Grrrrrrr!

Anger, oh how often you have visited me lately, let me count some of the ways:

• The frequently women-hating reaction to Labour daring to suggest that they make take some deliberate, transparent and necessary structural steps towards lifting their number of women MPs.  
• Trevor Mallard baiting another MP in the House by calling him "cougar bait."
• People who don't lay out their arguments properly and then don't come to the meeting to discuss the issue so you never really know where they stand before you make the decision.
• Changing a law because some state agencies broke it and the solution to that problem is somehow to make it legal, with the consequence that a whole heap of people who should have privacy no longer will.
• Promulgation by supposed lefties of the antiquated idea that women are precious flowers who should not be sullied by the putrid compost of politics and the stale water of being politicians or something like that, this metaphor is tortured enough already without actually trying to get it to make sense.
• Reflecting on how unfair and wrong and conservative New Zealand's abortion laws and provision actually are, yet again.
• Cancer.  Always.  
• The increasingly dirty SkyCity pokies for convention centre deal.  
• Doctors who want to be GPs but don't want to prescribe contraception.  It's your JOB, yo.

Ok, enough ragey bullet points from me - what's angrifying you?

Paying the hope tax

Tonight I am putting a motion to the Puketapapa Local Board opposing any deal for an international convention centre in Auckland that results in an increase in gambling machines (pokies) in Auckland or in any single venue.  Parts of the motion also seek advice on how the Board can adopt a proper sinking lid policy for our own area and how we can advocate that such be adopted across the whole Auckland Council area.

I wanted to put my arguments in order before tonight's meeting, and I thought here's a great opportunity to multitask, and making the mysterious work of local government visible; I'll write a blog post about it! 

Let me start by saying I do not see gambling as a sin, as a moral issue; that by limiting gambling opportunities we are acting as guardian angels protecting people from getting their souls dirty. 

For me this is an issue about reducing harm.  In the Puketapapa Local Board plan we said the following:

We want to live in a community that is free from harm caused by alcohol, gambling, drugs, and violence in the home… We want a sinking-lid policy applied to gambling machines in our area that does not allow relocation of machines. We will support the work of agencies working toward reducing preventable harm in our community.

It's worth noting that we added the section this is in, titled "Reducing Harm", in response to submissions received from the community stating that we needed to give this area more attention in our plan.  We had already mentioned various aspects in a few places, but the strong feedback we received was that we should make it clearer and more prominent, so this is a direct example of community submissions making a difference, not least the submission we received from Hapai Te Hauora Tapui specifically on the issue of problem gambling.  See, submissions can make a difference! 

Here's a quote from a supportive email a constituent sent me recently:

The Government spends thousands on trying to help problem gamblers, yet they continue to feed them more opportunity.
This is a waste of our tax money and a waste of the problem gamblers program.
Pokie machines are of no worth to community. They only contribute to more damage, deception, suffering, advers[ity], destruction and addiction.
They ruin relationships, families, communities and the list could go on.
I say NO TO MORE POKIES.
The harm that problem gambling creates is undeniable.  As a unionist I have seen how it can manifest at work, where someone who would never ever in a thousand years have considered stealing from their workplace or colleagues to buy alcohol will shift money between accounts in a dubious manner, will surreptitiously empty the drinks kitty, will take a loan from the business which they are sure they will pay back once the winnings come in.  For some gambling can become an addiction, and the harm that that does, to them, to their family, to their community, is significant.  The gambling problem of a single person impacts negatively on at least 5 people around them.

Gambling activities all have a component of luck, and a component of exploitation when it comes to those individuals who are problem gamblers.  Pokie machines have no element of skill to them whatsoever - you put the money in, you push a button, you win or you don't.  The Problem Gambling Foundation has labelled pokie machines the "most harmful form of gambling as 77% to 85% of problem gamblers use them as their primary mode of gambling."  In 2008 PGFNZ estimated that 42% of pokie machines revenue was coming from the 3% of users who are problem gamblers.

Honestly I just don't see why we need more pokies.  DIA figures, quoted by PGFNZ, show we already have one machine for every 206 people, nationally.  In more economically deprived areas there's one machine for every 75 people.  And it's worth pointing out, in the context of this blog, that it is the accessibility and increase in pokie machines that has led to a large increase in problem gambling amongst women.

Why do people who can't afford to gamble more?  And why do those who profit from pokies seek to increase their numbers, especially in poor areas?  Because it is a hope tax.  There is so much in life now that we can't do unless we have money and there is often little chance to earn through work the kind of money that can change your life.  A lucky windfall is the only option for many, and I can understand the lure of gambling in that regard; when I was first at home with my eldest son and really wanted to stay home I paid the hope tax, buying a lotto ticket every week, because such a win seemed the only way we could make that happen. 

The number of pokie machines in New Zealand has been trending downward and that is great.  Why would we want to reverse that trend?  And in particular why would we want to do so by increasing the number at Sky City, an enterprise that largely makes its profits from problem gambling, and has recently been shown to not be living up to their host responsibilities in this area?  Casinos are required to give even less of the funds raised through pokies back to the community - only 2.5% of profits, as opposed to 37.2% from machines out there in pubs and clubs.  500 new machines at Sky City would result in 250 to 400 new, extra, problem gamblers.  Sky City have given out $24.2M in community grants since they started in 2001, which sounds like a lot until you consider that their profit in the FIRST HALF of the last financial year was over $78M. 

New Zealand has also become a major testing ground for the developers of pokie machines.  They use psychologists to develop these devices in ways that will suck the most money out of the user.  And they test them in our casinos, before they are rolled out to other parts of the world.

As leaders in our community, indeed more than that, as decision-makers in our community, local government politicians have an obligation to do what we can to limit harm.  Part of our obligation to our community is to not remain silent while others in the great democratic family of Auckland Council are considering decisions that will do great harm indeed. 

Stinky stinky Sky City

This Sky City deal just keeps getting stinkier and stinkier.  The revelation yesterday was that the Prime Minister himself appears to have suggested the trade-off to Sky City; build us a new convention centre and we'll get you a law change to add more pokie machines to the hundreds you already have sucking money out of the community.  I'm sure the conversation didn't go quite like that, but that seems to be what it boils down to.  There are new developments happening several times a day as the right questions are finally being asked and unravelling the unhealthy level of influence it appears that Sky City has on key political figures.

My particular concern in all of this is the insidious impact that pokies have.  They exist to take money out of the pockets of those who play them and give a tiny proportion back in winnings, and a tiny proportion to the community by way of grants.  The vast majority of what goes in to a one arm bandit goes to the owner of the machine.  And Sky City runs over 1600 of them in its Auckland casino already.  Pokies are particularly appealing to women, according to research reported by the Problem Gambling Foundation, summarised in their useful fact sheet.

Auckland Council is yet to adopt a sinking-lid policy on gambling machines, despite John Key saying that'll deal with Sky City getting up to 500 more*.  The former Waitakere and Manukau City Councils had sinking-lid policies, and so those still apply in those areas, but crucially Auckland City, where Sky City is located, do not.  I can't speak for other Local Board areas, but in Puketapapa we have included in our Local Board plan that we want to advocate for a sinking-lid policy that does not allow for relocating of machines.  Yet we don't seem to have yet had an opportunity to do this, or to adopt such in our own area, beyond me writing letters to the Herald and doing the occasional media interview on the matter.  Oh and ranting about it on social media.

Sky City argues that pokies are a worse problem in pubs and sports clubs and therefore it is ok to have more at their casino.  We can actually multi-task and address the problem wherever it occurs, rather than having to pick and choose.  It's worth noting that casinos are much lower contributors back to the community via funding, as a percentage of takings, than community venues are.  Personally I'm not so interested in that argument, but I know it is the one used most often by those advocating for more gambling opportunities; what about all the community funding that will be given out.  I'd far rather that we help people to keep their own money for use in their own community, instead of inefficiently funnelling it through a third party (who takes a very large chunk) back to different parts of the city.

Even by the time I push publish on this post the situation may have moved on, so fast is it changing.  I'm really hoping that the final outcome is one that minimises the harm of problem gambling.

If you are interested in more information on the social cost of gambling, then please check out the hash tag #socialcost on Twitter today, as the Problem Gambling Foundation will be tweeting research all day that specifically addresses this.





*  How realistic would this be even if it were the case?  Magically 500 machines come out of other venues at the exact same time as they go into Sky City?  Weird.

advertising as news

so some dude wins a heap of money from a lotto jackpot. good for him. this is news i suppose. but is it really big news? is it front page news, just because he lives in your region? is it headline news, getting coverage on all channels? is it news to the extent that the guy can't even go to work, because of all the negative attention?

it seems to me that there are way too many stories these days about lotto winners, places that sold tickets to lotto winners, and the rise in the jackpot. i know i'm far from the majority, but to me, none of these things are legitimate news stories at all. other people will feel differently, but it really annoys me that our news media are basically providing so much free publicity for an outfit that can afford to pay for it's own.

there is plenty happening around the world, it's not like we're lacking in items for the news media to cover. to waste our news space for advertising dressed as news is just stupid. on top of which, it helps to fuel more gambling, more people losing their money. by giving so much space to winners, it helps fuel the dream of the dispossessed and struggling that life would only be wonderful if they won a pot of money. which means less of an imperative to force structural and political change that would improve their situation.

how about equal coverage of the losers. the ones who struggle, and whose families struggle. they don't often get the front page coverage. but surely they have equal news value, they are equally as important. how about every time we have a story about a lotto winner, we have directly next to it, on the same page, a story about someone who has suffered because of gambling.

having said that, at least there is more coverage of the negative aspects of gambling recently because of the sky city deal. if you haven't caught up with brian rudman's piece, i'd recommend it.

i've seen the PM and other supporters of the sky city deal try out the line that it's aimed at international gamblers. aside from the fact that it's very unlikely to be true, why is it ok to fleece money of overseas visitors, but not nz'ers? why is it supposed to be morally acceptable to have more pokies for international visitors, but not for locals? i sort of covered that point in a post last year. and though they've avoided the racial element in their comments, the point still stands that it doesn't matter who's targetted.

asian gamblers

the front page of the waikato times today is dominated by one story: the plans by the sky city casino to stay open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. and how does the first paragraph of this story start? let me show you:

Hamilton's Sky City Casino will move to a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week operation in a move to attract high-spending Asian gamblers.

i don't know about you, but that seems to be a pretty nastily loaded statement. first, it's steeped in the assumption that asian and new zealander are two distinct & separate groups, and that a person couldn't be both at the same time. if they mean international tourists (which i suspect they do), then why don't they just say high-spending international gamblers?

then there's the question of why it would be more palatable for asians to be losing their money than any other race or demographic. to me they seem to be implying that it's ok for those asians to be losing their money because they are less than, i don't know, us kiwis.

it's clearly a statement made to divert attention from the fact that it is the poor and the problem gamblers who are going to be providing the bulk of their business in these extended opening hours. and it is whole families and communities who will end up paying the price. but to so blatantly use race to do is pathetic and of course, racist. here's a big fat raspberry in your direction, sky city.