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HEADLINE: Xenophon wants ACCC to pull pro-pokies ads

Story:
Independent Senator Nick Xenophon has lodged a complaint with the competition watchdog about the advertising campaign being run by pubs and clubs against proposed poker machine reform.

Senator Xenophon says the campaign is blatantly misleading and he has asked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to get the ads withdrawn.

The $20 million campaign launched this week by Clubs Australia and the Australian Hotels Association says the Federal Government's proposed changes affecting gambling means people will need to apply for a licence to make a $5 bet.

Senator Xenophon says that statement and a number of others in the campaign are incorrect and misleading.

"The hotels and clubs campaign says gambling reform is un-Australian, but what's really un-Australian is for them to be against helping problem gamblers," he said.

"The claims imply the proposed gambling reforms are going to impinge on people's rights.

"That's not at all what this is about. These reforms are about trying to address problem gambling and, through a pre-commitment scheme, giving people the option to choose how much they're willing to lose on the pokies."

Senator Xenophon says he has countered the media blitz with a new website, itsabigfatlie.com.au.

Clubs Australia is vowing to campaign until the Government backs down, but Prime Minister Julia Gillard says she is determined to put pre-commitment limits on poker machines.

As well as requiring gamblers to nominate how much money they are prepared to lose, daily withdrawal limits of $250 would also be placed on ATMs near gaming machines.

The gambling restrictions were demanded by Tasmanian independent MP Andrew Wilkie in return for supporting Labor in a minority government.

Mr Wilkie says he will withdraw his support for Ms Gillard's government if, by this time next year, legislation has not passed that would give the Commonwealth the power to force the states to introduce the restrictions.

Ms Gillard says she has seen the effects of problem gambling first-hand.

"My electorate is in a part of [the western suburbs of] Melbourne where we know what it's like to see people who put so much money into poker machines that they break the family budget, they can't feed the kids, they end up with their houses being repossessed by the bank," she said.

"That kind of problem gambling causes human misery. I don't think we want to see anybody profiting on human misery.

"People like to have a bet, but I don't think they like to see their fellow Australians suffer."

Ms Gillard says she is confident Community Services Minister Jenny Macklin, working with Mr Wilkie and others, will generate "the right package".

She says she intends to honour the agreement made with Mr Wilkie, and not just to guarantee his support.

"In the last Parliament we asked the Productivity Commission to inquire and report on the best way to deal with problem gambling," Ms Gillard said.

"The Government has been engaged with this for a long period of time. We will work with Mr Wilkie and this Parliament to address problem gambling.

"I don't want to see people putting the money that would have been used to feed the kids through a poker machine and I don't think Australians want to see that either."

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says there seems to be a lot of "red tape and bureaucracy" given "there is a relatively small numbers of problem gamblers".

"The last thing I want to see is people putting their livelihood through poker machines, but we've got to address this in ways that don't further damage the social fabric," he said.

"Clubs, and to a lesser extent pubs, are an important part of that social fabric."

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