Gambling

Manningham gambling motion at 2023 ALGA NGA


March 1, 2023

The following motion was unanimously endorsed at the February 28, 2023 City of Manningham council meeting and will be debated at the 2023 National General Assembly of the Australian Local Government Association in June.

This National General Assembly calls on the Australian Government to address Australia's world-highest gambling losses per capita and the intolerable harm $25 billion of annual losses inflicts on Australians, local communities and local and regional health and municipal service providers by:

  1. Introducing a new dedicated Federal Gambling Regulator which includes a mandate to implement and oversee a broad tobacco-style ban on gambling advertising.

  2. Legislating for the complete removal of cash from Australia's fleet of 200,000 poker machine as a national anti money laundering measure in light of last year's NSW Crime Commission report revealing widespread money laundering across NSW poker machines where criminal money launderers can still load up to $10,000 in cash into a single machine.
  1. Establishing a national ACT-style buyback and retirement of poker machine licenses with an initial budget allocation of $500 million and make it conditional on the state and territory governments and the participating clubs, pubs and casinos agreeing to permanently retire the licenses and remove the attached machines from their venues.
  1. Negotiating a moratorium agreement with the Northern Territory government to cease issuing any new low tax digital bookmaking licenses to foreign-owned gambling operators such as Sportsbet, Bet365, Ladbrokes and Betr and instead transferring online gambling licensing and regulation to a new Federal Regulator.
  1. Legislating to the effect that Federally registered political parties are ineligible for Federal per-vote political funding if they, or any of their state affiliates, own and operate poker machine venues.
  1. Removing the DGR status of any church or charity which continues to directly own and operate licensed gambling entities, such as poker machine clubs.

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