambling and a central monitoring system to enable loss limits would have the most immediate effect to reduce gambling harm, the Gaming Minister will say.
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Shane Rattenbury will also reveal he has taken the proposal for a central poker machine monitoring system to cabinet multiple times without securing government endorsement.
Mr Rattenbury, who is also ACT Greens leader, will in a speech to a gambling harm symposium declare his party would make central monitoring of poker machines and loss limits an election issue.
"Should my Labor Government colleagues refuse to advance these much needed reforms, the Greens will do everything we can through the next election, and through any subsequent balance of power opportunities, to force them to happen. It won't go away," he is due to say, a copy of the speech seen by The Canberra Times shows.
The ACT government has been split over the introduction of a central monitoring system, which would enable a universal cashless gaming system with limits imposed
Mr Rattenbury has repeatedly said a central monitoring system offers the most realistic means of reducing poker-machine harm, while Labor's gambling spokeswoman, Marisa Paterson, has warned the cost of the system would likely mean poker machine numbers are not further reduced.
The Gaming Minister will on Tuesday address a symposium organised by the Canberra Gambling Reform Alliance, where he will argue blocking a central monitoring system would be a "terrible blow to harm reduction".
"Everyone says they want gaming reform; but sometimes they might actually be a 'fifth column', raising enough opposition to proposals to actually prevent reform and keep the status quo," Mr Rattenbury will say.
Mr Rattenbury will say there are thousands of addictive poker machines across the ACT, which have the ability to trap and ruin people and collect $180 million a year in net revenue.
"If we want to get real and immediate harm reduction reform done in the territory, if we want to protect people now without waiting for another 20 years for electronic gaming machines to hopefully disappear, then getting this monitoring system installed, and getting in loss limits and other protections, is the way to go," Mr Rattenbury will say.
Mr Rattenbury will say the cost of the system is not prohibitive and that gaming machine operators held a "significant obligation" to limit the public risk of their operations, but no decision had been taken on how the system would be paid for.
"It's a one-off installation of trunk infrastructure. We have just completed market sounding on a central monitoring system to see what the market has to offer. I am not going to talk in detail about costs except I think we can say its initial installation across the territory would cost some millions of dollars," he will say.
Mr Rattenbury will say that even if the ACT continues to reduce the number of poker machines - which have fallen from 5022 machines in 2015 to 3790 in 2024 - their use without limits would still be harmful.
"Reducing numbers is an important long term measure. But it's no cure, certainly not in the short to medium term. The losses from gaming machines are not reducing. If you're a problem gambler and there are still gaming machines around, you'll seek them out. We still have thousands of machines," he will say.
"And the time it would take to reduce electronic gaming machines to zero, or near zero - to an amount that would seriously prevent gaming harm through numbers alone - will be decades. Ten or maybe 20 years. That is the reality."
Jasper Lindell
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
