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October 26th, 2011 
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 26/10/2011
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie says restricting all poker machines to a maximum bet of $1 would be a simpler solution than having mandatory pre-commitment on high-intensity machines.
Transcript
TONY JONES, PRESENTER: Our top story is the proposed poker machine legislation and Tony Abbott’s prediction, as it was called, a prediction that it would be repealed by a Liberal government.
Well I was joined just a short time ago from our Hobart studio by the independent MP Andrew Wilkie.
Andrew Wilkie, thanks for joining us.
ANDREW WILKIE, INDEPENDENT MP: My pleasure.
TONY JONES: Now, do you agree that politics is the art of the possible?
ANDREW WILKIE: (Laughs) Yes, I do agree with that. I think it is the art of the possible. And that’s why although I started out in my negotiation with Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott after the election last year pushing for a $1 maximum bet limit on all poker machines in the country, I was prepared to reach a negotiated position which is that mandatory pre-commitment be fitted to high-intensity poker machines, plus we have $1 maximum bet, low-intensity machines outside of mandatory pre-commitment.
TONY JONES: I’ll come back to that in more detail in a moment, but first of all, is there any point in forcing the Government to enact mandatory pre-commitment now when Tony Abbott says he’ll simply rescind them if he comes into power?
ANDREW WILKIE: Look, as disappointed as I am at Tony Abbott’s assertion that he will try and overturn the poker machine reforms if he is elected as prime minister at the next election, in essence it actually changes remarkably little if anything.
I mean, my agreement is with the Government. The Government is working quite conscientiously in my opinion in getting the legislation together so it can be through both Houses of Parliament by next May and I’m more confident than ever that these reforms will be realised.
So, Tony Abbott really has nothing to do with that. The issue is: will he try and rescind these reforms if and when he’s prime minister and will he be able to succeed at doing that?
Now, he’s actually been somewhat ambiguous. It’s not written in blood like other promises are. He’s talked about a prediction. And I think, in fact, that when these reforms are realised, he will find it very, very difficult to overturn them because, for a start, they have majority public support.
And when they are realised, people will understand they’re not anything like what the poker machine is scaring people with. In fact, 88 per cent of poker machine players in Australia currently bet $1 or less per push of the button. And they’ll be accommodated on low-loss machines outside of mandatory pre-commitment.
So in other words, there’s a whole range of reasons why I think at the end of the day he’s unlikely to try and rescind these if and when he’s the prime minister. But even if he does …
TONY JONES: Well, the people – well, let me just go down that path briefly. I mean, the people who are running this campaign and those who are interviewing Tony Abbott on a regular, basis sooner or later they’re going to ask him to put this in blood like his pledge on the carbon tax.
And if he does so, can’t he simply do what he plans to do with the carbon tax and make it part of a double dissolution joint sitting of the House, get rid of this legislation, get rid of the carbon tax and do all of those things before going to a double dissolution election?
ANDREW WILKIE: And Tony, maybe that’s what will happen. And I can’t do anything about that and I can’t stop it. But I think it’s actually less likely than what some people might think. You know, for a start, there is division within the Coalition on this issue. I’ve had a number of Coalition backbenchers come up to me over the last year and express support for reform. They see the (inaudible) …
TONY JONES: How many are we talking about? Because they’ve obviously come to you secretly because they’re not making this case publicly, or very few of them are anyway.
ANDREW WILKIE: Yes, and Tony, I don’t want to overstate this. It’s a handful of people, you know, just conversations you have in corridors and whatnot, but it has given me a little insight into the feeling among the backbenchers and it is clear to me that there is not unanimous support among the Coalition for overturning – or there wouldn’t be unanimous support for overturning these reforms.
I mean, take Senator Barnaby Joyce, obviously in the other house of Parliament, but he could well be the deputy prime minister after the next election. And Barnaby Joyce, to his great credit, has spoken very strongly over recent months and written very strong words in opinion pieces over recent months for the need for serious poker machine reform.
And you can’t tell that more counselling, which is what Tony Abbott was advocating last night – you can’t tell me that is serious poker machine reform. I mean, that’s the sort of soft reform that has got us into this mess in the first place.
TONY JONES: But – well, Tony Abbott will look at the big political picture; how – what’s the easiest path for him to get into government. If he’s able to galvanise another grassroots campaign alongside the anti-carbon tax campaign and get a huge boost of funds from the clubs, who are prepared to pay almost anything to stop these reforms, that’s – politically, that’s what’s going to win in the Coalition, isn’t it?
ANDREW WILKIE: Well, look, this is against a backdrop of public opinion and I think this is very important, Tony. I’ve counted something like five credible opinion polls done nationally over the last five or so months. Every one of those opinion polls, including some recent polls which have had some very carefully crafted questions which are very much tailored to the issue of mandatory pre-commitment, they have all shown public support across the land at more than 60 per cent for these reforms.
Now Tony Abbott, he’s a smart man, he knows that, so he’s got to play a very careful game here. He’s got to manage the divisions within his own coalition of parties on this issue and he’s got to be careful he doesn’t lose support over this issue. That’s why I think we’ve had quite ambiguous language last night about his prediction that the party room will not support the legislation, his prediction that in government they would seek to overturn the reforms.
TONY JONES: If the reforms themselves, though, do prove so unpopular that a grassroots campaign actually helps to unseat Julia Gillard, they would be very short-lived reforms that you’re putting forward. Is there any point in going to all this trouble to make reforms which are short-lived because the Opposition pledges eventually to get rid of them?
ANDREW WILKIE: Well Tony, I disagree again with the assertion that they’ll be short-lived, because I think they will – the reforms will be realised and I think Tony Abbott would find it as prime minister a very difficult thing to overturn them, partly because he’ll be at odds with public opinion, partly because he’ll have divisions within his own coalition of parties on the issue, partly because he’s unlikely to control the Senate – well he won’t control the Senate unless there’s a double dissolution election. So, from that point of view, I disagree with the fundamental assertion that underpins your question.
But I’d also make the other point here: even if he is going to overturn these at some point in the future, that doesn’t mean that good men and women should just roll over now and say it was all too hard because I am going to fight for these reforms every step of the way.
This is good public policy. This is public policy that will help countless people in this country. It is good public policy that millions of Australians are looking to the Government and to – with the help of me to implement.
And the further we go down this path, the more people will see the detail of the reforms, the more they will understand that the poker machine industry has been running a blatantly deceitful campaign of disinformation to – about the nature of the reforms, about the effect on the community groups and so on. The poker machine industry is thrashing around, lying at every turn and their deceit will be uncovered. And I think not only these reforms will be realised, but I think they will be – they will exist beyond the next election.
TONY JONES: Now some people have read quite a bit, commentators, into the fact that Kevin Rudd today, asked to comment on the poker machine laws, refused to comment at all. Now, I suppose this whole thing raises the issue of if Kevin Rudd were to come back into the leadership at some point, could you strike a similar deal with him? Do you think that would be possible?
ANDREW WILKIE: Well, the only hard evidence we’ve got is what Kevin Rudd has said previously about poker machine reform, and in fact he’s been one of the most outspoken members of the Labor Party about the need for poker machine reform. I have no doubt that Kevin Rudd is in lockstep here with Julia Gillard and myself on this issue.
So I don’t see – if there was to be a change of leadership at some point in the future, I don’t think that if it was to Kevin Rudd – and there’s a lot of ifs in this sentence here …
TONY JONES: Sure, but you’d expect to be able to strike the same deal with him effectively based on his past statements would you, if he became leader again?
ANDREW WILKIE: If it came to that, Tony, I expect I would. Kevin Rudd, to his credit, has been very outspoken about the need for poker machine reform and I feel confident he’d be supportive of these reforms. I mean, give the bloke a break; he’s not the relevant minister, he’s the Foreign Minister. I could see a lot of good reasons why he wouldn’t want to weigh into the debate today.
TONY JONES: OK. The mandatory commitment side of this is the part which is creating confusion. You can see that from some of the polling that’s been done. The GetUp! polling indicated that, for example. There is a compromise position – it’s the original position you had in fact – that would dramatically simplify the whole reform process.
That’s simply to go back to $1 maximum bets. In other words, to ban high-intensity machines. If the Government were to come to you and offer that up now as a potential compromise, a way through this, would you be in a position to agree with them?
ANDREW WILKIE: Well it’s interesting that you recall that in fact my opening position in my negotiations with Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott was quite simply that there be – that all poker machines in the land be $1 maximum bet and configured so that they have a maximum loss of $120 an hour, which is a 90 per cent reduction on the $1,200-an-hour average loss we have on the current feed of high-intensity machines.
That was what I started my negotiation with and eventually we reached this negotiated position. Some people are calling it a hybrid solution where we have mandatory pre-commitment on high-intensity machines plus we have $1 maximum bet low-intensity machines outside of pre-commitment.
Now, what you propose there, Tony, is that we would get rid of high-intensity machines in the country.
Now, I suppose if we didn’t have high-intensity machines then we wouldn’t need mandatory pre-commitment. But, you know, that’s for the Government to come to me if they want to make any changes here. I have made it crystal clear for the last, what, 14 months or so that the fitting of mandatory pre-commitment to high-intensity poker machines is carved in stone and I won’t waver from that. I suppose …
TONY JONES: Except possibly if they were to go back to your original position as a kind of compromise. And the reason for doing that’d be quite simple in a way. If it’s harder to explain to the public that the mandatory commitment goes in several levels, some people, only – less than 10 per cent of gamblers would actually be affected by it, but people think there’s going to be a licence. If you went back the other way: no licence, but just a maximum bet, wouldn’t that be a lot easier to explain?
ANDREW WILKIE: It would be easier to explain and it would have meant I had achieved what I set out in my negotiations over a year ago, which would be basically to get rid of high-intensity or high-loss poker machines.
I mean, these are machines which are forbidden in many countries overseas because they are serious gambling machines with – like, in Australia, it is not uncommon to have a poker machine where you can lose $10 when you push the button. The game lasts three seconds and you’re chasing jackpots that are paid as rarely as once in the life of the machine.
I mean, these are very, very serious gambling devices. If the Federal Government was to ask me, “Would I be OK with getting rid of them completely from the country?” I mean, I don’t know what I’d say. I imagine I would agree to that, but remember, that was what I set out to achieve at the start and the Government wouldn’t have a bar of it and we reached this negotiated …
TONY JONES: Yeah, but I guess that’s the point really. I’m wondering if now they might be thinking, “Well that would be a lot easier to explain, number one, and number two, it’d be a lot harder for the clubs to argue against, because the clubs are now talking about the licence thing.
That’s what they’re focusing on: if there was no licence, and yet, you could only lose $120 an hour – a lot of money for most people. How could they argue that against that in a propaganda campaign?
ANDREW WILKIE: Oh, look, it would be easier for the Government to argue. It would be a very difficult situation the poker machine industry would find themselves in because instead of 12 per cent of poker machine players needing to have a card, no poker machine players would need a card.
Look, I’m open to the Government coming to me and asking what my view is of that. I’ve already gone to them with that possibility; that was a year ago and they said no.
I would point out, though, Tony, a very important point here is that there are people in the poker machine industry who are scared stiff of the $1 maximum bet on all poker machines in the country because my understanding is that their modelling shows that that would have a greater effect on their cash flow than mandatory pre-commitment.
And I’m sure the Government would be mindful of that, so I assume Government would be very reluctant to change its position. And in fact Jenny Macklin, to her credit in a conversation with me a couple of weeks ago said no, the Government is absolutely committed to honouring the agreement with me.
TONY JONES: OK. Finally, more details have emerged today about the Nine Network’s involvement in the anti-reform campaign. Now, you claim they’re actually in breach of their licence. If that is true, what can be done about it?
ANDREW WILKIE: Well my understanding is that the Communications and Media Authority is already doing an investigation into the conduct of Channel Nine. That’s in addition to a letter that Senator Nick Xenophon and myself have written to Channel Nine asking for an explanation.
I mean, there is a number of dimensions to this. There is their licence and whether or they’re in breach of their licence, which ACMA are investigating. There’s the issue about are they in breach of the Electoral Act?
There are a number of issues here which they stand accused of. I mean, at its simplest, they ran a carefully orchestrated political advertising campaign without disclosing it as that, without authorising it and so on. There is clearly a prima facie case here and Channel Nine and the industry – they’re in collusion here. They need to come out and explain themselves, set the record straight, apologise if necessary.
TONY JONES: Andrew Wilkie, we’re out of time. We’ll have to leave you there. Good to talk to you. Hopefully we’ll do it again.
ANDREW WILKIE: Yeah. Thank you, Tony. Thank you, Tony.
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