Comment on Honest Government Ad | Social Media Ban
Zagorath@aussie.zone 4 days agoOf course, we are talking about the same Government that commissioned a study into problem gambling, and then completely ignored it after it came back with 31 recommendations, including the phased-in banning of gambling advertising (recommendations 16 and 26). Two and a half years later, the Government has given no response. This despite the fact that they are required by House of Representatives rules to respond within 6 months. So actually solving problems, even when they’re given a clear roadmap to how to solve the problem, doesn’t seem to be high on Albanese’s agenda.
MyMindIsLikeAnOcean@piefed.world 4 days ago
I’m not even Australian…Canadian. I just like chiming in because somebody down there is at least trying to do things…even if it’s usually shitty things.
Up here in my province in the last decade the flood gates opened on gambling…booze…everything. The government basically says “fuck you if we raise you to be an addict…give us your money until you die so rich people can pay less taxes”.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 4 days ago
Australia’s gambling problem is huge. We have 0.3% of the world’s population, but 18% of its poker machines. And 75% of the pokies outside of casinos. Nearly every pub, bowls club, RSL club, etc. has a room full of pokies. That’s allowed in every state except Western Australia, though it was banned in my home state until the '90s. I don’t know much about Canada, but I’ve heard there’s been a relatively recent surge in the problem of gambling over in America over the last few years. I believe it is the case that Australia led the world in allowing gambling to totally overrun professional sport, setting a template that America could follow, for the worse.
MyMindIsLikeAnOcean@piefed.world 4 days ago
That’s horrible. We have a couple provinces that do that.
The city near where I live was hit bad by outsourcing…it was a manufacturing town back in the 80s. A few years back they brought in a giant Casino with promises of making it a tourist destination. Predictably, nobody wants to come to a town that’s an armpit…so most of the gamblers are locals.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 4 days ago
Yeah, unless you can succeed in turning your city into the next Vegas or Macau, gambling is pretty much all negatives. We’re at a point here where I honestly wish the giant casino was the only problem we have with gambling. And the casino itself is a big enough problem even aside from app-based sports betting and ads for that. Our huge new casino opened up a year or two ago. It has its own bridge that funnels people directly from the extremely popular pedestrianised tourist/cultural area on one side of the river (if you happen to be a parent of a child who’s watched a lot of Bluey, you’d recognise Southbank from its appearances in that show, though I don’t know if they call it by that name) into the casino’s landing area. And they’ve been allowed to degrade the major riverside bike path, the city’s busiest commuter route for cyclists, into a shared path and plaza, with even further degradations regularly when they use (sorry “activate”) the area to run commercial events. So the casino is allowed to significantly degrade the entire area even for people who never have anything to do with them.
simon_ashdown@mastodon.social 4 days ago
@MyMindIsLikeAnOcean @Zagorath
But I doubt the government here is actually doing anything.
This Labor government tends to do a lot for show. Example the vote for the indigenous voice to parliament 2 years ago; they didn't even TRY to actually fight for it, but they can turn around and say "but we had the vote"
There are other examples, like anti corruption money in politics baloney that has accomplished nothing. But theu will still say THEY TRIED. Sigh..
Note I am a lifelong Labor voter. 😥
MyMindIsLikeAnOcean@piefed.world 4 days ago
It’s really rough when your supposed progressive party just act like 90s conservatives…it’s happening everywhere. All culture war posturing, while we slide into “public private partnership” hell.