Rudd needs to play cards right on Pay TV gambling, by Bernard Keane - Crikey - 22nd April 2008
The Opposition will today challenge Kevin Rudd to walk the walk on gambling by banning Pay TV gambling services.
This morning, interactive media company Two Way announced the launch of its Sky Racing ACTIVE service, developed with Tabcorp and Foxtel. The service is available in NSW and Victoria and provides racing-related information for those who like to bet on watching short men flog large animals round paddocks. In Victoria, however, punters will also be able to bet on races via their Pay TV service.
The NSW Government refused to approve gambling via Pay TV, but the Victorian Government ticked off on the service in February, allowing Tabcorp account holders to wager from their sofas.
While online and telephone betting on the nags and dogs is currently permitted, the Pay TV gambling initiative (presumably, to use interactive media parlance, "lean back gambling" rather than the lean forward variety offered by the internet) outraged anti-gambling advocates like Tim Costello and Nick Xenophon, who criticised it as turning the lounge room into a gambling den. The Victorian Opposition quipped that it allowed punters to lose their homes without leaving it.
Kevin Rudd, of course, is at one with the professional handwringers over gambling. It’s barely a month since he ordered - guess what - a review of problem gambling, to be led by Jenny Macklin. It came at the same time as he pressured Victoria into committing to the long-term removal of ATMs from gambling venues.
Brendan Nelson and low-profile shadow Communications Minister Bruce Billson will challenge Rudd to use the Commonwealth’s control over broadcasting regulation to ban the Two Way service. Minister for Zeroes and Ones, Stephen Conroy, is also in charge of broadcasting regulation, and a ban would pit him squarely against not merely Victorian Right factional colleague John Brumby but Two Way backer Sam Chisholm and James Packer, who controls 25% of Foxtel.
Nelson has lobbied Rudd on gambling on several occasions, including publicly requesting another Productivity Commission inquiry, specifically into poker machines. Crikey understands Nelson has also raised gambling privately with Rudd. Undoubtedly both men are serious on the issue, although with Steve Fielding and Nick Xenophon occupying key positions in the Senate after June, you’d suspect there’s more than a small element of political calculation in Rudd’s positioning.
With both the Coalition and Fielding on side, an amendment to the Broadcasting Services Act to deprive punters of this semi-new way pay the tax on innumeracy that is gambling would be simple to pass. The question is whether Rudd is happy to send Conroy full-tilt into his mates in the Victorian Government, and upset some powerful media types as well. Otherwise, the anti-gambling crowd will have reason to wonder whether the Prime Minister is indeed much talk but little substance.
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