The future of a central poker machine monitoring scheme is now in the hands of the Liberals after the Greens declared its talks with Labor had broken down.
Gaming Minister and Greens leader Shane Rattenbury said his party now looked to the Canberra Liberals to back amendments that would deliver a central monitoring system in the ACT.
"The Liberal party now have the balance of power on these important reforms, and I maintain hope that they can do what the Labor party failed to do, and act in the interests of the community," Mr Rattenbury said.
"Just as we have seen the federal Labor party resile from regulating gambling advertising, ACT Labor has retreated from real action to address harm from pokies. It's frustrating, disappointing and the community deserves better."
Mr Rattenbury's comments mark a significant escalation in the political stoush between the Greens and Labor, which have split on the issue of adopting a central monitoring system.
Labor has previously declared the amendments to be "legally questionable and provocative".
"The best way to reduce harm from poker machines over the medium term is to reduce the number of poker machines and their geographic spread. Mr Rattenbury is yet to indicate the Greens' position on reducing the number of machines," a Labor spokesperson said.
The ACT Greens will next week introduce contentious amendments in the Assembly's final sitting week before the October election.
The party will attempt to force Labor to choose between a central monitoring system for poker machines or cutting ties to the Labor Club.
The Canberra Gambling and Reform Alliance co-chair Jeremy Halcrow earlier this week said the political paralysis this parliamentary term between the parties meant meaningful reform had not been pursued.
Clubs ACT chief executive Craig Shannon said the industry wanted no further changes to poker machine laws until an inquiry considered the issue in the next term of government.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr on Monday said Labor and the Greens were working towards a statement that reflected the broad agreement between the two parties on reducing poker machine gambling harm.
"Where there is some disagreement at this point is over the cost, scope and effectiveness of a proposed central monitoring system," Mr Barr said.
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 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.
Mr Rattenbury said the Greens endeavoured to work closely with Labor to achieve progressive outcomes for the community but had been forced to call out "Labor's significant, entrenched failure on the issue of gambling reform".
"Gambling harm is a curse to the community, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses, negatively affecting people's finances and health, and causing addiction. Harm from pokies is an area we can address here in the ACT," he said.
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 previously 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.
Labor has not received cash donations from the Labor Club for several years.
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.
