The Greens have launched a politically charged attempt to force Labor to choose between a central monitoring system for poker machines or cutting ties to the Labor Club.
Labor said the amendments were "legally questionable and provocative" and had been designed to score political points.
The move has reignited simmering tensions in the Labor-Greens coalition government, which has been split over the cost and utility of a central monitoring system.
The system would link all poker machines in the ACT, which the Greens say would would make it easier to track problem gambling and prevent gamblers from switching between venues.
But Labor argues the expensive system would lock the territory into having a higher number of poker machines and would do little to stop harm when gamblers could go over the border to keep playing in Queanbeyan.
The Greens' Andrew Braddock has proposed two sets of amendments to a compulsory poker machine surrender scheme bill which is currently before the Legislative Assembly.
The first set of amendments set out the establishment of a central monitoring system by July 2028.
The second set of amendments would make clubs set up to promote or support one political party ineligible to operate poker machines in the ACT.
The amendment targets the Canberra Labor Club, which has a short-term objective to "promote and support the Australian Labor Party".
Mr Braddock told The Canberra Times there would be less justification for the second set of amendments if Labor could demonstrate its commitment to gambling harm minimisation by supporting a central monitoring system.
"The ACT Labor Party is impossibly compromised by their ties with the gambling industry through the Labor Club's ownership of poker machines," Mr Braddock said.
"And this is forming a barrier to meaningful, effective policy reform in terms of gambling harm minimisation."
While Mr Braddock pointed to previous financial contributions from the Labor Club to the ACT Labor Party, and contributions to the party's investment fund, the party has not received cash donations from the club for several years.
"The Labor Party appoints directors to the Labor Club, so there's still obviously quite a number of ties between the two entities," Mr Braddock said.
In 2022-23, the Labor Club Group reported more than $26 million in gross gaming machine revenue and reported $7377 in in-kind contributions to ACT Labor. The contributions reported were the value of 29 meeting room bookings.
The move to cut ties between Labor and the Labor Club would require an unlikely political alliance between the Greens and the Canberra Liberals in the Assembly.
Mr Braddock said he had been in discussions with the opposition. The Liberals declined to comment on the amendments.
Mr Braddock's proposed amendments were published on Thursday by the Assembly's standing committee on justice and community safety.
The amendments had been drafted in consultation with Greens leader Shane Rattenbury's office, Mr Braddock said.
It was appropriate to bring forward the amendments before the end of the parliamentary term because Mr Rattenbury had not been able to achieve agreement from Labor ministers in cabinet on the introduction of central monitoring, he said.
A spokeswoman for Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the amendments were "legally questionable and provocative" and Labor's community club policy could introduce further harm minimisation measures in 2026-27 rather than 2028.
"Really our only point of disagreement lies in imposing a very expensive central monitoring system on clubs that would lead to club closures, that can be very easily circumvented by driving to Queanbeyan or Eagle Hawk," the spokeswoman said.
The spokeswoman said Mr Rattenbury, the Gaming Minister, was engaging constructively with cabinet colleagues and there was a ot of common ground to reduce poker machine harm.
"Labor has released a comprehensive community club policy and is happy to work with the Gaming Minister on agreed elements: bringing in cashless carded play through a digital wallet system, establishing mandatory precommitment and loss limits, mandatory breaks in play, and stronger self-exclusion systems," the spokeswoman said.
"Labor considers that we should not lock in 3000 pokies in the ACT for the next 20 years, but require a significant reduction in machines in a staged way."
Mr Rattenbury told budget estimates Labor's proposal to cut poker machine numbers in the ACT without installing a central monitoring system was sabotaging a good harm-reduction policy.
The Greens leader said the government was stalling on adopting the best harm-reduction system and ACT Labor was "impossibly compromised" by its links to poker machine revenue through the ACT Labor clubs.
"I would go so far as to say that my cabinet paper has been given a go-slow treatment," Mr Rattenbury said.
