Limiting Gambling

Excerpts From Gillard faces pokies stoush [radio program available]:


...at a federal inquiry in Adelaide, former gamblers and welfare groups have spoken of the huge personal cost of the addiction.

SUE PINKERTON: Marriage breakdown; $60,000 of my hard-earned money in a space of about three-and-a-half years. I was a bit of a mess there for a while; I often swung between being certain about that I understood what was happening and suicidally depressed.

JENNY MACKLIN: We know that problem gambling ruins lives and we intend to put in place serious reforms to deal with it.

JASON OM: Julia Gillard promised the scheme in return for the crucial support of Tasmanian Independent Andrew Wilkie to form government. Today, the Federal Families Minister Jenny Macklin honoured that agreement by releasing legal advice.

JENNY MACKLIN: The legal advice does outline a range of options available to the Commonwealth that would enable us to legislate to deliver gambling reforms.

JULIA KARPATHAKIS: You know people are killing themselves. I don't really care about the industry when it comes to people killing themselves and families being destroyed.

JASON OM: Julia Karpathakis took years to get over her gambling addiction and paid the price for it. She told the inquiry she lost her home and so many hours to the pokies.

JULIA KARPATHAKIS: I remember spending $500 in one pop and probably more.