Canberra also grappling with pokie fight
Casino operator the Federal Group has the exclusive right to offer gaming in Tasmania until 2023. Its monopoly is not up for renewal until 2018, but lawmakers are already asking it it’s time for the deal to end.
Independent Australian lawmaker Andrew Wilkie says the license should be put out for open tender before the current term expires. “The consideration of that would be going on now,” said the Denison MP last year. “Surely that renewal of that license should be through an open tender process where the new license holder or license holders will pay a fair market value for that license. Otherwise it’s just another good gift for a good mate at the expense of the Tasmanian taxpayer.”
The Sunday Tasmanian agrees. In a December editorial, the publication said Treasurer Peter Gutwein “should make his first act of the New Year a vow to sort it out.”
The Federal Group “would like the deed to continue like business as usual,” the editorial noted. “In fact, $100 million worth of future investments—including a $70 million rejig of Wrest Point—has been tied to it, in a move widely described as blackmail.”
Greg Farrell, CEO and managing director of the Federal Group, says the company “require(s) certainty around the future of our operations in order to embark on a project of this size. With a new license, we would be able to lodge a development application very quickly.”
But businessman and professional gambler David Walsh, known for his Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, says he will not move forward with his own multimillion-dollar casino plan if Federal gets an extension of its poker monopoly.
Economist Graeme Wells, in a New Year’s Eve opinion piece in the Tasmanian Mercury, took aim at Federal’s demands. “Imagine if, instead of trading at a monetary value, a cab driver proposed that in return for a license, they mow the lawns at Government House in perpetuity. Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But this is the kind of arrangement that Federal Hotels proposes for extension of the monopoly gambling license.
“In return for an extension, Federal Hotels proposes to spend money on bringing a couple of hotels up to scratch and building a new one,” he wrote. “For too long, industry policy in Tasmania has been characterized by rent-seeking, dodgy economic analysis and tame consultants’ reports with overblown forecasts of economic benefits.”
As the Tasmanian pointed out, there are about 100 betting clubs around the state that also offer poker machines, and also should have a voice in the decision. But a coalition of 15 community organizations is asking for a phase-out of all poker machines in Tasmania, citing the $200 million lost by players each year.
The same sort of battle is playing out in another Australian state. According to the Canberra Times, Aquis Entertainment, new owner of Casino Canberra, wants 500 poker machines, and is proposing a major redevelopment of the property to tantalize the government. That bid has angered betting clubs, which currently have exclusive rights to poker machines.
Lobbyist Richard Farmer, working on behalf of the Raiders group to fight the casino bid, says he’ll fight the Labor government on this one. “They just seem to get an amazing confidence that they can do whatever they want to do …. I guess I just have to tell them they could be wrong,” he said.
