UNCERTAINTY surrounding the outcome of last year's Federal election has allowed the campaign for national poker machine reform to become a top priority, a leading independent MP has told.
Support for poker machine reform was crucial to Prime Minister Julia Gillard winning the backing of Federal Member for Denison Andrew Wilkie and was central to Labor forming government.
During an exclusive interview Mr Wilkie told The Express he had long been an "outspoken advocate" of electronic gaming reform and the return of a hung parliament "turbo-charged" the issue.
"It's unsurprising when I found myself in that extraordinary negotiating position after the election that I took the opportunity to make poker machine reform one of my flagship issues," Mr Wilkie said.
He said his support for a mandatory pre-commitment system for poker machines, where users would nominate a maximum amount they were prepared to lose, was based on the outcome of last year's Productivity Commission report into gambling.
The Productivity Commission estimated the national cost of gambling to be at least $4.7 billion and put the number of people with a severe gambling problem between 80,000 and 160,000.
According to Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation $45 million was spent on gaming in Latrobe City last financial year and the municipality has the highest per-capita pokie spend in the state outside Melbourne.
The Gillard Government has committed to having a national pre-commitment scheme in place by 2014 and Mr Wilkie said he was confident the target would be met.
He said system had yet to be devised but would mean all poker machines in Australia would be fitted with technology which locked people out after they had reached their specified amount
"It is a mandatory system - it will be fitted to all machines and all regular gamblers will have to use it," Mr Wilkie said.
"The only people who would be excluded from the system are those very low level recreational gamblers."
The Victorian Government has committed to introducing a voluntary pre-commitment program, where gamblers would be able to continue playing once they reached their limit, but Mr Wilkie said the plan had "very little benefit".
"When venues introduce voluntary pre-commitment the amount of money going through their machines barely changes," he said.
"The Productivity Commission found that it has to be mandatory if it's going to be effective."
He said the cost of problem gambling outweighed gaming revenue collected by the states and said the problem was absorbed by the community and not-for-profit organisations.
"When you look at this from a financial point of view states will be better off," Mr Wilkie said.
"We're not trying to stop poker machine playing, we're just trying to stop problem gambling."
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