Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to rise to support the motion by the member for Wakefield. I commend him for bringing it to House and commend the contributions by all the other speakers here today. I would like to add my concern about the impact that electronic gaming machines have on some members of our community. It is estimated that there are over 290,000 problem gamblers here in Australia and over two million Australians are affected in some way by problem gambling. The member for Wakefield mentioned that there was probably someone in his electorate tonight leaving a place having been affected by problem gambling. I would say that there is probably someone in all of our electorates tonight who is leaving a place having been affected by problem gambling.

Previous to working as a member of parliament, I used to work as a psychologist. I saw firsthand some of the terrible effects when someone becomes addicted to gambling. What struck me more than any economic detriment was the psychological detriment that occurred to these people, whether it was intense shame, intense embarrassment or depression. For the families as well there were severe trust issues that occurred. It really did tear some families apart. So this has a particular importance to me, and I am pleased that the motion recognises the inadequacy of some of the consumer protections in place at the moment.

The member for Wakefield rightly pointed to the area of consumer protection when it comes to the design of electronic gaming machines. There are many elements of these machines that make them incredibly reinforcing to the player, including the music, the pictures, the physical features—the handbag hook has been mentioned—the payout schedules, the amount of payout and the amount that you can bet. All these are designed to encourage patrons to stay longer than they intended to. In addition, it has been acknowledged that the surrounding environment also gets people to keep on playing these machines.

Research suggests that gamblers, especially those who play more than once a week, find it difficult to stop playing once the session has commenced. This was made evident to me by the sharp decline in gambling revenue that occurs—it has been acknowledged in South Australia and by the Productivity Commission in 2001—when smoking bans occur. That got me thinking: what actually is happening here?

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