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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-12-01 Daily Xml
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Poker Machines

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:52): If ever you needed convincing of the need for tougher gambling laws and political donation laws, you need look no further than Sunday night's 60 Minutes dirty money exposé. Producer Joel Tozer exposed what we all know about the underbelly of the poker machine industry. Hours of footage showed how the poker machine industry is used to launder dirty money. As reporter Nick McKenzie said in the introduction of that program:

Give or take a few billion, Australians spend a quarter of a trillion dollars a year gambling. It's such a staggering amount it is no surprise the gaming industry is targeted by organised crime. The big casino firms—Crown Resorts and The Star—long denied there was a serious problem until we exposed their links to some of the biggest crooks in the country.

Tonight though, we are turning our attention to the neighbourhood pubs and clubs filled with money-making poker machines. They might seem like the little guys when it comes to gambling, but it turns out size doesn't matter for the criminals running massive money-laundering operations. It's so blatant it takes your breath away.

Seemingly, without a care of being discovered, this criminal gang is turning its ill-gotten gains into clean cash. In a single afternoon, tens of thousands of dollars are being washed through the poker machines in this brazen money-laundering scam.

The program goes on to show how those groups take control of an entire poker machine room. The laws of averages dictate that one person in that room will eventually win the jackpot that is on offer. A general walks around with a piece of paper collecting tickets and controlling the players and, ultimately, they walk out with the jackpot—a jackpot made by money that was dirty and has been cleaned via those poker machines.

We are not just talking about money laundering: there is human trafficking involved, there is drug dealing involved, there is an underbelly of crime involved. A ClubsNSW whistleblower leaked documents which clearly showed it did not want scrutiny on players. Of course, none of this is news because in 2010, when Andrew Wilkie secured then PM Julia Gillard's support to rein in that poker machine industry, that lobby, led by the AHA and ClubsNSW, declared war. By 2012, the pressure had become so much that a backflip was done by the Gillard government and ultimately those reforms did not see the light of day.

New South Wales is second to Las Vegas in terms of poker machine numbers. Australia has the highest rates of gambling and poker machines per capita in the world. Aside from the hundreds of millions of dollars lost by problem gamblers, conservative estimates are that hundreds of millions of dollars are laundered using these very same poker machines as washing machines in New South Wales alone.

It is foolish and ignorant to think this is not happening in SA. We have already had reports of bikies using the Casino next door to do precisely the same thing. We have a casino that is currently under investigation by AUSTRAC for customers identified as high risk and potentially exposed persons, so if you think this is limited to New South Wales, or Queensland for that matter, then you are more stupid than you look.

If you think turning a blind eye to this issue makes it okay, then shame on you. We passed laws in this place two years ago that undid the single most effective harm minimisations that we ever had. Why? Because the poker machine industry asked for them—the same lobby that makes political donations to both major parties. Make no mistake, both major parties help run a protection racket for money laundering by accepting donations from the lobby and turning a blind eye to the dirty underbelly of that industry.

According to media reports, the AHA and ClubsNSW alone disclosed roughly $16 million in political contributions in a two-year period. Over a 22-year period, it reported there has been over $80 million in political donations. It is little wonder that when the poker machine lobby industry calls, they know they will get a return call. When they want an audience, they know they will get one. They know that, despite the responsible gambling rhetoric, the majors will not bite the hand that feeds them, and in so doing both major parties are complicit not only in the gambling harm caused by poker machines but the dirty money laundering underbelly of that industry.

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