NSW Minister for Gaming and Racing David Harris

Fitz: So you don’t settle for that?

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DH: Well, it’s not a sure or no query.

Fitz: I’m giving it as a sure or no query. I’m asking for a sure or no reply.

DH: There are totally different impacts in several communities. So in some communities, in vacationer areas, and so forth, the impacts on the area people might not be as a lot. In some particular communities in NSW, it is perhaps a problem, and it won’t really be a problem of the variety of machines. It is perhaps a problem of the variety of venues.

Fitz: With the best respect, this is prevarication. Let’s have a thoughts experiment. There are two communities of 10,000 individuals. One’s acquired no poker machines, the opposite has acquired one pokie for each 47 adults, which is what the state of affairs is within the Sydney suburb of Fairfield proper now. What could be your expectation of the web quantity of distress in these two communities in comparison?

DH: What’s your definition of distress?

Fitz: Start with home violence, bankruptcies, melancholy, suicides, melancholy, and so forth.

DH: But are you considering alcohol, are you considering unemployment and different components?

Fitz: [Frustrated.] No. All else equal. In the Fair Dinkum Department, within the No Bullshit Department, which one do you count on shall be happiest?

DH: I can’t definitively say as a result of it’s not black and white.

Fitz: Talk about taking part in with [a dead bat!] Look, Minister, NSW has 37 per cent of the world’s pub and membership poker machines! But we’ve solely acquired 0.1 per cent of the worldwide inhabitants! Surely this strikes you as an issue! With your job being to assist repair it!

DH: Gambling general is an issue, however so is alcohol. We regulate alcohol to ensure that the place attainable, persons are protected. So in playing, we’ve acquired to do the identical factor. We recognise that there are points and that the place individuals expertise hurt, governments need to do higher at serving to them, and put in place tips to ensure that individuals don’t get into hurt within the first place.

Fitz: [Politely incredulous.] OK, however ipso facto, it doesn’t strike you as: “Jesus wept. This is an enormous problem! This is batshit crazy!”

DH: Absolutely, it’s an issue, but it surely’s an setting that’s grown up over 30 years. And beforehand there was little will to make a distinction, to vary the setting. We’re in a unique setting now, and we are literally doing a complete lot of issues to make that distinction.

Fitz: I respectfully submit, you’re doing plenty of window-dressing. Before the final election Chris Minns promised to take away 9500 poker machines by means of a buyback in forfeiture scheme. But simply this 12 months this dedication was deserted.

DH: No the forfeiture scheme continues to be there. So the 9000 machine discount, technically, continues to be being diminished 12 months on 12 months. What we did was we really regarded on the elementary sums when it got here to the buybacks. We appointed an unbiased panel to have a look at it, and so they mentioned it was ineffective. We mentioned we’d purchase again 2000 machines at $30,000 a machine. So that’s $60 million. More than two thousand venues throughout the state would take away one machine from every venue. And the advice from the panel was, if you wish to spend $60 million to scale back hurt, there are higher methods to do it than this.

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Fitz: OK, however the backside line is that, and on this panel, you had Clubs NSW and the Australian Hotels Association. Did you actually suppose they’d put their fingers up and say, “Great idea! Let’s reduce the numbers of misery machines”? It appeared to me you’ve acquired Dracula advising on how we should always organise the blood financial institution.

DH: Actually the unbiased panel comprised a mixture of trade representatives, harm-minimisation specialists, regulation enforcement authorities, teachers, group organisations, and an individual with lived expertise of playing hurt. It included Wesley Mission and the NSW Council of Social Service. All agreed with the advice to not purchase again machines as a result of any wise individual would say, “if the government’s going to spend $60 million of public money, they’d want it to make a difference”.

Fitz: But the underside line stays. Do you settle for the very fact within the auditor-general’s report, highlighted by the Wesley Mission that general, because the Minns authorities got here in, there are 1000 extra machines working in NSW?

DH: No, as a result of individuals get confused about entitlements and variety of machines working. There are entitlements which might be owned by venues, and they’re going to transfer machines out and in relying on their explicit wants. So, technically, there may be extra machines, however we’ve really diminished the entitlements – by roughly 3000 up to now. So the variety of machines really doesn’t matter. It’s the entitlements that matter.

Fitz: As a former faculty trainer, can you place it in easy language for me, the dumb child up the again? When you took over, there have been 90,000 machines working. Forgetting entitlements, forgetting every thing else, proper now in NSW – let the transcript present [journalist thumps table] – are there greater than 90,000 working? Or are there fewer than 90,000?

DH: There are fewer entitlements. You can’t separate them as a result of the worth to the trade is the entitlement, not the machine. So when you actually look into the analysis, which I’ve, it’s not variety of machines, it’s really depth of play that counts. It is value noting that there are totally different classifications of areas based mostly on playing threat which might be taken into consideration by the regulator when machines are traded.

Fitz: All proper. But the opposite situation is accessibility, and the lady I interviewed final week mentioned that as she was rising up, there have been 20 venues in her suburb alone the place she may play. The accusation is that for your entire window dressing, for your entire tweaking across the edges, the web variety of machines has gone up and the issue has not been remotely affected. Do you settle for that?

DH: No. Because the expectation is that this authorities can are available and in two years change what has taken 30 years to create. Quite a lot of what we’re doing is predicated on analysis about behaviour. And we now have introduced in measures like banning gaming-related signage; having necessary Responsible Gambling Officers who can intervene; preserving gaming registers and plans of administration; shifting ATMs away from gaming machines, and banning placement of gaming machine signage seen from an ATM. All of these issues is not going to make an instant distinction. It’s about behaviour, and that is the difficulty. If you usher in correct regulation about what number of hours venues can function, how a lot money they will really put into them, all of these types of issues, then you can begin to make a distinction.

Fitz: OK, let’s attempt internet sum of money misplaced as the important thing indicator. When the Minns authorities got here in, in 2023, whole pokie losses had been $8.129 billion. And after all of your tweaking of entitlements, your altering of signage, necessary gaming Officers and all that, within the first quarter of 2025, NSW residents misplaced $2.17 billion to poker machines. Dot three, carry one, subtract two and multiply by 4, that claims we’re nudging in direction of $8.7 billion this 12 months! Therefore, by that measure, issues are worse beneath your authorities! Do you settle for that?

DH: No, you must have a look at the financial situations.

Fitz: You imply, you’ve made it a greater financial system, so the individuals have gotten extra money to lose.

DH: No, it’s what drives individuals to go and play the machines. Why are individuals making that selection, and what’s the rationale to go and play?

Fitz: It’s not screamingly apparent to you, when the numbers have gone up when it comes to machines performed, and losses made, that the measures that you’ve taken – decreasing the statewide gaming machine entitlement cap; banning political donations, decreasing the money enter – is simply tweaking across the edges and never having any impact?

DH: No, what we’re doing is putting in modifications that may have an impact over the long term. It’s about altering individuals’s behaviour. People are adults, and so they have a proper to decide on how they spend their cash. And we will’t transfer too quick. Look what the earlier authorities did with the closely regulated taxi trade. The authorities mentioned ‘we’re going to decontrol the market in a single day’. They did that, plenty of drivers went broke, misplaced their superannuation and misplaced every thing as a result of the federal government did a significant change in coverage and devalued the worth of their license. So what individuals want to know is that if we’ve had a market that’s been working a technique for many years, we will’t simply change it in a single day. And if we did shut down the pokies, you realize what occurs? Then probably individuals will select different types of playing, together with on-line, the place there’s little regulation or supervision.

Fitz: But I put it to you, Minister, respectfully, when 37 per cent of all of the pokies on this planet are in NSW, it’s time to sound the alarms. You’re the bloke who’s within the nerve centre. It’s so that you can pull the levers and cease the devastation.

DH: We’ve acknowledged that, however we will’t change that in a single day. And, because the premier mentioned, we’ve acquired to watch out about being the nanny state, telling individuals what they will and might’t do. If you’re betting on horses or NRL on the weekend, is that any worse than a pensioner placing $40 within the poker machine on a Thursday?

Fitz: So you don’t settle for the auditor-general’s recent report that the “NSW government regulatory strategy lacks a clear understanding of gambling harm levels and does not include benchmarks, targets or performance measures to assess harm minimisation outcome.” It famous that “compliance programs have not been evaluated for their impact”. Translated, it says with regards to hurt minimisation from playing, NSW authorities’s accomplished three-fifths of F-all.

DH: No, as a result of most of what the auditor-general checked out was the insurance policies as much as the earlier authorities. When it involves the effectiveness of our insurance policies, it’s too early to inform. Also, alongside hurt minimisation, one of many targets of the Gaming Machines Act is to facilitate the balanced growth of the trade, and the auditor-general’s report didn’t have a look at this goal that we, as a authorities, have to fulfill. We need to strike the steadiness between minimising hurt with guaranteeing the sustainability of an trade that’s chargeable for the livelihoods of round 150,000 individuals in NSW that pumps billions yearly into the state’s financial system. Also, licensed golf equipment all through NSW are large contributors to their communities in some ways.

Fitz: I settle for that. But nobody can deny the harm accomplished by pokies both.

DH: And we’re now different reforms, which is able to probably embrace establishing a system the place all pokie machines may be linked to a centre that may have two-way communication. Pokie machines in Victoria – the place they’re about to begin carded play trials – have what’s referred to as two-way communication, so the machines speak to the centre, after which the centre talks to the machines, which makes upgrading machines quite a bit simpler since you don’t need to do each machine individually – it’s a software program improve. That’s an enormous factor that may take numerous years to have the ability to do this in NSW. When you’ve acquired that system in place, then you may carry within the subsequent reform.

Fitz: Sure. But the auditor-general’s report mentioned that the best way you’re shifting, on the present fee of discount is, it’ll take 55 years earlier than you get to the Australian common of inhabitants per pokies.

DH: Well, there has not been, and there isn’t a coverage in NSW to have parity with different states.

Fitz: Shouldn’t there be?

DH: But why?

Fitz: Because they’re distress machines!

DH: But that’s your view. And they’re for a minority of individuals, however not for everybody. The 2024 NSW Gambling Survey discovered that slightly below 1 per cent of the NSW inhabitants are experiencing high-risk playing hurt and an extra 3.1 per cent are experiencing moderate-risk playing hurt. We are dedicated to serving to these susceptible individuals with the reforms we now have applied and are persevering with to implement. I encourage anybody experiencing playing hurt to utilize our GambleAware companies: gambleaware.nsw.gov.au/i-need-support.