Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I rise to draw the attention of the House to an addiction that continues to infiltrate our suburbs and towns, and that is poker machines. I recently attended a public meeting of residents in my electorate of La Trobe, in the suburb of Officer. This meeting was spearheaded by local resident Andrew McNabb—I must say that he is also a great friend of mine—and international poker machine expert Dr Charles Livingstone from Monash University's School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine was invited to speak. I also spoke at that meeting regarding my experience as a former police officer. Dr Livingstone is one of the top three independent poker machine researchers in the world. At the public meeting, he explained that poker machines aren't an accidental addiction and that for far too long we have wrongly blamed people for developing an addiction to poker machines. Apparently, the computer programs inside poker machines are designed to target the same part of the brain as cocaine does. Yet, unlike cocaine users, most poker machine players don't know the dangers of the product they are playing with. They perceive poker machines to be harmless fun that is endorsed by the state government.

Within my electorate, a planning application to build a hotel with 80 machines was knocked back by the Shire of Cardinia, and I congratulate the shire for their decision. I want to pay tribute to local resident Andrew McNabb and also to Bad Bets Australia strategist Rohan Wenn, who helped run the awareness campaign that contributed to a unanimous decision. However, despite this strong stance at the local government level, the community recognises that the applicant is likely to appeal the decision through the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, so Andrew and Bad Bets are still out there collecting signatures to take it to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

My former life was that of a police officer at Boronia Criminal Investigation Branch. Six months after poker machines came into our area, my colleagues and I started to notice an increase in frauds and thefts, all work-related. When we investigated and ended up charging people, the common denominator was poker machines. It involved good people who sadly got addicted to poker machines, and it ended up destroying their lives, through their being sacked from work, stealing from the family, and using the rent money—it was just horrendous—to cover their addiction. I am very much opposed to poker machines, because, as a former police officer, I've seen the damage. To anyone who wants to hear an expert speak, I mention Dr Livingstone, whose presentation on what is happening out there was absolutely amazing and scary. (Time expired)

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