Pokies battle to dominate Tasmania’s election
Electronic poker machines will be the big battle ground in Tasmania’s state election.
Tasmania’s opposition leader Rebecca White has announced the Labor Party would ban poker machines from pubs and clubs if she became premier.
This is not only a challenge to the Liberal government but also to the Sydney-based Farrell family.
The Farrells have been a giant presence in the island state since the late 1960s, when it was awarded a licence to turn the Wrest Point Riviera Hotel on the banks of Hobart’s River Derwent into Australia’s first casino.
That was followed by the rights to build Launceston’s Country Club Casino a decade later followed by the exclusive licensing rights for pokies in pubs and clubs in 1993.
The deals with Labor and Liberal governments have put the Farrells in the BRW rich family list. According to the latest figures, they were worth $463m, up $48m from the previous year.
With Tasmanians losing $110m a year on gaming machines and with about 2,000 problem gamblers, mostly hooked on pokies, White surprised the state, and the gaming industry nationwide in December with a pledge to use the expiration of Federal Group’s exclusivity deed to force more than 2,300 pokies to be removed in five years.
The Premier Will Hodgman has put up a different policy: ending Federal Group’s monopoly outside casinos and bringing in a regime that would see venues licensed directly, increasing the state’s tax take and revenue to pub owner.
Meanwhile, Federal Group chief Greg Farrell is warned his company will review its Tasmanian investments and is even threatening legal action if Labor wins. He has launched an advertising campaign featuring 11 employees worried they could lose their jobs.
The state’s hospitality association has also joined the campaign, claiming Labor is putting 5000 jobs at risk. Pubs meanwhile have been putting up billboards calling for Hodgman to be returned.
by Leon Gettler, February 2nd 2017.
