Will removing poker machines from Tasmania’s pubs and clubs cost jobs?
One of the big issues in Tasmania in the lead-up to the state election on March 3 is the impact of stripping the state’s pubs and clubs of poker machines.
Labor has pledged to remove 2375 poker machines from 97 Tasmanian pubs and clubs, citing the damage it does to the community.
This means that anyone who wants to play the pokies in Tasmania will have to visit Tasmania's two casinos, which operate 1185 machines. Alternatively, they can take a trip aboard the Spirit of Tasmania, which operates 36 machines on its ferries.
Labor’s pledge has infuriated the gaming industry. It’s warned that the job losses will have an impact on the state’s gaming industry.
Liberal Treasurer Peter Gutwein says the industry is well placed to make that warning because it operates at the coal face.
"The impact of taking poker machines out of pubs and clubs would cost thousands of jobs, and the industry, as you know, have said that they [sic] estimate that around 5000 jobs would be affected," Mr Gutwein told reporters on January 29.
But a closer analysis by RMIT ABC Fact Check reveals that’s not quite correct.
The Treasurer was relying on both a gaming industry survey predicting that 1038 jobs would vanish and the gaming industry’s rough calculation that 5100 jobs would be “affected” through reduced hours, changed duties or lost altogether, experts have raised questions about the methodology of the gaming industry survey.
However, a gaming industry representative told Fact Check the numbers were being misinterpreted, claiming 5100 jobs would be lost, when in fact the survey had indicated only 1038 would go.
A Tasmanian Department of Treasury and Finance report has found that reliable data on employment in the gambling industry is not collected by governments or industry.
The report also reveals that in 2017, 1086 (FTEs) were employed in the delivery of gambling services across Tasmania.
That included 371 FTEs in pubs and clubs.
In other words, gaming-related employment levels in pubs and clubs run in the hundreds of jobs rather than thousands.
Leon Getler 25th February 2018
