The NSW Coalition has been criticised by candidates hoping to join the crossbench for being too slow to present its policy plan to reform pokies.
Premier Dominic Perrottet announced the changes his team would make it if it retained government after the March 25 election, vowing to make all poker machines cashless by New Year’s Eve 2028.
The plan, which the Coalition claims would “eliminate money laundering at pubs and clubs”, goes further than Labor’s proposal to hold a mandatory trial at 500 machines next year. But several independent candidates whose support could become vital for whichever party wins said the Coalition plan was too cautious and too late.
“It won’t come into effect until 2028, so they’re pushing pokie reform to the next election in 2027,” Lane Cove candidate Victoria Davidson told Crikey. “That’s disingenuous, it needs to be solved now.”
North Shore candidate Helen Conway said the policy was “too little, too late”.
“We’re at a breakthrough moment in NSW history and the government must be held to account,” she said. “The Coalition policy fails to deliver the necessary safeguards to ensure the cashless gaming card delivers real reductions in gambling harm in the community.”
Manly candidate Joeline Hackman told Crikey the Coalition announcement could have gone further: “I feel like Perottet’s announcement is good, but it’s not strong enough. I think that the only way we’ll be able to deliver what our communities need is by having independents push for better legislation.”
However, independent MP for Sydney Alex Greenwich, who has been leading a push in the state’s lower house to make gambling machines cashless, celebrated the Coalition plan.
“Last year, I was proud to announce that I would legislate for cashless gaming to combat money laundering & gambling harm,” he tweeted. “Today, the government has adopted this position and the premier should be congratulated on his world leading policy.”
The Greens’ gambling harm reduction spokeswoman Cate Faehrmann congratulated the premier for “finally laying out a pathway to cashless gambling”, but said it needed to happen faster.
“He needs to get this done within the next term of Parliament,” she said. “Five years is too long for the people and communities who are suffering right now.”
Labor Leader Chris Minns, whose proposal for a trial was heavily criticised for not going far enough to tackle money laundering and problem gambling, said his party would adopt one element of the Coalition plan: buying back 2000 poker machines. But he also said the Coalition’s reforms would be too slow.
“We’ve waited four months for his proposal for a change that will come about in six years’ time,” he said, according to The Daily Telegraph.
The Christian non-profit Wesley Mission, which has advocated for gambling reform in the state, said the five-year timeline was “disappointing”.
Chief executive Stu Cameron said he had hoped the changes could be brought about sooner than that, and that a self-exclusion register should be implemented “as soon as possible”.
“It is vital that such a system is implemented as soon as possible and not linked to the December 31 2028 timeline,” he said.
