GetUp Covers Travel Fare for Problem Gambler

Thursday 2 February, 2012 18:07

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The lobby group, GetUp has revealed that they will pay for the travel expenses of a problem gambler to travel from Adelaide to Canberra to meet with a task force that is putting together the gambling policy for the federal government.

The coalition gambling committee is meeting with representatives from the gambling industry, community groups and individual people this week. It is being chaired by opposition family spokesman, Kevin Andrews. Sitting on the task force are frontbenchers, Malcolm Turnbull and Luke Hartsuyker and backbenchers, Josh Frydenberg, Steve Ciobo and Alan Tudge.

Opposition to Use Ex-Problem Gambler to Plead Case

The opposition invited Julia Karpathakis, a divorced mother in Adelaide, who is a reformed problem gambler to address the task force; however the opposition rejected a request to pay for Ms Karpathakis' travel fare.

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Ms Karpathakis struggled with problem gambling from 1994 to 2004, but now runs a pokies counseling group. She said she was still in debt from her many years addicted to the pokies and could not afford the flights to Canberra, but a spokesperson for Mr Andrews claimed that the coalition "did not have a budget to fly people around the country."

Simon Sheikh, GetUp director said, "We believe personal stories are the key to real reform. Politicians have to understand the harm."

While Ms Karpathakis has not played pokies for seven years, she is still struggling to pay her debts and she lost her house to her problem gambling. She currently runs Pokies Anonymous meetings every week in Adelaide that are attended by 30 people. The group is looking to expand and Ms Karpathakis wants to push mandatory pre-commitment in front of the task force.

The mandatory pre-commitment system requires gamblers to pre-set limits on how much money they are willing to lose on high betting machines. Gamblers can spend up to $1,200 an hour on these poker machines.

"If that was around, I would never have become a problem gambler," she commented.

Tim Costello, the face of the Stop the Loss poker machine campaign said he hoped that problem gamblers would be given time for a truthful and sincere meeting with the task force. Costello met with the task force on Wednesday morning.

Clubs Australia, on the other hand, is opposed to mandatory pre-commitment technology. In a submission to the opposition task force, Clubs Australia recommended voluntary pre-commitment technology together with a crackdown on online gambling, additional counseling services and independent intervention. Anthony Ball from Clubs Australia will meet with the task force on Friday.

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