Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Pokies and other revenue scams

We know that something is up when "The Australian" writes an impressive story about *pokie dependency* as it did today.

A big story showing how the states are addicted to gambling revenue and will not let it go – despite the damage that it causes.

And as usual my home state – South Australia leads the pack with the highest percentage of gambling taxation revenue - 13.2%.

It’s a sad story down there in the city of churches. I suspect that they need to find a leader who is actually interested in looking after the people who live there instead of one who is only interested in looking after themselves and their mates.

Now I have limited experience with the place having lived there for part of my life – mostly the early years – until I escaped to the real world.

But I also have some recent experience. I am in the process of building my boat and have found a nice little place in rural South Australia where I can construct it. The people and the town are pleasant enough but the real surprise is that because it is so small and remote the State Government does not seem to interfere too much. Probably doesn’t even know it is there ;-)

As an example, in the regional city of Adelaide, the drivers are extremely fearful of *red light* and *speed* cameras which are everywhere – and which like pokies are there to raise revenue for the state.

But here in this little rural town they are no-where and the attitude of the drivers is completely different – and obviously better.

I would love to have the time and resources to do a proper survey and analysis of driver attitude and their relationship to road accidents – because I am fairly sure that the creation of a fearful environment on the road has a direct relationship to road accidents.

But we will never know because the state runs regular campaigns to create fear while milking motorists – and has been doing that for over 30 years – and justifies it on the basis of attending to *road safety*.

Like being serious about dealing with pokies in South Australia – this is just another myth.

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