Wilkie’s reforms now only a long shot

January 19, 2012

As the man wrote, Wilkie blinked.

After months of threatening to withdraw support for Julia Gillard’s minority government, Tasmanian Independent and poker machine reform addict, Andrew Wilkie, appears on the verge of folding his tent.

It was just a few short months ago Mr Wilkie was telling the nation that he would bring down the government if his mandatory pre-commitment legislation for poker machines wasn’t introduced.

Now, with Labor sneaking former Liberal, Peter Slipper, into the Speaker’s chair, the government’s once precarious position is no more.

Ergo, Mr Wilkie can no longer wear his Superman suit and hold the government to ransom.

He is now certain to back down on his once not-negotiable demands and
Julia Gilliard’s promise (believe that if you will) that Labor will not stand a candidate in his seat, should clinch the deal.

Mr Wilkie will now go away and float through the rest of this term in parliament until the next election where, if he was a gambling man and happy to take better than poker machine odds, he would put his house on the Coalition romping in.

Mr Wilkie wanted poker machine reform for all the right reasons – he just went about it the wrong way.

No-one should ignore there is a major problem with gambling, particularly on these machines that were meant to be treated only as a light diversion and a harmless revenue raiser for clubs and pubs.

Gambling issues extend far
beyond the clubs’ and pubs’ gaming rooms.

With the rapid expansion of on-line overseas entrepreneurs lining up to take our cash, the problem is only going to get worse.