Last Friday, most media were predicting that Andrew Wilkie and Julia Gillard were about to announce a compromise gambling reform plan. But the deal broke down in final talks Friday night. On Saturday, Wilkie bitterly denounced Gillard's conduct and ended his one-year-old agreement to support Labor.
'I regard the Prime Minister to be in breach of the written agreement she signed, leaving me no option but to honour my word and end my current relationship with her Government.'
Gillard went ahead with the compromise reform plan (now Labor's alone). This plan does not require any legislation before 2014, i.e. not under the current Government.
This story says important things about the difficulties of achieving reform, and about the political power of the wealthy and ruthless gaming lobby.
Rob Oakeshott on Friday said he would not support legislation before a substantial, lengthy trial. This gave Gillard the final lever to abandon her 2010 promise to Wilkie of submitting to Parliament nationwide mandatory precommitment legislation in the term of the present Government.
Oakeshott and Tony Windsor, along with many worried Labor MPs, were wilting under the heat of popular campaigns steered and funded by the gaming lobby but attracting genuine grassroots support from worried voters fearing the loss of valued club-subsidised local amenities and services in outer suburbs and regions. Commonsense dictated delay and trials.
Gillard's compromise deal extends the reform timelines to the next government. There will be a 12 months voluntary trial of mandatory precommitment technology in all ACT clubs starting in February 2013, with comparative data collection in unaffected adjacent Queanbeyan clubs.
The Government will legislate in early 2014 for the Productivity Commission to review these trial results, and to recommend whether the Government should proceed with nationwide mandatory precommitment. Meanwhile, all new poker machines will require installed mandatory precommitment technology by 2013.
An accompanying set of modest but useful operational reforms (most thoroughly reported in a 'How the deal will work' box in The Australian on 23 January) completes the package.
It is certainly a step forward. But it is a lot slower than what Wilkie wanted. State governments, clubs and the gaming industry have welcomed the package, because it maintains revenue streams and it puts off hard choices until 2014 at the earliest and possibly well