Threat of poker machine ban sees woodchopper David Foster take axe to Labor
Updated
Tasmania's champion axeman David Foster has joined the fight against Labor's no-pokies election policy but Tim Costello says he is being used.
Labor state leader Rebecca White announced last month that if her party won the March state election, poker machines would be removed from pubs and clubs by 2023.
The Liberal Party has committed to a five per cent reduction on machines statewide but said a total ban would devastate the industry.
Many hoteliers agree.
The Tasmanian Hospitality Association (THA) and a number of pokies venues have financed a new "Love Your Local" campaign which highlights the importance of pubs and clubs in job creation and daily life in Tasmania's local communities.
Wood chopping champion David Foster, who is a THA ambassador, is supporting the campaign even though he says he does not play the pokies.
"There's a lot of hardworking Tasmanians who enjoy going to pubs and clubs, having a meal, socialising, then putting a few bucks in the pokies," he said.
"I don't think any political party has got a role in telling us what to do with our money.
"My mother is in a nursing home — she's 82, we've got to get her in a wheelchair — [and] she loves that one day a month that we take her out, we sit down and we have a meal and she spends $10 in the pokies.
"Don't let any politicians tells us what to do with our money and the choices that we make."
'Pokies are a job destroyer'
But Tim Costello, spokesman for the Alliance for Gambling Reform, said Mr Foster was being used.
He was also in the north-west of the state yesterday delivering the inaugural Joseph and Dame Enid Lyons address in Devonport.
"You only have to look at the economic studies that have been done," he said.
"$1 million spent on hospitality alone creates 20 jobs, $1 million spent on retail creates 10 jobs, $1 million dollars spent on pokies creates less than three jobs because you only have to empty them.
"They are a job destroyer. He might be a fine axeman … but he's being used.
"If the licence goes and Labor wins this will create jobs in Tasmania because there's only so much discretionary income and when its going into a job killer like pokies it means small business people aren't making the profits and hiring people and expanding their businesses."
Former problem gambler Robert Kreshl said it was time venues stopped making profits off vulnerable people.
"I see that they're just as addicted to the poker machines as the people who have got a problem with it," he said.
"From my point of view, they're making good money at the cost of the misery of a number of families around Tasmania.
"There are a lot of people who suffered, a lot of children that suffered this Christmas because there was no presents under the tree, if there was even a tree."
Topics: government-and-politics, unemployment, community-and-society, devonport-7310, tas
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