Are pokie machine trusts a health risk?

Submission on PNCC Gambling Venue Policy:

I got excited when I saw that the Manfeild Charitable Trust was appearing at this meeting…because I thought they were going to tell us that they had at long last a plan to pay back the millions they owe this council and perhaps even a little of the millions they owe the district council…but alas I was wrong…for based on their submission they are here to drain more money from our city and Fielding…to keep their ‘Charitable trust’ alive. And that’s about as chartable as most pokie machine trusts…

The various gambling trusts that are here today…and we must ask why…well it’s not in the interest of the community…because for them to put money into the community, they must first rip it out of the community…and they do that via pokie machines in the main. Ask yourself who is paying their wages; they are not doing what they do for love…so you need to ask, who are the real owners of these trusts and who will gain if you accept their plea. If you answer those questions you will come to realise why these big guns are here today.

Of course they put some money back…but not because they want to…but because they have to by law…Oh they will tell you about how some money goes to needy causes and will stress the number of poor and needy they help…but what they won’t stress is the amount they rip out of communities. They have in the past threatened to remove, reduce or stop funding to groups who oppose their desired goals.

Community groups are like all New Zealanders under great financial pressure, prices and costs are rising, wages and incomes at least for most is static, if you look closely at who spends on the pokie machines you’ll see that is those on lower incomes who seek a big win to clear or ease their financial woes. But of course they don’t, or at least 99.9% don’t and they can’t, the machines won’t allow it, they geared to take not give. If they did these pokie trusts would not exist…and that’s a fact.

Even the Government is these days acting like the pokie trusts…giving Sky City 300 to 500 more pokies, changing the law to suit Sky City…this is black mail on a massive scale and this is what the Gambling trusts are asking you to do here in our region. You have a chance today to reverse this corrosive bleeding by lowering the number of machines and gambling sites.

You must not be blackmailed, in the past you have kept the line in that you have limited the growth by having a cap on the number of machines. Sooner or later you are going to have to take back your independence fully and lower the numbers in a controlled and measured manner…you cannot keep robbing Peter to pay Paul just a tiny fraction of what’s been ripped out of the local community…I hope you take this opportunity by rejecting the plea for maintaining the status quo and lower the number of machines by installing a sinking lid policy.

If pokies were an answer to funding communities why are not pokie machines in Doctors surgeries or in our schools or even council offices…answer because pokies are dangerous to your health.